Hedge Funds: It Is Who You Know, After All

The art world, as we all know, is a shadowy and illiquid place to make investments, where who you know is often much more important than how much money you have. If you're a newcomer to the market with deep pockets but few connections, the first thing you have to do is buy yourself an "art consultant" who can get you access to the best galleries and the hottest artists.

Hedge funds, on the other hand, are the ultimate meritocracy. Money talks, end of story. Right? Er, not so much. It turns out that former CNBC anchor Ron Insana is set to make millions of dollars not on the grounds of any particular strategic insights, but just because of who he knows. DealJournal has the documents for Insana's new fund of hedge funds:

As any good reporter knows, access can be money in the bank. And here the document is up front about what Insana is offering, saying it capitalizes, in addition to financial analysis, “on the long-standing relationships of the Firm’s founder Ron Insana.
“Many of the funds accept new investments on a highly selective basis – if at all,” the document says.
The former CNBC anchor has lined up a blue-chip roster of managers, according to the review of the fund documents. Among the list of 13 funds in which Insana will invest: SAC Capital Advisors, Renaissance Technologies Corp., Perry Corp. Third Point, Omega Advisors and Icahn Management.

This is just like the art world, really. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you're not likely to be able to invest money with SAC Capital or Renaissance. Unless you pay a middleman – in this case, Ron Insana. And even then, you only get partial exposure to the big-name funds, mitigated by investments in other funds you might have no interest in. Plus, you have to live with Insana investing your funds according to his "macroeconomic outlook". Yikes.

Still, I'm sure that some people will consider the ability to have even some of their money with Stevie Cohen or James Simons to be worth all the fees and meddling by Insana. Looks like the former anchor is set to make some serious dough.