Four Fund Managers

Abstract

Whether they run retail funds, closed funds, or manage money on behalf of large corporations, sovereign states, ‘high net worth’ private clients, or pension funds, asset managers are the group of financial professionals charged with managing the world’s money During the first eight months of 2007 I interviewed 52 such people working in major centres in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Asia. As luck would have it, this timing was opportune, allowing me to talk to some of them about the quite large falls in world equity markets in May 2006 and February 2007, the first signs of subprime difficulties causing hedge fund bankruptcies in April 2007 and the beginning of the credit crunch in August 2007.