How has the hedge fund industry changed since Monis started moving in those circles?
This may sound a bit trite, but the most dramatic change weve seen is that the industry has become more mature. By that I mean that in the past it wasnt unusual for a hedge fund to start off with less capital than they do now and little in the way of IT systems, and the amount of due diligence being done by the investor base was limited. But thats all changed in various ways. Now youve got more demanding investors, including funds of funds, which expect hedge funds to use proper systems, and theyre not interested in the fact that they may be using a few Excel spreadsheets cobbled together. Such a set-up would not provide the investors with the comfort they need. Second, the amount of money that even start-ups are raising is dramatically higher than in the past. This is because theres a bigger ocean to fish in, and also because a number of investors only want to invest in a properly capitalised fund. Theyre not necessarily comfortable with a fund that starts off with $10 million or $20
