The Ledger
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Biscardi: Mid-tier funds are struggling to raise capital in the Middle East
“The funds at the top of the game are still, I think, doing really well there, but they've been there for 20 years. KKR, Blackstone, Carlisle. The next tier down, if you're a twenty billion dollar fund, a fifty billion dollar fund, and you don't have the same b…”
Biscardi: How ex-convict Daniel Dart built an outsized allocator network
“First of all, this guy went to jail. His conviction got overturned. He's got an amazing story, and he's now running a five million dollar venture fund. He is literally everywhere, and he works the events like no one I've ever seen, and he knows everyone. He is…”
Biscardi: Mid-tier funds should avoid retail capital which buys mega-brands
“I think everyone is excited about getting retail flows. They're generally considered to be stickier in some ways, but I feel like, again, it's a category that tends to buy the biggest brands, and I wonder a firm that just doesn't have that same brand power, if…”
Biscardi: Reopening IPOs will trigger a huge wave of venture interest
“If the IPO market starts to open and the M&A market gets going, I think you're going to see a huge wave of interest in venture, and especially in those funds that I think were very smart and didn't go crazy when things were at a peak and are now taking advanta…”
Biscardi: Human fundamental analysis rarely generates an edge in liquid markets
“We've never been big on strategies that involve a human doing fundamental analysis and supposedly doing it better than the rest of the world does it. I think in liquid markets, that's an incredibly difficult thing to do, and it's never something that we've rea…”
Biscardi: Volatile carry cash flow is the biggest problem for GPs
“It's the biggest problem for a GP. But LPs have this issue as well, especially on funds that have a more volatile return profile.”
Biscardi: Comparing hedge funds to the S&P 500 demonstrates financial illiteracy
“I hate when I read articles and I see comments on the hedge fund industry not keeping pace with the S&P, and I know that the person behind the article probably doesn't know what a Sharpe ratio is. We're doing a different thing than the S&P is doing.”
Biscardi: Institutional LP fundraising has one of the economy's longest sales cycles
“This is a super long sales cycle, possibly the longest sales cycle of anything in the economy.”
Biscardi: Pitching funds at conference dinners alienates institutional LPs
“You don't want to be the person at dinner pitching everyone your fund. If you want to turn off LPs, just do that.”
Biscardi Predicts Private Equity Will Have a Better Year in 2025
“I think PE is going to have a better year in 25 than they've had certainly for the last two or three.”
Biscardi: iConnections screened out over 500 allocator applicants for low AUM
“We actually screened out over 500 people who registered as an allocator Who we deemed just not appropriate for this audience, and by not appropriate, usually what I mean is they just weren't managing a large enough AUM base.”
Biscardi: Funds should only meet allocators managing at least $100M AUM
“For a fund, you want to meet with an investor who's running at least a hundred million in order for it to make sense, because at that level, you can get a large enough allocation from them that it's worth the time and energy, because this is not a quick sales …”
Attending digital asset firms are seeing steady, break-even allocator meeting demand
“One surprise though, digital assets peaked in around spring of 22, has been in a nuclear winter pretty much since, but surprisingly we have 40 firms here that are digital asset firms. And those firms are performing about at break-even level. They're not punchi…”
Biscardi: Launching a hedge fund requires both investing and entrepreneurial skills
“When you start one of these things, you need to be a great investor and a great entrepreneur. Because at the end of the day, you're building a business and you're building a business that then competes with some of the smartest people in the world.”
Biscardi: Allocators to small hedge funds only speak with the PM
“And the reality is when you're small, no one really wants to talk to anyone except the PM who's driving the strategy.”
Biscardi: Small fund PMs must work 80 to 100 hours weekly
“You need someone who is ready to work 80 to a hundred hours a week. If you're not excited about being in your business to build it at that kind of a level, you really shouldn't do it. You're better off being a PM in a bigger shop”
Biscardi: Hedge fund performance dispersion is far wider than traditional equities
“If you look at the dispersion between, in particular categories in the hedge fund space, it is much, much larger than the dispersion in traditional markets, like long only, for example. You'll see a much tighter performance band in the traditional asset classe…”
Biscardi: Single family offices rank investing fourth or fifth in discussion priority
“I would say the investing side of it is maybe like fourth or fifth on the list of things that they're really spending time talking to each other about.”
Biscardi: Context Capital researching structured products to buy GP carry risk
“So one of the ideas is to do deals with GPs to In essence, trade fixed for variable. You know, they have this variable risk. We would do a trade with them where we would, in essence, buy that cash flow stream and take the risk of the carry, not entirely, but t…”
Biscardi: iConnections participants schedule over 15,000 meetings prior to events
“At our events, our scheduler opened two weeks ago for the LP side, just yesterday for the GP side. We have 1500 meetings scheduled already among those participants, and These people will spend the next six weeks scheduling another 15, 16,000 meetings.”
Biscardi: Global macro funds doubled expected allocator meetings in 2024
“Miami last year, so January of 24, Global Macro got basically twice the number of meetings that they were supposed to based on On the percentage of funds in the event”
Biscardi: Partnering with Non-Competing Funds Expands Conference Reach
“When I was on the fundraising side years ago, we would just partner up, we'd make friends with strategies or funds that were not competitive with what we were doing, and now you've expanded your reach dramatically.”
Global Alts 2024 hosts 15,000 meetings between 850 managers and 1,000 LPs
“So we will run about 15,000 meetings between today and tomorrow, between about 850 fund managers and roughly a thousand investors, all institutional investors.”
Biscardi: Private credit funds are punching above their weight in allocator meetings
“To mention a few others, private credit absolutely punching above its weight. People are really interested in private credit right now. The boom is still here.”
Biscardi: Emerging managers face multi-year sales cycles versus established mega funds
“The truth is, this business is such a long sales cycle. You can come here and have 20 or 30 meetings. You may not get an allocation from any of those investors for years. If you're a really big, well-established manager, it's probably less than 12 months. If y…”
Biscardi: Context Capital averages $20M to $30M per hedge fund seed deal
“We've probably done average seed deals of 20 to thirty million in general.”
Biscardi: Investors rank process as the top criterion in fund surveys
“In our investor surveys, investors Constantly put that as the number one or number two most important criteria when they're evaluating a fund.”
Biscardi: Context Capital structures partnerships via joint ventures or revenue shares
“In some cases, we've actually co-owned the GP and the management company, and it is a legitimate joint venture. And in other situations, we've done it as more of a revenue share and then provided those services back.”