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"What's past is prologue" Antonio in Act II, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's The Tempest
By Niki Natarajan
If Antonio is right, then mythologist and author Joseph Campbell also has a point when he says that "Everything begins with a story." Once upon a time investment consultants ganged up on Gartmore - which was then one of the big four balanced managers - and took the UK-based firm off their preferred provider list. Assets flowed out. The year was 1994.
As consultants battle it out for the direct investing territory two decades later, favoured hedge funds need to watch out for consultant overlap, because if the London Pension Fund Authority's move to redeem from Brevan Howard were to catch on as a trend, Alan Howard's firm might be facing a sticky wicket.
While this is an unlikely outcome with respect to Brevan Howard, it is certainly a possible one for any hedge fund that becomes the darling of the consultants and then for some reason does not live up to expectation.
Whereas funds of funds are paid as fiduciaries to take the heat for bad...