AI Hedge Awards 2017

30 Acquisition International - Hedge Fund Awards 2017 Fort Sheridan Advisors Best Managed Accounts Investment Boutique - USA Fort Sheridan Advisors Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC is a boutique Registered Investment Advisor based in Illinois. We invited Peter Karmin to talk us through the firm’s service offering and how it aims to offer the tailored investment products designed to meet the needs of its investors. Company: Fort Sheridan Advisors, LLC Name: Peter Karmin Email: [email protected] Web: www.Fortllc.com Address: 600 Central Avenue, Suite 365, Highland Park, IL 60035, USA Phone: 001-847-559-9703 HF170071 Founded in 2009, Fort Sheridan Advisors was originally focused on macro strategies with a special emphasis on derivatives. During the past few years, the company’s focus has expanded to managing equity portfolios both on the long and short side. Peter outlines in detail the wide range of services the firm now offers clients. “Here at Fort Sheridan Advisors, all of our services and mandates are customized. We work closely with the investor in managed accounts and funds of ones. Our mandates have included long volatility / tail strategies, FX hedging, Icelandic government and mortgage bonds, Asian swaption portfolios and most recently shorts in utility stocks. Across all of these mandates we have worked with our investors in designing and managing the portfolio providing the specific exposure they are seeking. “In addition, we also serve as an outsourced ‘trading desk’ for our clients. They come to us with areas they are looking to invest in either as an alpha or hedge product. We work with them on ideas, help them execute the strategy and oversee it. For our long option / volatility strategies, we manage the portfolios based off of a pre-determined annual ‘decay’. For strategies with undefined risk, we frequently truncate the exposure by buying out of the money options which effectively serve as stop losses.” Working in such a competitive industry means that differentiation is vital, as Peter emphasises as he discusses how the firm marks itself out as the best option for investors. “What differentiates us from larger firms in the industry is that we pride ourselves on the service and care we give to each of our mandates. We provide full transparency to our investors with position details and scenario analysis such that investment results should meet our client’s expectations if the underlying thesis proves correct. For an institutional investor, we provide an individualized investment vehicle that caters to their model rather than the other way around. We differentiate ourselves because we try to construct portfolios that take advantage of supply and demand imbalances. Our most recent mandate came from our idea that the low rate environment has created an overvaluation in assets that serve as yield alternatives. “Investors have flocked to dividend stocks and utilities in particular. Additionally, the underlying utility business model is outdated and is being threatened by technological disruptions such as Nest or Google’s Deepmind.” Looking ahead, Peter believes that the firm has a prosperous and invigorating future ahead of it as it seeks to grow and expand in order to capitalise on its current success and support a wider range of clients. “Moving forward we are excited about our growing long / short equity business. We are actively pursuing mandates involving the renewable energy space as we believe that this is an ever expanding market which our investors, both existing and future, will want to move into.” “What differentiates us from larger firms in the industry is that we pride ourselves on the service and care we give to each of our mandates.”