Alternative investment firms diversify
Alternative investment managers are no longer the mythological wunderkind making big returns from under-exploited investment niches from an attic in New York or London.
Instead they are moving into a range of asset classes in a bid to diversify revenue streams and create a more solid business.
This institutionalisation of hedge and private equity firms has been encouraged by investors and regulators that find it easier and potentially safer to deal with a bigger, more established outfit.
US firms have been at the forefront of the changes, although their European counterparts are following suit.
Carlyle and Blackstone are best-known for their leveraged buy-out operations but are seen by their peers as the most advanced towards becoming full-service alternative investment shops, while Nordic peer EQT has expanded into Asian buy-outs and mezzanine finance recently and UK-based CVC Capital Partners and Permira are understood to be planning debt operations from the autumn.
Carlyle, for example, has 17 business lines covering areas such as debt trading and real estate and is recruiting Ralph Reynolds and Rick Goldsmith from Deutsche Bank for its nascent hedge fund operation.
Blackstone is also well advanced towards its goal of being a one-stop, alternative asset shop for investors.
Originally founded in the late 1980s as a mergers and acquisitions advisory boutique, its buy-out skills quickly took over as the firm's primary business before the partners set up a funds of hedge funds, or wealth management, division to handle the carried interest, or profits, generated for the partners.
In the last few years, Blackstone has moved into distressed debt to allow it to offer something when the buy-out exit market is weak and its real estate asset management operation is seen as slightly lower risk/lower return, although its current performance is understood to have been above expectations. And from October, Blackstone is expected to have on board John Studzinsk, former co-head of corporate and investment banking at HSBC, as head of its M&A advisory arm.
But the feeling from sources close to Blackstone is that this expansion was more by chance than design. In the early 1990s, for example, the firm sold its mainstream fund management business, BlackRock, which has subsequently been merged with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
Although Blackstone is said to slightly regret the sale, especially as BlackRock is now starting to step on its former parent's buy-out territory by setting up a private equity fund, the business lines it retained have diversified its revenue stream and provided greater stability of earnings for the partners.
And, crucially, investors have been supportive of the diversification attempts. In the past 12 months, Blackstone has closed its fifth global buy-out fund at $15.6bn and raised $14.5bn in funds of hedge funds, individual hedge funds, corporate debt and real estate.
Other firms are following in its wake. Texas Pacific Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts invest in public as well as private equity and have burgeoning distressed debt units while US hedge fund giant DE Shaw is starting to market traditional asset management products to institutional investors.
Trey Beck at DE Shaw, which manages $23bn in hedge funds and $300m in mainstream money, says: "We are in the [traditional] business to manage tens of billions of dollars, and I can envisage a time when DE Shaw will have traditional asset management funds in excess of the hedge fund business.
"In 10 years' time it will be less important whether you are a hedge fund or a traditional manager but whether you can generate alpha [above-benchmark returns]."
Other large hedge funds, such as Cerberus, Fortress or Och-Ziff, are also expanding into private equity or real estate as well as hedge and debt funds.
These alternative funds provide annual management and performance fees that are based on a "two and 20" model - where 1.5 to 2 per cent is charged each year on the assets managed and a fifth of profits after charges and a hurdle is cleared is taken before the remainder is distributed to investors.
This lucrative and stable revenue stream tempers the volatility of buy-outs.
This is good for partners and appreciated by public markets in case the firm wants to float and allow the partners to cash out, as a number of firms are considering doing.
But the risk in diversifying is that the senior management takes its eye off their core business or does not have the skills that can replicate the success in, say, LBOs into another area.
One senior partner at a diversifying firm says: "Diversifying might mean returns are lower than expected or, at worst, a disaster in a Mongolian hedge fund damages our brand in buy-outs."
As well as potential reputational risks, firms such as Blackstone are understood to have concerns that diversification could leadto increased bureaucracy and loss of the organisational flexibility seen as a key factor in its earlier success. This sclerosis could come if alternative firms employ more than about 2,000 people, one says.
But with the opportunity potentially very lucrative and with investors chasing managers promising high returns the expansion appears unlikely to slow down in the near-term.
对冲基金不对冲干什么
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类投资经理们一度置身纽约或伦敦的阁楼里，瞄准投资不足的利基投资领域，斩获丰厚回报，但现在，他们已不再是这种神话般的有为青年了。
相反，他们正开始涉足广泛的资产类别，试图使收入来源多样化，创造更稳固的业务。
对冲基金和私人股本公司之所以采取这种做法，是得到了投资者和监管机构的鼓励，因为二者发现，与规模更大、牌子更老的机构打交道更简便，也可能更安全。
美国企业处在这一变革的前沿，但他们的欧洲同行也在跟进。
凯雷(Carlyle)和黑石集团(Blackstone)以杠杆收购业务最为著名，但业界同行认为，在向全方位服务另类投资机构转型方面，这两家走得最远；它们的北欧同行EQT最近则展开扩张行动，进入亚洲收购和夹层融资领域；而据悉，英国CVC资本伙伴(CVC Capital Partners)和珀米拉(Permira)正筹划从秋季开始从事债务业务。
就凯雷而言，它目前的业务涉及17个领域，包括债务交易和房地产等，并且它将从德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)聘请拉尔夫?雷诺兹(Ralph Reynolds)和里克?戈德史密斯(Rick Goldsmith)，负责刚成立的对冲基金业务。
而黑石集团的目标是成为一站式另类资产投资机构，现在它已取得卓有成效的进展。
黑石集团成立于20世纪80年代后期，最初是一家并购咨询机构。出色的收购技巧很快使之成为公司的主营业务。随后，公司合伙人成立了一只对冲基金的基金（即财富管理）部门，来运作合伙人赚取的附带权益（即资本增值部分的提成）。
过去几年，黑石集团进入了危机债务领域，使公司能够在收购退出市场(buy-out exit market)疲弱，业界视其房地产管理业务略微倾向于低风险/低收益型时提供一些其它服务，但据悉，黑石的房地产管理业务目前的业绩高于预期。据预计，汇丰银行(HSBC)企业和投资银行业务前联席主管约翰?斯图津斯基(John Studzinski)将于10月份加入黑石集团，担任该集团并购咨询部门主管。
但接近黑石集团的消息人士感觉，这一扩张行动更多的是出于偶然，而非经过精心计划。例如，20世纪90年代初期，黑石集团出售了其主流基金管理部门BlackRock，随后该部门与美林投资管理公司(Merrill Lynch Investment Managers)合并。
据称黑石集团对这笔出售交易略有悔意，特别是BlackRock成立了一只私人股本基金，开始涉足原母公司的收购业务领地。尽管如此，黑石集团当初保留的业务范围仍使其收入来源实现了多样化，为合伙人提供了更稳定的收益。
至关重要的是，投资者一直支持黑石集团的多样化尝试。过去12个月，黑石集团以156亿美元的代价清偿了其第5只全球收购基金，并为专注于对冲基金的基金、单只对冲基金、公司债务以及房地产业务筹集了145亿美元资金。
其它公司正在效仿黑石集团的策略。德州太平洋集团(Texas Pacific Group)和科尔伯格?克拉维斯?罗伯茨公司(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts)既投资上市公司股权，也投资私人股本，并新成立了危机债券部门，而美国对冲基金巨头萧氏企业(DE Shaw)也开始向机构投资者推销传统资产管理产品。
萧氏企业管理着230亿美元的对冲基金和3亿美元的主流资金。该公司的特雷?贝克(Trey Beck)表示：“我们从事的是管理数百亿美元的（传统）业务，而且我可以预见，将来萧氏企业的传统资产管理基金业务将超过对冲基金业务。
“10年后，你是一家对冲基金还是传统资产管理公司将不那么重要了，关键在于能否创造“阿尔法”回报(alpha，即高于市场基准水平的超额回报)。”
其它大型对冲基金，如塞尔伯吕(Cerberus)、城堡基金(Fortress)以及Och-Ziff等，也正向私人股本、房地产、对冲基金和债券基金领域拓展。
这些另类投资基金按照“2%和20%”模式，向投资者收取管理年费和绩效提成。在这种模式下，公司每年收取资产管理额的1.5％至2％作为管理费，如果投资回报率超过最低回报率，公司还将保留费后利润的20%，其余部分发放给投资者。
这种稳定的收入来源利润丰厚，缓和了收购业务的波动。
这种模式对合伙人来说很有利，而且如果公司打算通过上市让合伙人套现（大量公司正在考虑这种做法），这也会得到股市的赞赏。
但多样化的风险在于，高级管理人员不再关注核心业务，或不具备足够的技能，将他们在杠杆收购等操作上的成功复制到其它领域。
在一家正进行多样化的公司，一位高级合伙人表示：“多样化可能意味着投资回报低于预期，或者最糟糕的是，一只专注于蒙古的对冲基金崩盘就可能损坏我们收购业务的品牌形象。”
除潜在的声誉风险外，据称黑石集团等公司还担心，多样化可能导致官僚作风上升，并丧失组织灵活性，而组织灵活性是其早期成功的一大关键因素。有人称，如果另类投资公司雇员超过2000人，组织僵化症就可能发生。
但鉴于投资机会可能带来高额回报，并且投资者追捧那些承诺高回报的基金经理，这种扩张似乎不可能在近期放缓。
詹姆斯?莫森是行业性报纸《私人股本新闻》(Private Equity News)的编辑。
