In Speaking Out, John Paulson Decides the Best Defense Is a Good Offense

John Paulson最近一直在宣传旅游。在过去的几个月里，基于纽约的大型对冲基金公司保尔森＆Co的同名创始人一直是两个行业的标题扬声器，这是一个最高调的会议。

自2008年以来，保尔森并非如此可见，在他在书中致以象征的赌注之后有史以来最好的贸易“关于美国住房市场的崩溃。然而，这次情况是相当不同的。经过一个特别粗糙的补丁，帕劳森遭受重大损失和流出，57岁的经理有充分的理由试图证明他的记录合理。

In mid-2011, at the height of his success, Paulson had $38 billion in assets under management. Today, after a period in which developed equity markets have rallied sharply, that number is down to $18 billion. Paulson has experienced some high-profile losses, notably a big bet on gold, which has soured as gold prices have collapsed by nearly a third over the past ten months. On the bright side, the firm has had some recent successes, which the fund manager wants to highlight. For investors in Paulson's flagship fund, however, the good bets have not been enough to outweigh the bad.

2009年，关注通货膨胀和预测弱化美元，保尔森发起了对黄金的赌注。2010年，他推出了一项金基金。该基金并未取得成功，保尔森在采访时承认亚博赞助欧冠and CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference in New York earlier this month.（阅读更多：最新从第三届年度提供阿尔法会议)

“我们从黄金基金中得到了很多关注，因为黄金已经下降了。但黄金基金只有2％的资产，”他告诉他的提问者CNBC的Carl Quintanilla。“未说明的是，黄金基金在2013年前六个月下降了65％。该公司的其他资金都是”非常有利可图“，他补充说，”今年到目前为止，我们返回的时间在5％之间32％。“当他在Las Vegas的每年跳伞替代品（盐）会议上发表展示时，Paulson在5月份发表了类似的言论。

事实上，旗舰保尔森的优势基金保罗森优势加上了大约37亿美元的公司的整体资产，这是今年年前六个月的仅为1.17％，根据数据私人银行汇丰银行。这一期间落后于平均对冲基金的增长3.55％，按HFRI资金加权综合指数计算。投资者在保罗森优势投资1亿美元，这是一项事件驱动的基金，意味着2008年1月1日的所有公司投资组合中的最佳思想汇集在一起​​，今天将有约8700万美元。虽然该基金于2008年，2009年和2010年赚钱，但2011年下降了35.96％，并在2012年损失了14.23％。

The Paulson Gold Fund is a small part of Paulson's firm with only $300 million in assets, most of which is Paulson's own money. It is not the only way Paulson, or his investors, have exposure to gold, though. In 2009, Paulson began issuing share classes in all of his major funds denominated in gold, as opposed to dollars. He told investors he was changing his own Paulson holdings into the gold share class and encouraged them to do the same. Although the gold share class outperformed the dollar-denominated share class for the first few years, it too has suffered as the value of gold has fallen. Paulson Advantage has additional exposure to gold through an investment of more than $1 billion in gold-mining stocks, according to one investor in the fund.

The shares have been a drag on Paulson Advantage's recent performance. According to SEC filings, Paulson & Co. had positions in at least eight gold or copper mining companies as of the first quarter of this year. The largest U.S.-listed position is a $665 million investment in AngloGold Ashanti. The value of the Johannesburg, South Africa mining company has halved in the past 12 months and now trades at about $15. Paulson also has a $3 billion-plus investment in a gold ETF, Spider Gold, shares of which are down 25.74 percent year to date.

Paulson spent most of his Delivering Alpha interview focusing on another part of his firm's holdings, in real estate. In 2009, Paulson & Co. raised close to $300 million for a private equity real estate fund. Paulson Real Estate Recovery Fund I and a second $330 million real estate fund, raised in 2012, are run by former Lehman Brothers managing director Michael Barr. By the end of 2012, that first fund had, on paper, more than doubled its assets. The funds have invested heavily in land. As Paulson said at Delivering Alpha: "We focused our fund on Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. And between those states, I think we were probably the largest purchaser of entitled lots," land that is zoned for construction, mostly developed in the recession. "And now that the housing markets are starting to improve, the valuation of this real estate is starting to increase."

The real estate bet has produced some successes. Paulson was one of the key investors in the property management company Realogy Holdings Corp., which went public in October 2011 at $27 a share and now trades at or near $50. But a home run in his land holdings will do nothing for investors in Paulson Advantage since these highly illiquid positions are only in the separate private equity funds. It is also still a highly speculative bet dependent on demand for new houses in areas of the country that were hardest hit by the subprime crisis.

保尔森于1994年开始他的对冲基金公司。对于他的大部分职业生涯，他专门从事合并套利。在他提供阿尔法的言论中，他热衷于强调他的长期跟踪记录。他指出，该公司只有两年，1998年和2011年。2007年之前，作为一个合并仲裁者，他有一个击打单打和双打的记录，这是合并的股票来做什么。保尔森投资者的问题是，虽然公司仍然有两项合并套利资金统称约57亿美元，但合并套利市场不足以维持180亿美元的对冲基金。（在2007年初，在次级贸易支助之前，保尔森＆Co公司在资产上有63亿美元，并在69号中排名Institutional Investor's列表世界上最大的对冲基金。）

经过2011 Paulson & Co. was the third-largest hedge fund firm in the world and Paulson found himself in a position where he had to defend the size of his business. In his 2010 year-end report, he pointed out that despite being at about $30 billion, his firm had produced some of its best returns ever in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Size, he argued, actually helped the manager because it enabled the firm to be a major, influential player in areas such as restructuring. Yet size has also left Paulson having to make big thematic bets. It is true that the firm has made some very profitable investments since 2008, particularly related to the economic recovery. But because the bet that was meant to be its next big home run, gold, has not paid off, he is left pointing to a long-term track record, the first 18 years of which have only a limited bearing on much of what the firm does today.

去年摩根士丹利和花旗集团的财富管理集团推荐他们的顾问告诉客户从保尔森优势资金兑换。John Paulson一直是关于金融危机的两本畅销书籍的主题。他在国会之前发表了作证。尽管他的高调和声誉很高，但他在CNBC提供了电视节目的Alpha的外表是保尔森首次获得电视采访。在过去，他在封闭的门后面做了他的演讲，没有新闻访问，他的电视似乎仅限于美国开放网球比赛中被发现的法院。CNBC和盐会员都提供了一个理想的机会，即可到达对Paulson 2007年后资产增长如此至关重要的注册顾问。