来自小型对冲基金经理的大想法

Michael Zapata and Travis Cocke don’t appear to have much in common at first glance. Zapata, 36, spent ten years in the Navy, deploying seven times to the Middle East, before completing his MBA at Columbia University. Cocke, 27, is a young Houston entrepreneur with an undergraduate degree in finance from Texas A&M, although he says his real interest lies in the intersection of history, human psychology and finance.

What they do share is a passion for investing. It started early for Cocke, who says he has been a contrarian for as long as he can remember. Zapata remembers successfully picking a lucrative stock (Xerox Corp.) for a middle school class assignment, but says he wasn’t really pulled into investing until, upon leaving the military, he realized he could apply his skills in analyzing intelligence networks to finance. This shared interest has led both men past the naysayers and warning signs and into the turbulent world of hedge funds. With the growing sentiment that the U.S. stock market is overvalued and that the mostly mediocre returns by hedge funds don’t justify the high fees they charge, it’s a difficult time to be in the industry, particularly for emerging managers.

Zapata founded New York–based Sententia Capital Management in 2012 and has gathered $2 million in assets under management through a value-based approach. Cocke founded Voss Capital in Houston three years ago, targeting special situations and so-called deep value opportunities. His firm has $8.5 million in assets.

“这是一种鸡蛋和鸡蛋困境，”雪铁斯说。“大多数投资者希望在投资前更大。”

Emerging hedge fund managers are always on the hunt for ways to stand out from the crowd. Monday evening, that shared goal found both Zapata and Cocke — as well as 18 other fund managers — at Bloomberg LP’s sleek New York headquarters for a speed-pitching event.InvestPitch， 由...制作亚博赞助欧冠和SumZero，投资专业人员的在线网络，并由Bloomberg Tradlebobs托管，给予20个投资组合管理人员四分钟，每个人都会说服投资者的录音师，所以持续的持续选择的安全性。

Cocke, for his part, was determined to cause a buzz at the event, urging investors to get in on the “Kush Rush” of medical marijuana. In a pitch sprinkled with marijuana puns, Cocke made the case for shorting GW Pharmaceuticals. The company is lauded as the market leader in the creation of cannabinoid prescription medicines, but while many investors believe GW will benefit from the growing acceptance of medical marijuana use in the U.S., Cocke argued just the opposite. The company is slowly working toward an FDA-approved therapeutic product, he said, while competitors receive legislative support around the U.S. for products like marijuana oils, which have performed better in medical studies and are subject to less regulatory scrutiny because they are lower in THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. Competitors’ products are also cheaper than GW’s are expected to be.

唯一建议欠款的其他经理是Ian Clark，28岁，他警告说，深水钻孔泡沫可能会迅速流行互联的股价。基于纽约的二分法资本的Scarsdale的Clark认为，石油公司的资本支出减少的新钻机和减少资本支出将降低瑞士的合同训练员的收益，预测其股份中的50％下跌。

Other interesting pitches included one from Spencer Grimes, 48, of New Canaan, Connecticut–based Twinleaf Management, who recommended buying shares of E.W. Scripps Co. The company owns and operates newspapers and television stations around the U.S. and should benefit from record campaign ad spending leading up to the 2016 election, Grimes said, adding that its recently announced merger with newspaper, television and radio station conglomerate Journal Communications is a value booster as well. Grimes also predicted that the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, should it be approved, will have a positive impact on Scripps because the cable giants are expected to have to sell a large chunk of Midwestern subscribers to a third company, which will likely end up paying roughly three times as much for Scripps’ broadcast signals in that region.

前海军海豹咱pata put his money on rent-to-own furniture and appliance retailer Aaron’s. The Atlanta-based company’s “keep rate,” or rate of customers buying the products they rent, is more than double that of its primary competitor, Rent-A-Center, Zapata toldII， 和has higher cash flows and margins. Aaron’s is expanding fast, having recently acquired Progressive Finance Holdings, a Utah-based lease-to-buy company, and is currently trading below a $30 per share buyout offer from private equity firm Vintage Capital Management that it rejected earlier this year.

The InvestPitch winners won’t be announced until January 7, but it was clear from the comments of Gideon Berger, who heads up the hedge fund investment operation for Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), that coming through on a promise to deliver an outsized return on one investment won’t necessarily help a hedge fund break away from the pack.

鲍阿姆以650亿美元的酌情资产为全球最大的对冲基金的分配。因为这么难以找到好主意，而且良好的经理，伯杰告诉观众，公司强调过程过度表现。“这很拥挤，”他解释道。“找到好的想法很难。”

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