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ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
and James Schofield
What was the response?
It was absolutely extraordinary. Within days of sending out our report
by email, a partner at Goldman Sachs had been in touch to ask us to a
breakfast meeting; someone from Morgan Stanley’s US office asked for
more information; the CEO of Axa Investment Managers got in touch;
and the CEO of an $8 billion hedge fund invited us for a meeting with
his CIO. An associate with a Master’s degree in finance from Columbia
University and a job at PIMCO, the biggest fixed income firm in the
world ($1.6 trillion in Assets Under Management), sent us his CV and
asked if he could work for us! We were absolutely blown away.
What happened next?
Shortly afterwards, we were at dinner one night with John’s father,
updating him on our progress, and he suddenly said, ‘OK – how much
do you want?’. We were surprised but delighted – Mr De Pauw’s
significant investment launched our fund, and it has grown exponentially
since then. From there a family office has decided to give us capital, as
have some other high net worth individuals. We have all now invested
our own funds and are actively pre-raising capital for after our exams.
Come June, what are your plans?
We intend to rent an office in London and fill it with Bloomberg
Terminals. We now have a website,
www.heijincapital.com, and we’re
taking enquiries. Meanwhile, alongside exam preparation, we’re all
working on our Series 65 Investment Advisory Licence so that we are
ready to start trading and managing funds later this year. Our core
audience will be individual investors and our website is helping us to
build our investment research client base already. We are also working
on the launch of a Heijin Venture called Fuse Asset Solutions to provide
any investor with a database of all hedge funds in one place. Finn
Leighton is the Founder & CEO of this venture and will start allocating
the $150k we have pre-raised as well as meeting with private equity
firms to look for more significant investments.