The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management: How to Successfully Launch and Operate a Hedge Fund (Wiley Finance) [Hardcover]

Daniel A. Strachman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2007 | Series: Wiley Finance (Book 389)

The tools and techniques needed to successfully launch and maintain a hedge fund

In The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management, both budding and established hedge fund managers will learn the fundamentals of building and maintaining a successful hedge fund business. Strachman presents the facts in an accessible and easy-to-use format that will empower readers to create a lasting fund that provides significant income for years to come. The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management provides information on everything from picking a lawyer to creating a fund's documents to determining what markets attract investors. Readers will glean valuable information from real-life experiences (both negative and positive) that have shaped and continue to guide many of today's leading and most respected funds.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Once considered an "alternative" investment, hedge funds have assumed a much more prominent role in today's financial markets. While the industry continues to grow in size and scope, so do the number of budding and established professionals intent on capitalizing on such a potentially profitable opportunity. But in order to achieve success in this dynamic environment, you must first have a firm understanding of the fundamentals behind building and operating a high-performance hedge fund business.

Over the last decade, hedge fund expert Daniel Strachman has had the unique experience of working around the world with people who have built, developed, and marketed hedge funds. During this time, he gained extensive insights into what it takes to make a hedge fund work, and now, with The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management, he will share this information with you.

In a straightforward and accessible style, The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management outlines the important issues you need to address as you look to set up and run an alternative investment company. This comprehensive resource provides you with:

• Guidance on how your hedge fund should be structured—ensuring that the vehicle you create makes sense from a cost and operational perspective
• The information to make quality decisions when choosing a lawyer, prime broker, accountant, administrator, and other service providers
• An understanding of the issues that come into play as you build your onshore or offshore fund, and as you prospect for assets
• Advice on developing marketing strategies that can help you accumulate capital for your fund
• The tools to establish an infrastructure that can effectively support your business

By showing you how to efficiently manage the business side of a hedge fund, this book will help you—and your partners—form a fund that will create and preserve wealth for you and your investors.

Filled with in-depth insights and real-world examples, The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management provides you with the tools and techniques necessary to successfully launch and operate a hedge fund in today's competitive marketplace.

From the Back Cover

Praise for THE FUNDAMENTALS OF HEDGE FUND MANAGEMENT

"As the proliferation of the hedge fund continues with no end in sight, Strachman has put together an 'owners manual' for success that benefits both new and existing managers. The success of hedge fund start ups rest in their ability to create and execute a business that delivers a solid organization, and The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management provides managers with a blueprint for building a lasting and sustainable business. For institutional allocators that are looking to raise the veil of transparency in hedge funds, this book will provide insights into what takes place behind the scenes."
—Richard S. Bookbinder, Managing Member, Bookbinder Capital Management LLC

"Strachman has done it again. The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management is an informative guide that follows in the footsteps of Dan's previous books on the fast-growing world of hedge funds. No new hedge fund should be started without first reading this book."
—Charles M. Fisher, Managing Director of Prime Broker Services, Grace Financial Group

"This book provides valuable insight into many of the practical issues facing the creation and management of a hedge fund. It reaches the right balance between the technical and practical and adds to the knowledge base available in the hedge fund community."
—Michael G. Tannenbaum, Founding Partner, Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP

"The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management is a must read for securities professionals looking to start a fund, and for all of us who want to take the mystery out of the exciting world of hedge funds. Strachman uses plain English to cut through the complex technical issues and provides us with a pleasurable, as well as an enlightening, experience."
—Peter W. Testaverde, Jr., Partner, Goldstein Golub Kessler LLP

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471748528
• ISBN-13: 978-0471748526
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Strachman has been working on Wall Street for more than fifteen years in various capacities, including institutional brokerage, money management, and mutual fund and hedge fund product development and marketing. He is an expert in all aspects of retail and institutional distribution for both traditional and alternative investment products and services. Daniel is also fully versed in strategic planning for both investment firms and firms that provide services to the investment community. He has provided consulting services to companies around the world to help make their organizations expand and prosper in both good and bad economic times.

Daniel is the author of six books on investment strategy, the hedge fund industry, and investment managers. His articles have appeared in The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, Interview Magazine, The New York Post and American Banker. He is often quoted and appears in the news media and is a lecturer at the New York Society of Securities Analysts and is a former adjunct professor at New York University's school of Continuing Education. Mr. Strachman graduated from Clark University with a Bachelor of Arts. Email him at [e-mail]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time...marketing brochure for his other services, December 18, 2007

By 

DJ Fan "buster" (NY, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management: How to Successfully Launch and Operate a Hedge Fund (Wiley Finance) (Hardcover)

This book is the hedge fund equivalent of late night schemers who sell you expensive guides to tell you how to get rich...and then refers you to hire other professionals and to hire his services.

This book has small amounts of useful information (short descriptions of what various service providers do, very basic legal structures, etc) that could be conveyed in 15 pages (not 141 of repetitive, rah rah fluff). It is just a thinly veiled marketing brochure for the author's other hedge fund "services".

There isn't even a proper description of the author's background or what he's proposing to sell, other than repeated reference to go to his website or email him about every basic piece of information that should be included in the book in the first place. Given the repetitive fluff in the book, he had plenty of space to include all this basic reference material...why didn't he???? why did we pay over 50usd to buy this book???

also the author is clearly not a sophisticated investor. he places proper importance to fund raising, but flat out states that generating alpha is very easy...i don't even know where to begin to mock his attitude. he's giving you advice in a know-it-all, absolutist fashion as if he's done it all, but frankly he runs a newsletter, and provides consulting services which no hard core hedge fund investor whose stated goal is to maximize his income would waste their time on.

Get Fabozzi's Handbook of Alternative Assets instead...much more detailed and useful.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of stuff not covered in other books, but very US onshore centric, October 22, 2007

By 

Olivier Vallee "olivier" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management: How to Successfully Launch and Operate a Hedge Fund (Wiley Finance) (Hardcover)

This book is the first one that I've run into that covers the legal and operation aspects of hedge funds - lawyers, administrators, accountants, and what they all do. It covers a lot of subtle but hugely important topics such as ERISA and new issues regulations, patriot act considerations, master-feeder structures and so forth. These are topics that I've not seen elsewhere despite a lot of reading on the sector. There are also a lot of specific companies, names, web addresses, places to go for information, etc. I have been working in London for four years in the hedge fund operations industry, and I did learn some important and useful things that people never tell you.

The book is written a conversationally so it is easy to read, but as a result is somewhat disorganised and mentions new subjects somewhat casually. I would have preferred a more structured approach, where each term is defined with more rigour. Much of the book (perhaps 35%) contains advice about having to deal with being an entrepreneur - finding an office, dealing with assistants - which are hedge-fund startup issues but which are not hedge fund legal/regulatory issues that I was looking for.

The major problem with this book as far as I am concerned is that while the US onshore industry is large, it is still much less than half of the industry. Offshore considerations are covered but more as an afterthought. Corporations, for example are completely left out, and large players such as Citco, the largest hedge fund administrator in the world, is not ever mentioned.

I would also recommend the Handbook of Alternative Assets by Mark Anson, which is sort of the gold standard in the field.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management: How to Successfully Launch and Operate a Hedge Fund, May 12, 2007

By 

S. Eggers (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management: How to Successfully Launch and Operate a Hedge Fund (Wiley Finance) (Hardcover)

Having read a number of books on the hedge fund industry, this is the first I found that actually explains the logistics of starting a fund - not only the steps but the costs associated with each. Strachman goes to great lengths to debunk what he calls, at one point, the Kevin Costner myth: "If you build it, they will come." Too many of us wanna-be hedge fund operators are listening to the corn fields and not figuring out how to raise that first $10 million, which Strachman assures us will be vastly more difficult than we perceive.

Though the book is brief, only 141 pages, it contains chapters on structuring hedge funds, the service providers you will enlist, accounting issues, discussion of back office operations and the all important, marketing and capital raising. Additionally, Strachman discusses the mentality of the sucessful hedge fund manager and asks, with a wink to Nike, 'Do you have it in you?' That question, in itself, is worth the price of the book.