By Susan Barreto, Editor, AlternativesWatch.com
The more markets change, the more the hedge fund investment philosophy at Evanston Capital Management seems to stay the same.
These central tenets tend to revolve around the fund of hedge fund firm’s hallmark portfolio concentration approach that seeks to provide access to pedigreed managers vetted by a seasoned team with ability to understand not only the trends driving performance, but the people behind the investment strategy.
Adam Blitz describes the investment philosophy at the firm being largely the same as it was more than 20 years ago when the firm was founded by David Wagner, who served as Northwestern University’s chief investment officer for a decade prior to founding Evanston Capital.
With offices not that far away from the Northwestern campus, the Evanston, Ill.-based team has grown assets to $4.3 billion spread across as few as 30 portfolio managers. The firm’s core expertise in multi-manager hedge fund strategies has expanded over time and includes strategy-specific hedge fund programs, hybrid strategies, blockchain-focused venture capital strategies, and international small-to mid-cap equity. Evanston also launched a closed-end registered investment company in 2014 that has a similar strategy to its flagship fund-of-hedge funds.
Blitz has seen many promising managers over the years. Prior to joining Evanston at its founding in 2002, he worked at AQR Capital Management as well as at Goldman Sachs within both their prime brokerage area as well as the quantitative research group within their asset management division.
“Finding managers that can offer positive alpha net of fees” is essential to the firm’s focus. “That generally leads us to specialist managers. Also, the soft side is so important. Finding folks who enjoy what they are doing and are competitive about it,” Blitz added. “So much of our process is trying to understand the people, what motivates them and what drives them to have sustained success.”
