The SEC remedy against bad hedge fund owners in the show Billions is the threat of turning them into family offices
This actually happened in real life to Steve Cohen (the person Axelrod's character is loosely based on).
After being banned from managing outside capital, SAC Capital Advisors transitioned to being a family office called Point72. Only recently has it begun to to manage outside capital again.
Yeah I saw some of that show. The thing is if you're a MFO you're handling other people's money.
Re:How the 0.001% invest
by lighttower on Monday December 17, 2018 @01:59PM
(#18701151)
How do these guys find deals to invest into? How do the deals find them?
A free mandate makes for more interesting work, plus as the manager you can stick things in illiquids that have no mark-to-market. That's the uncharitable view, of course. The charitable view is that you are better at evaluating opportunities and are able to do things other institutions are not.
Main thing about FOs is they are just the article says, totally idiosyncratic. One FO I know is basically just a wily old guy who does all his business by phone, meets people to look them in the eye, that type of thing. Made a lot on crypto.
Another FO is basically a hedge fund. Bunch of different desks doing various things, a lot of focus on regulatory approval (that's still a thing, not sure why the article makes it look like there's no hurdles).