Back when I was writing my book, I decided to start a chapter on the wild, wacky, and frequently value-destroying world of “alternative investments” by playing around with the Hedge Fund Name Generator. It usually combines a color, a geographic feature and a corporate moniker. For example, I just came up with “Red Road Partners.”
For the purposes of the book, I kept trying until it spit out some bizarre or offensive sounding ones like YellowRoad Associates, SolidOcean Markets and, best/worst of all, Black Street Brothers.
The fashion used to be names from Greek mythology and I wrote a LinkedIn post a while back, Letter From a Failing Hedge Fund Manager, in which the author’s fund was called Oedipus Capital. But while you use up the acceptable classical names pretty quickly, the current trend has a ways to go. Just do the math: Six primary or secondary colors times 30 geographic features times seven corporate types gives you 1,260 fund names — way more than you’ll glean from the index in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. Throw in street or town names and you have tens of thousands of choices.
But we have now jumped the fund name shark. An article today by my colleague Cara Lombardo is titled: “Far Point To Buy Global Blue From Silver Lake.”
Doesn’t this confuse people? “Hey man, was I supposed to wire that billion dollars to Golden Lake or Silver Lake?” Isn’t it at least getting a bit old? I know that there is some reflected glory here — BlackRock and what have you — but how about just gaming the system the way the way a plumber does to get to the top of the listings in the Yellow Pages: “2 & 20 Management” or “AAA Amazing Returns Capital?”
Alternatively, just get to the point. “Gigantic Stacks of Money Partners,” for example. It isn’t like there are truth in advertising rules for hedge funds. One of the best funds ever, by the way — though it existed only on paper — was Andrew Lo’s “Capital Decimation Partners.” It gained 2,560% over seven years, though it contained the seeds of its own destruction because it simply sold out-of-the-money puts. In today’s return-hungry world, I bet he could start a real fund, name it that, point out in bold text how it could all end in tears, and still attract huge inflows. What a time to be alive!
Spencer Jakab 