The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hamilton: Heavy Inflows into Private Equity Will Lead to Disappointing Returns
“In a world where there is so much money going into private equity right now, I mean, obviously, inflows of capital lead to price discovery, which collapses these kind of informational edges that a lot of people have built, so I do think that there are a lot of…”
Hamilton: Allocators shouldn't disqualify managers like Cliff Asness over politics
“What kind of society are we if we, like, shut him out, or somehow think that, you know, we can't invest with him or his team just because of his views? I just, I find that to be completely ridiculous. I mean, obviously, if he laundered money, right, you can't,…”
Hamilton: Portfolio allocators should be generalists, not asset class specialists
“A lot of people think that you have to specialize now, and I actually think the opposite. How can you pick investments in one part of your portfolio without understanding what's going on in other parts?”
Hamilton: Portfolio construction must start with governance, not manager selection
“And I have gotten raked over the coals a couple of times because people are like, why would you say that governance is the most important thing? And I'm like, guys, how can you build a portfolio without starting with governance? So it starts with an enterprise…”
Hamilton: The endowment model only fits institutions with substantial distribution needs
“It's hard to generalize institutions because so many people talk about the endowment model and forget that it really isn't for everybody. There are a lot of institutions that outsourcing it or indexing it is actually a really great option. It's for a specific …”
Hamilton: Pure deflation-hedging in fixed income destroys capital long term
“20% target to fixed income is all of that pure deflation hedging. It's not, I can tell you, because it would be nearly impossible to build a portfolio like that without destroying capital long term.”
Hamilton: There is little evidence anyone excels at tactical portfolio positions
“I've seen very little evidence that anybody really is great at these kind of tactical positions.”
Hamilton: European Markets Offer More Alpha Than China Due to Complexity
“If you look at Europe, actually, I would argue that there's more alpha there because there's more regulation. There's less transparency. It's very difficult because a lot of times it helps to be part of the culture and to speak the language. And if you could b…”
Hamilton: Venture capital is shifting away from Silicon Valley
“There is this sort of shift away from the Valley, and it's not huge yet, so I think still 40 or 45% of deals are there”
Hamilton: Staying on LPACs impacts energy companies more than divestment
“The way I look at it is if you truly want to make an impact on that industry, why would you leave the table? You have such a louder and more impactful position to a GP of a fund or to a portfolio company As a member of their ELPAC. Because frankly, once you're…”
Hamilton: Men avoiding mentoring women post-#MeToo is a major problem
“Men who refuse to mentor women in the wake of Me Too is a big one.”
Hamilton: Allocators conduct excessively invasive diligence on female GPs
“Particularly, I've noticed that if it's a female GP or a female head of office, that people will go to this like nth degree to find every single thing out about this person.”
Hamilton: Manager marriage hurts fund performance more than divorce
“It's actually funny because one of the rules of thumb is, oh, if somebody's going through a divorce, go ahead and submit your redemption, but in reality, a manager getting married has a worse impact on performance than divorces do”
Children's Health targets a portfolio beta of approximately 0.6
“We don't need to be Yale, so we target a beta of about .6, and from there build a portfolio around it.”
Children's Health prioritizes cash liquidity over beating the S&P 500
“I like the downside protection, and frankly, the goal of our institution's program is not to beat the S&P. It's not to beat some arbitrary benchmark. It is to make sure that we have cash on hand when the institution needs cash.”
Hamilton: Authentic Fund Manager Edge Is informational Access or Superior Processing
“A lot of people say, oh, it's our team or, oh, it's our culture, which those things are really important, but typically your edge is informational or at least the ones that really stand out. So either you have access to better information or you do something b…”
Hamilton: Buying and Improving 'Boring' Companies Works Very Well in PE
“I think there's still something to be said for just boring, buy it cheap, create some improvements, and then sell it to somebody with a little bit more money. That's actually worked very well for us.”
Hamilton: Major energy groups are building legitimate cleantech fund teams
“I mean, there have been a couple of big energy groups that are now doing clean tech funds, which is a thing that I never thought that I would see. At first, I was very skeptical and thought, okay, it was like, again, more greenwashing. But they're actually bui…”
Hamilton: Operational issues typically sink investment funds rather than strategy
“That it's the operational stuff, the operational due diligence that typically sinks funds, which was a surprise to me.”
Hamilton: Asset allocation drives 60% to 70% of institutional returns
“Because as we know, what, 60, 70% of our returns is driven by asset allocation.”
Hamilton: Modern portfolio theory drastically underestimates tail risk
“Modern portfolio theory drastically underestimates risk because it's a normal distribution. In reality, we know that that is not a true thing.”
Hamilton: Few non-university endowments have analytics to pinpoint return drivers
“Because at this point, there aren't many endowments that can do that. I'm sure universities can, but everybody else, it's difficult to get those analytics, even working with a lot of great groups like we do.”
Hamilton: CAR-T trial achieved an 83% pediatric leukemia remission rate
“We were involved in the CART T clinical a couple of years back for pediatric leukemia, and in this kind of nationwide CART T clinical, 83% of the kids who had recurring leukemia went into remission. And so before, I mean, fewer than 50% lived a couple of years…”
Children's Health holds more fixed income to back capital project debt
“Being a hospital, one of the things that we kind of go through in the enterprise review is we issue debt for capital projects, so, you know, that's actually really important because these assets back up in a lot of instances the debt issuance, and so we typica…”
Children's Health met a private fund manager 20 times before committing
“One of the private investments that we're taking later this month is, I mean, we've met with them probably 20 times.”
Children's Health investment team met with over 1,000 managers annually
“My boss, my former boss, before he left, met with 800 to a thousand managers a year by himself, and then I met with another three or 400, so really it's just covering the market.”
Hamilton: Managers should pitch allocators with summary bullets, not paragraphs
“If you really want me to read your email, summary bullet points at the top. Not five paragraphs.”
Hamilton contrasts external consultants with internal institutional allocation roles
“Consultants, a lot of times you interface with the board, you interface with executive management, but you come in once a quarter and you get to talk maybe once a month. But for the most part, the touch points are a lot more condensed and a lot more focused on…”
Hamilton's board chair and foundation head follow her on Twitter
“So I ended up disclosing it. The chairwoman of my board follows me. The head of our foundation follows me. I told my boss about it as he was being onboarded because I want people to feel really confident that they can trust me to not speak for the institution …”
Children's Health organizes its portfolio into four broad asset classes
“We look at the world in four asset classes. So global equity, global fixed income, real assets, diversifying strategies, which is the catch-all for everything with a beta .3 or less, but it kind of becomes this catch-all for everything that doesn't really fit …”