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.