REMEMBERING VICTOR

I was thinking last night about my career, if we can laughingly call it that, in or around the hedge fund industry. And I wondered whether it would be possible to create a show or speech - or alternatively write a humourous book - about the goings on one has witnessed over 25 plus years, or indeed has been party to.

Well that takes a lot of planning but I did think I might mention my encounter with Victor Niederhoffer whose fund, some may remember, collapsed in the late 1990s after, as I understand it, Victor chose to double up a losing but highly-geared position into a falling market.

My experience with Victor was earlier than that, some time at the beginning of the 1990s when, I assume for marketing reasons, he chose to promote himself and his business for the first time in London.

In those days such presentations by investment stars - and Victor was an ex-Soros star - were rare indeed and Victor's forthcoming presentation attracted considerable attention from among the great and the good in the City and the more so because the advance publicity said it was going to be about 'investment and harmony'. Well the mathematicians among us know that harmonics are an important strand of applied mathematics and City people, who knew less of this, at least considered maths must underpin a cogent and successful investment strategy and the overlay of music might open new doors to profits which they had not known existed.

I should say two things here. First, I would not want Victor Niederhoffer to be confused, in investment terms at least, with his brother Roy Niederhoffer who, so far as I know, continues to run a well-respected alternative investment business. Second, despite the fact that I set up the London Victor Niederhoffer presentation, I was not there for the core of the event. We had doubled up events that luncthime and I believe I was supporting a press conference for one exchange or another - so most of the rest of my description is a first hand account from my then colleague Sue Gourlay.

We knew things were unusual when we had to arrange for a piano at the event (which took place in The Howard Hotel on the Embankment) and moreover had to arrange rooms not only for Victor but also for his accompanist. But what really confused the audience on the day was that when the presentation began, rather than the usual slide show with charts and graphs, Victor intoned the story of his life, psalmically, to the playing of his pianist. This went on for some while and then, apparently Victor said something like, "Well you've heard enough from me. For the remainder of our time, I'll play the piano and my accompanist will tell you something of the lives of the great composers."

The general view of those privileged guests who attended this unique occasion (there were something over 100 of them), was that Victor might or might not be an investment genius but they thought they'd pass on the opportunity. One man took a contrary position and put in a fair chunk of money. No names, I'm afraid but let's simply say he was the head of one of Britain's biggest alternative investment houses. Sadly, because of Victor's collapse, this investment went from sharp to flat only a few years later.