From:
Money Mavericks PDF eBook: Confessions of a hedge fund manager
By Lars Kraijer
My missed £100,000 golf lesson
One of the biggest ‘see and be seen’ events in Europe was the annual
charity dinner for a foundation called Absolute Returns for Kids (ARK). The
foundation was started by one of the funds-of-funds heavies, Arpad
Busson.
One year the foundation had taken over the massive area around
Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the Thames in London.
There was a tent the size of the Superdome divided by a curtain that
dropped from 100 feet above to separate the drinks from the dining area.
After passing through the tightest security imaginable, | was met by an
army of waiters with trays of champagne and fluffy-looking cocktails. Oh,
wait. They were all wearing my exact outfit. Years before, | had been to a
wedding in India and had forgotten to bring my battle-scarred tuxedo.
Instead of buying a new one, | thought it fun at the time to buy an Indian-
style Nehru suit and wear that instead. As my waistline expanded, |
outgrew my tuxedo and came to view the Nehru suit as my de facto formal
wear. What | had not counted on was the increasing prevalence of that
same suit as a waiter's outfit in bars and restaurants. | know now, thank
you. Anyway, back to the ARK dinner and 15 requests from other hedge-
fund guys to get them a glass of champagne. Even Elle Macpherson
commented on my outfit when | was briefly introduced to her. How cool is
that? A fashion icon commenting on my outfit! Even if it was to say that |
looked like a waiter.
Unlike the more exclusive crowd at Versailles, | actually knew tons of
people already at my first ARK dinner. Some were people | had gone to
university with, some | knew from my time at HBK and some | had met after
starting out on my own. | had an oddly comforting feeling of belonging in
the crowd. Since we were out of our office uniform, it somehow felt right to
talk about things other than investment performance. Even my competitors
seemed almost like friends with a glass of champagne in hand.
The curtain separating the two halves of the massive tent dropped
dramatically to reveal an opulent dining area where the see-through half of
the tent showed the power station lit up by enormous lights, Gotham City
style. A wire extended from the top of the power station high above the
dining area and a young woman slid down to the auctioneer’s. chair tolaunch the evening's festivities. It all seemed to say: ‘Welcome to the big
time.’
As the guest of a bank we had considered as a second prime broker, | sat
at their table next to David Philips who, soon after, took his hedge fund
public in a billion-dollar IPO. A celebrity was the auctioneer. This was the
time for the big players to announce their presence on the scene. Middle-
management types were not going to outbid them for the glamorous prizes
and their moment in the spotlight.
Before the Monopoly money started being thrown around, a young woman
came on stage and spoke passionately about the good deeds that came
from the money that nights like tonight made possible. She was not funny
or famous, only dead serious about her work, and she seemed a stark
reminder to this tough crowd that money alone has no purpose: it's what
you do with it that counts.
lam probably an intellectual snob who acts hard to impress, but these
auction lots were impressive, You could bid for a day playing tennis with
Tony Blair at Chequers (the PM's country residence), have Tom Ford
design a dress especially for you (he was there for the evening), have
Gordon Ramsay cook a meal in your home, play football with Ronaldo, or
sail on Roman Abramovich’s yacht, as well as the almost obligatory
private-jet trips to private islands and so on. | kept expecting them to say,
‘And our next lot is the Fountain of Youth’, but it was not to be. Most of the
lots went for between £100,000 and £150,000. With a couple of hundred
people in the crowd, it was hard to see who was bidding, and | certainly
kept my hands in my pockets lest scratching my nose be mistaken for a
bid. | had yet to buy a sofa for our new place and Puk would probably not
have been impressed if | had paid £100,000 to have Colin Montgomerie
work on my backswing for an hour.