Texas Alternatives Conference - Agenda

May 25, 2022
The Line Hotel Austin, TX
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Agenda

  • Wednesday, May 25, 2022

11:00am – 12:15 pm 

Registration and Brunch

12:15pm – 12:30pm   

Welcome Remarks
Ryan Bailey Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner, Paradigm Institutional Investments
Bryan Corbett President and Chief Executive Officer, MFA

Bryan Corbett is MFA’s President and CEO. He is a veteran of Washington and Wall Street. For the past 12 years, he was a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, most recently as Managing Director in the Corporate Private Equity segment and Head of the firm’s OneCarlyle Global Investment Resources Group. In this role, Mr. Corbett and his team provided strategic and operational support to investment teams and portfolio companies across segments.

For the first half of his Carlyle tenure, Mr. Corbett managed U.S. government and regulatory issues affecting Carlyle, its investments and the industry. In this role, he developed legislative and regulatory strategies relating to all of Carlyle’s business segments, including private equity, credit and real estate. In addition to serving on the boards of several Carlyle portfolio companies, Mr. Corbett started the firm’s global corporate citizenship program focused on responsible investing, published Carlyle’s inaugural corporate citizenship report, and started the firm’s initiative to recruit and place diverse individuals on portfolio company boards in the U.S.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Corbett served in the George W. Bush Administration as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and as the Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt at the Treasury Department. He also served as Majority Counsel on the Senate Banking Committee.

Mr. Corbett earned his JD from George Washington University Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the George Washington Law Review, and earned his BA from University of Notre Dame.

12:30pm – 1:30 pm    

Keynote

Fireside Chat with Guest Speaker

Introduced by:

Britt Harris Chief Executive Officer and President, UTIMCO

Britt Harris has over 30 years’ investment experience leading several of the largest, most successful, and most innovative investment organizations in America. He is a member of the President’s Working Group for Financial Markets and an advisor to the Dallas Federal Reserve. He is one of only a few people who have worked extensively in both the private and public sectors.

Mr. Harris is currently CEO and President at the University of Texas/Texas A&M University Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) which is the largest public endowment in America. Prior to UTIMCO, he was CIO for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), CEO for Bridgewater Associates, CIO and President for Verizon Investment Management Corporation and a managing director for Asea Brown Boveri in Europe. He got his start in his home state of Texas. He has three times been named one of America’s leading pension plan investment chiefs, been consistently named among the top five asset investors in the world and was honored with a lifetime achievement for distinguished service to the financial industry.

Mr. Harris is an executive professor for “Titans of Investing” at his alma mater Texas A&M University and The University of Texas and serves on a variety of public and private boards.

Keynote:

George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States of America

Moderated by:

Paul D. Horvath CEO, Orchard Global

Mr. Horvath is Group Chief Executive Officer for Orchard Global Capital Group. Prior to co-founding the firm, Mr. Horvath held Global Head of Structured Credit and Derivatives roles at JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch from 1994-2008. Mr. Horvath began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he monitored the Mortgage-Backed Securities sector, as well as the bank and thrift industry. He received his BS in economics and international relations from Georgetown University and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Horvath is a Trustee of the National Cathedral School as well as serving on their Finance Committee and Chairing their Investment Committee. In addition, he is a Trustee of the Washington National Cathedral where he serves on both the Finance and Investment Committees.  He is the Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Protestant Episcopalian Cathedral Foundation. He is on the Board of Regents of Georgetown University and is an active member of the Johns Hopkins Physics and Astronomy Advisory Council. Mr. Horvath is also the Chairman of the Board of the Hungarian American Institute.

1:30pm – 2:00pm 

Break

Networking Break

2:00pm – 2:45pm 

Texas CIO Panel

Next Generation

Panelists:

Jase Auby CIO, Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Jase Auby is Chief Investment Officer for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. Appointed CIO in December 2019, Mr. Auby has oversight over one of the largest investment funds ($204 billion) in the world. The Trust’s asset allocation consists of Global Equity (54%), Stable Value (includes fixed income and hedge funds, 21%), Real Return (21%) and Risk Parity (8%). The allocation sums to 104% and therefore has leverage at the asset allocation level. Private asset classes within the allocation total 35% and include private equity, real estate as well as energy, natural resources and infrastructure. TRS is a pioneer among U.S. funds having opened a foreign office in London in 2015. TRS is headquartered in Austin, TX and provides retirement benefits to 1.8 million members and targets a long term return of 7.25%. TRS invests in more than 15,000 businesses in 54 different countries around the world.

Ajit Singh Chief Investment Officer, Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund

Present CIO, Houston Firefighters Relieve and Retirement Fund, Past: Chief Risk Officer & Deputy to the CIO, United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund

David T. Veal Chief Investment Officer, Employees Retirement System of Texas

David Veal is Chief Investment Officer of the Employees Retirement System of Texas, a state pension system that administers more than $40 billion of investments.  Prior to ERS, he served for five years as Chief Investment Officer of the City of Austin Employees’ Retirement System.  He has also held senior positions at Teacher Retirement System of Texas, worked for Morgan Stanley as an equity research analyst, and served with distinction as a US Navy officer.  He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and an undergraduate degree in engineering from Auburn University.

Moderated By:

Dr. John Claisse CEO, Albourne Group

John Claisse joined Albourne in July 1996, relocated from London to San Francisco in July 2003 and became Albourne Group CEO in August 2015. John is an equity partner and member of Albourne’s Executive Committee and also chairs the firm’s Corporate Planning Council, which comprises Albourne’s function and region heads. John helped develop the firm’s proprietary risk analytics and was formerly the Senior Analyst for quantitative equity strategies and multi-strategy hedge funds. John remains a Portfolio Analyst working with several public and corporate plans, large endowments and foundations. John also serves on the Advisory Board of the Sussex University School of Business, on the Board of Trustees of Standards Board of Alternative Investments (SBAI), and on the Governing Board of The Robert Toigo Foundation.

John holds a first class Mathematics Degree and a PhD from Sussex University.

Albourne is an independent advisory firm focused on hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real assets, real estate and dynamic beta. Founded in 1994, Albourne has over 300 clients with over $650bn invested directly in alternative investments.

2:45pm - 2:55pm

Texas Alternative Conference - TAIA Lifetime Achievement Award

2:55pm – 3:40pm

Fund Manager CEO/CIO Panel

State of the Markets Panel

Panelists:

Pete Briger Co-Chief Executive Officer, Fortress Investment Group

Mr. Briger is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Fortress Investment Group.  Prior to joining Fortress in 2002, Mr. Briger spent fifteen years at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner in 1996.  Mr. Briger serves on the board of several charitable organizations including Princeton University and the UCSF Foundation.  In addition, Mr. Briger is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the PayPal Digital Advisory board.  Mr. Briger received a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business. 

Michael Gelband Co-Founder, Co-CEO, and Head of Fixed Income, ExodusPoint Capital Management, LP

Michael Gelband is Co-Founder, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Head of Fixed Income, and a member of the Firm’s Management Committee. Prior to co-founding the firm, he was the Global Head of Fixed Income for Millennium Management LLC. At Millennium, he was responsible for the oversight of all recruitment, trading and risk management of Millennium’s Fixed Income Business. Before joining Millennium, Michael worked at Lehman Brothers from 1983 until May 2007 and again from June through October 2008. He had various trading and management responsibilities over that time including Head of Liquid Markets, Head of Fixed Income in Asia-Pacific, Global Head of Fixed Income, and Global Head of Capital Markets. Michael was also a member of the Lehman Brothers Management and Executive committees. Michael graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Georgia, and he earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He is the former Chairman of the Ross School Advisory Board at the University of Michigan. Michael currently serves on the University’s President’s Advisory Group.

Kelly Granat Co-Chief Investment Officer, Lone Pine Capital

Kelly Granat, Co-Chief Investment Officer of Lone Pine Capital

Graduated from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges (1996) and Harvard Business School (2002).

Trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a Trustee of The Trinity School.

Moderated By:

Tony Caruso Senior Director, UTIMCO

Tony Caruso joined UTIMCO in July 2018 and is a Senior Director on the Hedge Funds team.  Tony is responsible for managing the endowment’s $6B Stable Value Hedge Fund portfolio, which consists of a collection of diversifying strategies that exhibit low beta to traditional risk assets.

Prior to joining UTIMCO, Tony was Head of Non-Directional Strategies at Mesirow Advanced Strategies, a fund of hedge funds with peak assets of $14B.  In this role, Tony was responsible for sourcing and monitoring low beta strategies such as equity market neutral, quantitative, macro, relative value, volatility arbitrage, convertible arbitrage, insurance-linked, and trade finance.  Tony was also responsible for managing customized client portfolios with low beta mandates.

Prior to Mesirow, Tony was a trader at Bridgewater Associates, a $160B hedge fund located in Westport, CT.  At Bridgewater, Tony was responsible for managing the firm’s fixed income trading activity, which included developed market rates, emerging market debt, corporate debt, and inflation-linked bonds.  Prior to Bridgewater, Tony was a trader at Marquette Partners, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm that was one of the leading market makers in futures and options.  At Marquette, Tony spearheaded the firm’s algorithmic trading efforts by leading a group of programmers in the development of rules-based trading strategies.

Tony received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with a concentration in Analytic Finance, Econometrics, and Statistics.  Tony graduated from Duke University in 2003 with a BS in Economics.  Tony is also a CFA Charterholder.

3:40pm – 4:00pm

Break

Networking Break

4:00pm – 5:00pm

TRS Pitch Contest

Moderated By:

Steven Wilson Director, Public Markets, Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Steven Wilson is Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $200 billion pension system serving 1.8 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Volatility, and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta Sensitive strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.

Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.

Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, and holds the CAIA designation.

Judges:

Clint Carlson Founder and CIO, Carlson Capital

Mr. Carlson founded Carlson Capital in 1993. For five years prior, he was head of risk arbitrage for the investment arm of the Bass Brothers organization. Before joining the Bass organization, Mr. Carlson co-managed a risk arbitrage fund for Maxxam Group and affiliated companies. Mr. Carlson received a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Rice University and a law degree from the University of Houston. He is a signatory for the Standards Board for Alternative Investments and a Board Member for the Rice Management Company.

Travis Cocke Chief Investment Officer, Voss Capital

Travis has over 15 years of direct public market investment experience, including two years as a portfolio manager with complete investment discretion for a portion of the public equity portfolio of a family office.  Prior to founding Voss Capital LLC in 2011, he was a Portfolio Manager at Farney Management Corp. and a Generalist Research Analyst at Ascendant Advisors LLC. Travis received a BBA in Finance from Texas A&M University.

Todd Rapp CEO, PineBridge Partners, LP

Mr. Rapp joined PineBridge Investments in 2021 as CEO of PineBridge Partners, a global, multi-strategy absolute return hedge fund.

Mr. Rapp has over 20 years of experience in financial services, including 17 years in the hedge fund industry. Mr. Rapp most recently worked at BMO Global Asset Management from 2019-2021. Mr. Rapp co-founded Folger Hill Asset Management in 2014, which was backed by Leucadia Asset Management. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Rapp was Chief Risk Officer at Highfields Capital Management, serving on the firm’s Risk Committee, Valuation and Pricing Committee, Trading Practices Committee, and Business Continuity Committee. Mr. Rapp was also Head of Risk and Trading at Karsch Capital Management from 2003 to 2012, where he also ran a portfolio using a fundamental volatility strategy. He began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he was a volatility trader for Global Equity Derivatives group. Mr. Rapp currently serves on the Advisory Board of Lightkeeper, a data management and portfolio intelligence solution for asset managers, and previously served on the Board of Trustees for Coney Island Prep, a New York City charter school. He also served as Responsible Officer and Manager-In-Charge of Folger Hill (Hong Kong) and was on the Board of Directors for Folger Hill (Hong Kong) and Folger Hill (Singapore). He holds the Charted Financial Analyst designation.

Presenters:

Ivelina Green CIO and Founder, Pearlstone Alternative

Ivelina Green is the CIO and Founder of Pearlstone Alternative. Ivelina has 18 years of experience in European Credit and Special Situations.

Prior to launching Pearlstone, Ivelina was a Partner at CQS where she headed the Global Special Situations Group. In this capacity, Ivelina built and managed a global team of dedicated special situations analysts based in London, New York and Hong Kong. The team sought idiosyncratic opportunities with high execution complexity in companies which had come under cyclical and structural pressure. In recent years, Ivelina and her team led many deal negotiations in loan-to-own and rescue financing situations where her relationships with traditional leverage finance lenders allowed for amicable solutions, sometimes- in unfriendly jurisdictions.

Ivelina started her career at Goldman Sachs in 2004 in New York and later moved to London in 2007 where she rose to head the European Distressed Debt Trading business.

Ivelina has been actively involved in various Female Leadership and Mentoring Initiatives seeking to promote women in finance throughout her career at Goldman Sachs and later at CQS. She was named to the Hedge Fund Journal’s Leading Women in Hedge Funds in 2018. Ivelina was also recognized in the HFJ’s Global Report of Leading Portfolio Managers for 2021.

She was a Wien Scholar and holds a BA magna cum laude in Economics with concentrations in Mathematics, International Business and International Studies from Brandeis University.

Khadir Richie Chief Investment Officer, Richie Capital Group

Khadir Richie is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Richie Capital Group. Prior to founding RCG, Mr. Richie held leadership roles as an Investment Banker, Buy-Side Equity Analyst, Management Consultant and Electrical Engineer/Software Programmer. Additionally, he worked in short-term roles in Private Equity. These combined experiences provide him with a comprehensive and unique perspective as an investor. Mr. Richie earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Richie Capital Group is an Austin, Texas-based investment firm specializing in discretionary actively managed public equity portfolios supported by rigorous risk management. We take a high conviction and qualitative approach. What we do best is identify unique, typically smaller, undiscovered companies and special situations that are mispriced. Our portfolios are concentrated, and we invest in sectors where we have depth of experience and expertise. Our goal is to hold our investments for the longer term and allow our investments to compound over time.

Fernando Vigil Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Teca Partners, LP

Fernando has 19 years of experience across both public and private equity investing. Most recently, he was with Brookside Capital (aka Bain Capital Public Equities), which he joined in 2008. He served as a Managing Director from 2014 to 2016 and as a Director from 2010 to 2013. He was co-head of the consumer sector reporting directly to the fund’s Portfolio Manager. In that role he managed a portfolio of global long and short positions with responsibility for the sector investment process, including idea generation, due diligence, position sizing, portfolio and risk management within the sector, in partnership with the fund’s leadership. He worked on investments in all major geographies, with a focus on the U.S., Europe and Latin America. He was also actively involved in the fund’s private investing activity.

Fernando began his investment career with Bain Capital in 2001. From 2001 to 2008 he worked as an Analyst, Associate and Principal with Bain Capital Ventures, the venture and growth capital affiliate of Bain Capital. During his time there he was involved in a number of growth and venture stage investments in software, information services and healthcare services.

He holds a B.A. in Economics (with distinction) from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and Siebel Scholar.

5:00pm – 6:00pm

Reception

Closing Network Reception