Wealth & Finance International - Fund Awards 2015

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 49 Ice Farm Advisors Best Concentrated Global Macro Fund - Ice Farm Global Master Fund, Ltd Ice Farm Advisors, LP was formed on December 23, 2013 as the Investment Advisor for the Ice Farm Global Master Fund, LTD (the “Fund”). The fund is a concentrated discretionary global macro fund that utilizes cross-asset expertise as a fundamental tenet of its portfolio construction. The investment approach is predicated on top-down analysis, fo- cused on identifying secular trends, while utilizing the information content of derivative markets to capture profit oppor- tunities emerging from regulatory, business cycle or market events. We got in touch with Justin Hester, Chief Financial Officer at Ice Farm Advisors, to find out more. Company: Ice Farm Advisors Name: Justin Hester Email: [email protected] Phone: 001 212 202 5624 Our view is that the greatest secular opportunities will be created by the unique demographic shifts occurring over the next three decades and their impact on economic performance and macroeconomic policy. Our goal is always to identify the non-economic buyers and sellers of assets, to understand the structural drivers of behavior and to construct high return, risk mitigated trades to efficiently capture the available returns. This will often lead us to invest in a contrarian style, but that is an out- put rather than a goal of the investment process. Our research process is unique and scalable; generating both propri- etary economic, industry and company research in part derived from derivative pricing that allows for the generation of actionable investment ideas. This approach was developed by Michael Green over the last 15 years while acting as portfolio manager at Canyon Partners LLC and other institutions. Currently, our client base is primarily United States based high net worth investors, endowments, family trusts, and fund of funds. We have also been marketing outside of the US and are optimistic about our potential globally. Our philosophy behind client service is simple: we work with each client to ensure all their questions are always answered – transparency in approach and process. As a newer fund it’s imperative that we clearly communicate our differentiated approach to macro. Our CIO, Michael Green, has a background in software (he previously co-founded and sold a software company in the 1990s). He describes writing as “an al- gorithm for structuring his thoughts” and daily sends out a written anal- ysis of current macro events that we compile and send out as a weekly update on Sunday morning to our investors. Few other managers have the discipline to do this, and investors have responded very positively to having that level of access to our thought process. As an organization, while bound by the high intensity of a young firm, we strive for balance. While the majority of our team is from the Millennial generation, both Mike and I have families and it’s important to commu- nicate both through words and actions the importance of a life outside of work. In fact, the name “Ice Farm” derives from Mike’s vacation property – a 19th century ice harvesting operation in Pennsylvania where he goes to unwind from the stress of markets and NYC. To facilitate communica- tion, in addition to the daily thoughts shared by Mike with research, we start each week with a full team meeting for personal updates, to update investment ideas for the past week, thoughts for the current week, and collaborate to see what the best way to trade those ideas are. In our industry, it is our hope and goal to stay ahead of what everyone else is doing. From our perspective, the largest barrier to entry for a new hedge fund manager is back office operations and compliance. With that we have invested in building an institutional back office through staff and service providers and brought on significant compli- ance assistance to try and keep up with regulators. In terms of major trends, we are seeing increased regulation and due diligence by investors. Investors no longer want to know only about our trading and track record, but are much more interested in all aspects of the business. We are pleased to have our progress recognized. Our focus continues to be on delivering superior investment performance and growing our capabilities. We look forward to anticipated capital inflows which will give us the opportunity to add to our headcount at the start of 2016.