David Salem has had a remarkable career. He did his undergrad at Middlebury, went to Harvard Business School where he sat next to Seth Klarman, then went to work with Jeremy Grantham at GMO where he became a partner. He started The Investment Fund for Foundations, a groundbreaking way for smaller endowments to benefit from professional investing and scale, and had David Swensen of the Yale Investment Office, Jack Meyer of the Harvard Management Company, and Seth Alexander of MIT, as well as many other talented investors on his board. He went on to advise George Soros on his personal money and worked for many years with Chuck Feeney who famously gave away his entire multi-billion-dollar fortune. David’s writings are voluminous and available online. He is currently working on a book about Peter Bernstein, the great author of Against the Gods, the story of risk.
We talk about how to allocate $5 billion dollars, filtering out impulsive managers, the founding of TIFF, the ideal size of an investment committee, and the persistent edge of Seth Klarman.
Hedgeye: https://insights.hedgeye.com/hedgeye-capital-allocation/
Articles: https://www.epsilontheory.com/david-salem-2/
Circulus Summit
We had a fabulous time in New York back in September for the first Circulus Family Office Summit. We had over sixty families attend, and I was pleased to see so many new faces among my old friends. The family office world is getting more professional and more social, and we will continue to host these events to bring people together to build enduring relationships. Subscribe to get on the list for the next event!
Greg Coules interviewed our keynote Steve Tananbaum of GoldenTree.
Rebecca Patterson had a wonderful discussion with Apollo’s Torsten Slok.
I had the great pleasure of interviewing Zoe Cruz of Menai Financial.
I’d like to thank all the wonderful families who attended as well as Daniel DeWolf of Mintz, Alti Tiedemann, Apollo, KKR, Mudrick Capital, Jericho Capital, Arch Labs, and Summitas for their support.
Links
Summit roundup from Family Wealth Report: https://www.familywealthreport.com/article.php/Distressed-Debt%2C-Credit-And-Fintech-Top-Of-Mind-At-Family-Office-Summit
And Crain’s Currency: https://www.craincurrency.com/investing/firms-discuss-compensation-structures-circulus-family-office-summit
Campden gives EU family offices a close look: https://www.campdenwealth.com/report/european-family-office-report-2023
KKR gives some great insight into how RIA’s are moving into privates: https://www.kkr.com/insights/unlocking-future-of-portfolio-management-for-rias
Coming up on the podcast: Michael Fisch talks private equity at American Securities, Paul Carbone discusses Pritizker Private Capital, Mark Strauch digs into Alpine’s unique CEO incubator, and Jason Mudrick of Mudrick Capital gives us a great lesson on how to view distressed credit.
ICYMI: Jennifer Prosek gives us a master class on branding.
Happy Holidays!
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