John Jackson, Partner at Mercer Alternatives, discusses the economics and aggressive pass-through fee structures of multi-manager hedge fund platforms.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Jackson: Next credit cycle will be drawn out rather than a sudden bust
“I think the one difference about this may be relative to past credit bust, if you will, is we don't think there'll be a big moment of bust and a de-leveraging. To us, this might be a more long drawn out period where we can produce maybe more than equity-like r…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jackson: Mercer includes 80 sub-$2B and over 24 sub-$500M hedge funds
“Roughly 80 of those are sub two billion in AUM today on that list. A little more than two dozen of those, I think, are below five hundred million in AUM.”
Disclosure
Mercer: Credit and macro are the most exciting hedge fund areas moving forward
“I think credit and macro are the two areas that we are most excited about moving forward.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Jackson: Cross-asset volatility will remain elevated for 3 to 5 years
“And then macro, we just think volatility really across everything is going to stay elevated. So across equity markets, across credit markets, across interest rates, across commodities. And we think macro, both systematic and discretionary, are probably the bes…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jackson: Mercer's 35-person hedge fund team conducts over 800 annual meetings
“There's 35 members on the hedge fund team across the globe, US, Europe, Asia. On average, we take in excess of over 800 meetings a year. Roughly a third of those is spent on new opportunities or new ideas that are coming to market.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mercer has 240 hedge funds on its approved list, with 20-30% closed
“There's approximately 240 hedge funds on that list today. Frankly, larger than we would prefer, but at any point in time, 20 to 30% of those are closed due to capacity issues.”