Fundviews Podcast

Greg interviews John Beldy from Season 1 of Fundviews Podcast, on  the first ever "Update" episode. John started putting together his fund in early 2020 right before COVID, but has found that there is a better fit with a Separately Managed Account approach. He has partnered with Exceed Investments, a mutual fund manager to offer these services to the very fragmented RIA space across the United States.

Greg interviews Ryan Craft, Founder of Saluda Grade. Ryan grew up in South Florida, before attending Georgetown University and making his way to Wall Street. Ryan surrounded himself with very intelligent and thought provoking people throughout his career, which took him from Merrill Lynch, Merging with Bank of America, then to RBC and Baird before launching his own firm, Saluda Grade. 

Ryan has built a specialty in the residential mortgage securitization business throughout his career, and focuses on providing efficient capital to operators, funds, and managers in underserved asset classes. Saluda Grade provides both equity and debt financing for these groups, and is constantly building into new areas. 

Greg interviews Herald Van der Linde. Herald grew up in the Netherlands near the German border and studied Macroeconomics before moving to Jakarta, Indonesia. He worked for a firm that merged with UBS as an equity research analyst, before taking a role in South Africa focused on strategy and macroeconomics. After a few years there, he moved back to Asia and eventually settled down in Hong Kong.

Today, Herald is the Chief Asia Equity Strategist at HSBC. He has written 3 books over the years including his most recent “Asia’s Stock Markets from the Group Up.” He dedicates time each year to studying something new, and thoroughly enjoys his research and Asian culture.

Greg interviews Chris Drose, founder of Bleecker Street Capital. Chris grew up in South Carolina, and became interested in failure and failing companies at a young age. He worked for several hedge funds after graduating college and recently took the plunge to launch his own firm and fund with a short selling bias. 

Chris discusses his views on the short market and the different styles as well as how he identifies positions. He is off to a roaring start with Bleecker street, and I’m sure will be expanding over the coming years.

Greg interviews Levi Benkert. Levi grew up all over the world, traveling with his family focused on missionary type work. He flipped his first house as a teenager and started a small chain of coffee shops in Sacramento, before scaling up his real estate business. 

2008 hit both his business and personal life quite hard, and Levi and his family moved to Ethiopia to start an orphanage for children coming from extremely difficult situations. Over 6 years, he actively worked on the non-profit and built up several other large businesses in the country and surrounding region. Subsequently he moved back to the United States and settled down in Austin Texas. He stepped back from the non-profit finally and sold the businesses in order to launch Harbor Capital, and investment firm focused on Industrial Real Estate Opportunities.

Greg interviews James A Fok. James is a veteran financial and strategic advisor to corporations and governments, as well as a brilliant author. He grew up in Hong Kong before attending college in London and eventually found his way back to Hong Kong where he resides today. 

James spent the early part of his career in Investment Banking in Europe and Asia, before joining the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing as a senior executive for almost a decade. He played in integral role at the exchange, working on several major initiatives such as the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme. His book, FINANCIAL COLD WAR:  A View of Sino-US Relations from the financial markets is available around the world.

Greg Interviews Bryce Gilleland, of Asha Capital Partners. Bryce grew up in Southern California, working his way through the corporate finance world for large utilities companies before completing his MBA at UC Berkeley. After his MBA, Bryce jumped into the Cryptocurrency world, launching his first fund - Coincidence. 

Bryce recently launched Asha Capital Partners, and switched gears to focus on underwriting managers in the space to provide a more stable, diversified, and institutional offering for those that want to avoid deep drawdowns and negative volatility. Bryce talks about the industry as it is today, and the strategies they focus on at Asha Capital Partners.

Greg interviews Gershie Vann, Founder of Magma Capital Funds. Gershie grew up in Brooklyn and California before studying Jewish Law for several years. He started his career in Chicago working for ReMED, focused on operational process improvements and data analytics. Gershie then moved to Concerto where he honed his business intelligence skills. 

After reading Ray Dalio’s book (Principles), Gershie decided it was time to take the plunge and launch Magma Capital, with a focus on building automated trading strategies that optimize risk in daily market environments.

Greg interviews Dean Myerow, Founder of Southern Waters Capital. Dean grew up north of Boston, and graduated from University of Miami Law School before jumping into the bond sales and trading markets on Wall Street. Dean co-founded Bergen Capital, which created an online exchange of bond quotes before getting acquired by BB&T. 

After years of special situations fixed income and capital markets, Dean moved back down to South Florida. What was a potential quiet retirement, turned into several entrepreneurial endeavors. Dean launched Southern Waters Capital, an asset management shop focused on real estate development and fixed income trading. Dean is also an active community member, and non-profit advocate through the Friendship Circle of Greater Fort Lauderdale.

Greg interviews author and investigator of financial wrongdoings, Jared Bibler. Jared graduated from MIT with a master’s in engineering before making his mark on Wall Street. The combination of advanced systems engineering, and financial knowledge allowed Jared to excel at building more efficient and robust processes within several banks. Eventually Jared picked up and moved to Iceland, working for one of the top 3 banks in Iceland for a several years. 

The Iceland crisis in 2008 hit, and Jared was brought in as lead investigator to figure out what had happened. Today, Jared resides in Switzerland and just released his book, “Iceland’s Secret: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Con”.