Product Description

Praise for How to Create & Manage a Hedge Fund
A Professional’s Guide

"True to its title, McCrary provides a clearly written and complete overview of the issues associated with starting and running a hedge fund. And for those outside the hedge fund world, the book’s successful marriage of finance theory and market practice with the author’s own vast experience makes for an enjoyable and thoroughly informative read."
–Christopher L. Culp, Managing Director, CP Risk Management LLC, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago

"McCrary has drawn from his experience on Wall Street, LaSalle Street, and at the academy in crafting this encyclopedia for hedge fund managers and advisors. Covering the field in plainspoken business prose, he demystifies the secretive world of collective private investment. Whether you earn your living in finance or law, in accounting or marketing, if the subject is hedge funds, you must read this book."
–Patrick Daugherty, Partner, Foley & Lardner

"Building on his broad experience in the securities and derivatives markets, McCrary offers a well-researched guide to starting and running a hedge fund business . . . he tackles everything from the mundane, like regulations and accounting, to the complex, like investment techniques and risk management, in an articulate and insightful manner . . . a necessary handbook for money managers and investors alike."
–Peter F. Karpen, Managing Member, Diversified Investment Management, LLC

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54496 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From the Inside Flap
Hedge funds are a profitable vehicle for both investors and managers associated with these funds. But investing in a hedge fund and creating and managing a hedge fund take two completely different sets of skills and knowledge. If you’re looking to set up and run a hedge fund, it doesn’t matter how much professional money management experience you have; you still need to know how to operate within the unregulated world of hedge funds to be successful. If you’re ready to take the leap from conventional funds to hedge funds, How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund: A Professional’s Guide will show you how.

In an accessible, straightforward style, How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund presents all the practical information you’ll need to set up and run a leveraged investment company. Lawyers, accountants, creditors, investors, and many others will find insights into the often opaque world of hedge funds. Cutting through the hype and hysteria that usually surround this dynamic field, Stuart McCrary provides a detailed introduction and solid framework that any financial professional can understand and apply.

Filled with practical information, this unique guide first examines the critical information you must be familiar with as a hedge fund manager . . .

• Building a valuable leveraged investment company
• Types of hedge funds and hedge fund investors
• Hedge fund investment techniques and business models
• Creating leverage for investors
• Disclosing information to investors and the topical issue of transparency

. . . and then advances to the more technical and specialized aspects of starting and operating a hedge fund, with discussions of legal, accounting, risk management, marketing, and tax issues.

How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund is filled with expert guidance that will put you in the best possible position to launch and run a leveraged investment company. Touching on everything from commodity pools and performance mathematics to legislation affecting hedge funds and derivatives, this comprehensive guide will give you a firm grasp on how to create a valuable hedge fund business that will attract investors–while showing you how to avoid common mistakes that have plagued failed hedge funds.

You may still need professional advice to assist you in setting up a hedge fund, but How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund allows you to save time and money by giving you the tools and techniques necessary to understand and operate within the hedge fund industry.

From the Back Cover
Praise for How to Create & Manage a Hedge Fund
A Professional’s Guide

"True to its title, McCrary provides a clearly written and complete overview of the issues associated with starting and running a hedge fund. And for those outside the hedge fund world, the book’s successful marriage of finance theory and market practice with the author’s own vast experience makes for an enjoyable and thoroughly informative read."
–Christopher L. Culp, Managing Director, CP Risk Management LLC, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago

"McCrary has drawn from his experience on Wall Street, LaSalle Street, and at the academy in crafting this encyclopedia for hedge fund managers and advisors. Covering the field in plainspoken business prose, he demystifies the secretive world of collective private investment. Whether you earn your living in finance or law, in accounting or marketing, if the subject is hedge funds, you must read this book."
–Patrick Daugherty, Partner, Foley & Lardner

"Building on his broad experience in the securities and derivatives markets, McCrary offers a well-researched guide to starting and running a hedge fund business . . . he tackles everything from the mundane, like regulations and accounting, to the complex, like investment techniques and risk management, in an articulate and insightful manner . . . a necessary handbook for money managers and investors alike."
–Peter F. Karpen, Managing Member, Diversified Investment Management, LLC

About the Author
STUART A. McCRARY is a principal with Chicago Partners LLC and specializes in options, mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and hedge funds. As president of Frontier Asset Management, McCrary created and managed his own hedge fund before joining Chicago Partners. He has also worked as a senior options trader at Fenchurch Capital Management, as vice president in the mortgage department and in proprietary trading at First Boston Corporation, and as a portfolio manager with Comerica Bank. He has taught graduate-level courses in creating and managing a hedge fund at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University and courses in financial engineering at the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received his BA and MBA from Northwestern University.

Customer Reviews

Must have resource
A lot of great commentary about the preparation and hard work to build a business, not just trade/manage money. The other reviews listed here correctly point out that this is not another instructional book with investment techniques. This is the ideal book for someone confident enough with their investing strategy be it equities, bonds, limited partnerships, real estate, futures, commodities etc. to grasp business structures, investor/customer expectation, realistic marketing timelines, accounting, and the business aspect of managing a fund. Expect to seek out additional resources to add on McRary's outstanding work. If you are even toying with the idea of starting a mangement company, fund, fund of funds etc. do not proceed without this book.

Doesn't do what it says on the can
If you are a professional investor or trader don't buy this book. You won't learn anything particularly useful. The only information that was of any use pertained to the "creation" aspect, but this was too brief to be of any real use. On the "managing" side of things it went into a lot of subjects that were applicable to portfolio management in general rather than exclusively to hedge funds. Anyone who is thinking of setting up a hedge fund will have been running a long only fund or trading a book long enough to know all of this.

Informative and easy to read for the lay person, private investor or student, but of no practical use to anyone who might actually be looking to set up their own fund. Certainly not a professional's guide.

60 Pages of Applicable Information
Years ago I swore never to read another book with the words "How To" in the title. I broke that rule and am now very sorry I did. To be fair, there are a couple of good chapters in this book. Chapter 10 on regulation is a nice overview of the subject, and chapter 12 makes a valiant effort, but ultimately fails to make hedge fund taxation lucid. Unfortunately much of the book is unabashed filler. Chapter 11 is titled "Accounting for Hedge Funds", but is instead a 15 page overview of the first week of Freshman level accounting. Chapter 15 takes ten pages to explain the obvious and intuitive parallels of hedge fund cash flows to options. I got about 60 pages of applicable information on the subject out of a 300 page book, and still feel ripped off. Why is it that there are so many terrible books about money management?