COURSE NUMBER: MBA236J.1
This course is dual-listed
with Evening-Weekend MBA Program.
COURSE TITLE: Hedge Fund Strategies
UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 units
INSTRUCTORS: Bill Rindfuss
and Sam Olesky
E-MAIL ADDRESSES: rindfuss@haas.berkeley.edu;
olesky@haas.berkeley.edu
PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA 203 Intro to
Finance. EW233 Asset Management is strongly recommended in advance of/or
concurrently with Hedge Fund Strategies.
CLASS FORMAT: Lectures, guest speakers,
class discussion, exercises, training, team presentations, team strategy
development and coaching, team practice pitches, and team pitches of final
investment strategies to professionals as judges.
REQUIRED READINGS: TBD
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Combination of
contribution to class discussion, interim and final investment strategy
pitches, team projects, and input from teammates.
CAREER FIELD: This course is highly
valuable to students pursuing roles at hedge funds or in other forms of active
investment management. It is helpful for other roles in finance, including
asset allocation, investment advisory and investment banking (in understanding
the investor perspective). It is also instructive for those who want to
take a more active or informed approach to their own investing.
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND
OBJECTIVES:
MBA233 Asset Management is strongly recommended in advance of or concurrently
with Hedge Fund Strategies.
The Hedge Fund Strategies Applied Innovation course in Spring 2018 combines broad exposure to the many types of
hedge funds and their strategies, together with hands-on development of unique
investment strategies within student teams. Content will include several
guest speakers representing different sectors of the hedge fund industry,
lectures, readings, training, and the development and pitching of trade ideas
as team projects. Students will also learn about investing in hedge
funds, including evaluation of fund performance. Concurrently, student
teams will develop their own longer-term and repeatable investment strategies
by exploring unique expertise and insights that are resident within the teams,
forming theses on expected developments and catalysts, and incorporating
lessons from hedge fund speakers and coaches. Students will refine their
strategies both through testing and by pitching and receiving feedback on their
strategies from investment practitioners as judges.
As
an Applied Innovation course
in the Spring, development of teamwork and leadership
skills will be as much a targeted outcome of this course as development of a
winning investment strategy.
Haas Investment Fund Management (1 unit, Fall
Semester 2018)
Students continuing on to the Haas Investment Fund Management course
in Fall 2018 will have applied and been selected in February from the
Hedge Fund Strategies class. This course provides the opportunity for
teams to proceed from strategy development into implementation phase, investing
capital from a dedicated fund. Judges for the final pitch competition in
May will allocate capital from the fund based on perceived promise of
market-beating returns. These teams will then refine their strategies
based on the judges’ feedback and instructors’ guidance, building out their
portfolios in May and managing their strategies through the summer, generally
coordinating via email and communicating via conference call. Regular
team meetings and in-person coaching with instructors will resume in Fall semester, but based on schedules of individual teams
rather than a set class time. Student teams will submit monthly
performance reports through summer and Fall, and will
produce a final report on investment performance in December.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:
Sam Olesky is the Managing
Member of Olesky Capital Management, LLC, an independent investment advisory
firm that conducts principal investing and trading, and manages separate
accounts for trusts, partnerships, individuals, retirement plans, endowments,
and foundations. From 1998 through 2010, Mr. Olesky managed an Olesky Capital
hedge fund. Prior to founding Olesky Capital in 1998, Mr. Olesky was employed
with TD Waterhouse, Inc. where he was First Vice President over a large group
of areas, including Client Services, Electronic Brokerage, Banking Services,
Corporate Actions, Retirement Plans and Regulatory Response and Quality
Assurance. Mr. Olesky joined TD Waterhouse in 1989.
Bill Rindfuss is
Executive Director for Strategic Programs in the Haas Finance Group. In
addition to the Hedge Fund Strategies and Haas Investment Fund Management
courses, he teaches, develops and brings outside speakers for a series of
applied finance training classes in partnership with the Career Management
Group and MBA Finance Club. He represents the Finance Group to the outside
finance community. He had formerly worked at JPMorgan and predecessors in New
York and San Francisco in several finance roles over twenty years, including in
Leveraged Finance, Restructuring, and as head of Credit Risk Management on the
West Coast. He has an MBA in finance and management from Columbia Business
School, and a BA in mathematics and economics from Colgate.