Fundviews Podcast

Greg Interviews Stephen Feid, Founder of Bedford Global Capital Strategies. Stephen grew up in Ohio, went to a boarding school in Princeton New Jersey before studying at Trinity College in Hartford. 

Stephen worked for a short time at an advertising agency in NYC, before getting pulled into the wall street craze. He got licensed and immediately became an institutional trader for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Stephen was put on the block trading desk for hedge funds and institutions where he met his first client, Steven A Cohen.

Over time Stephen left the firm to become head trader for a hedge fund focused on Healthcare stocks called Forstmann Partners LP. Forstmann was a long short, dollar neutral fund, and Stephen built many trading dashboards and models during his time there.

After leaving, Stephen built a consulting practice, providing health care industry research and technical dashboards for other hedge funds. Stephen now resides in Miami, and continues to look for alpha in niche alternative investments. 

Greg Interviews Mukul Pal, cofounder of Ait Inc, a long-short equity fund focused on generating uncorrelated alpha for investors. Mukul grew up in New Delhi and Bombay, moved to Romania and eventually to Canada. He has seen how financial markets operate in emerging, frontier and developed countries. 

Mukul is a very science-oriented investor. He focuses on the why and how in every situation. He has listed a fintech breakthrough on the NASDAQ, and founded several companies focused on artificial intelligence. AIT Inc encompasses Mukul’s long academic and scientific breakthroughs for the benefit of investors.

Greg interviews David P.A. Mullings, founder of Blue Mahoe Capital. 

David grew up in two worlds - Jamaica and Miami. He was one of the youngest to graduate from the University of Miami at the age of 19 years old, and after a year of professional soccer he went back and graduated with his MBA at the age of 22.

He founded a company called Random Media with his brother in 2001 and built a successful business bringing Caribbean entertainers and pop-stars to the world, and the world to the Caribbean. 

After gaining valuable experience at Jamaica National Group, and working with other entrepreneurs he founded Blue Mahoe Capital. Blue Mahoe invests in both public and private companies in the Caribbean and Latin America, and has plans to go public in the near future.

David believes that the best way to be successful is to follow your passion and invest in “what you know”. Find a successful person to model your business after and a mentor to help you get there.

Greg interviews Frank Holmes, of US Global Investors. Frank grew up in Toronto, Canada and went to Western University. He became a successful investor in mining companies, metals and commodities, and bought a majority share of US Global Investors and moved to Texas in 1989. His funds have received dozens of awards over the years, and he has since launched several ETFs including JETS which has grown to over 1.5 Billion in assets this year since the COVID pandemic started.

Frank speaks about what it takes to be a successful fund manager, and how he sees the financial environment through a scientific lens. He discusses how important it is to use data that is available, but also to see things first hand on the ground. Frank believes that the future for Gold investments is very strong given the current environment, and he is working on several new projects to allow retail investors and the “Robinhood” crowd to participate.

Greg interviews prominent investor, Jim Rogers. Jim cofounded the famous Quantum Fund with George Soros which returned over 4200% in a ten year period from 1970 to 1980. In comparison, the S&P index returned just north of 47% in that same time period. 

Jim is an avid traveler, having broken world records for travelling around the world on a motorcycle, and almost ten years later in a custom Mercedes with his wife. He founded the Rogers International Commodities index in 1998, and has written over half a dozen books. Needless to say, Jim is an extraordinarily interesting guy with many crazy and wonderful stories. I hope you enjoy listening.

Greg Interviews Geetu Sharma, Founder of AlphasFuture. Geetu grew up in India, and found her way to London, Switzerland and now Minneapolis. She spent most of her career working for large banks and institutions and analyzing companies. After working on Pictet and Cie's ESG investing team in Geneva, she gained an insight into why companies are successful in the long run. Subsequently, Geetu decided to open up her own fund focused on identifying these opportunities while also promoting strong sustainability initiatives. 

Geetu’s story is extremely inspiring. She speaks about energy and sustainability initiatives, the importance of looking at the scientific facts, and the opportunities that are finally opening up for women in finance.

Greg interviews Brian Brackeen and Candice Matthews Brackeen on this first ever power duo episode!

Candice studied economics and statistics but became an entrepreneur and built an app called Hello Parent, before working with an accelerator funding minority owned and operated startups and subsequently launching Lightship Capital.

Brian has been a coder since he was 8 years old, and after dropping out of college worked for several major technology companies such as IBM, ADP, and Apple. Brian started and built a company called Kairos focused on facial recognition technology.

Brian and Candice started Lightship Capital to provide growth capital to minority owned and operated businesses in the Midwest. They are fully subscribed and looking forward to launching Fund 2 down the road. 

Greg interviews Steve Jasmin, of SC3 in the first episode where the is not directly a fund manager, but rather an asset manager and merchant banker.

Steven Jasmin grew up in the United states, graduated from Emory University’s Business School, and immediately built a management consulting business providing advice to fortune 500 companies such as Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, and Johnson and Johnson. Around 2010 he pivoted towards advising Offshore Oil and Gas dynasties in both their business efficiencies as well as their investments, and ultimately became a Chief Restructuring Officer for several of his clients. 

Today Steve spends his time in Guyana, focused on growth opportunities largely related to the Offshore Oil discoveries made since 2015. He has built several companies to help provide value and impact to the Guyanese people, and investors that want to participate in the country’s growth.

Greg interviews Dave Seymour of Freedom Venture investments. Dave moved to the USA when he was 20 years old. Dave was a firefighter for 16 years, before getting into real estate through wholesale transactions in 2007. After losing virtually everything in the great financial crisis of 2008, he bounced back and ran a construction and real estate company focused on flipping houses in the Boston area. He was the star of A&E's "Flipping Boston" for 3 seasons. Dave speaks about the perseverance and determination that drove him throughout his career and the extreme importance he places on capital preservation.

Dave is now raising capital for a $100 Million real estate fund with a focus on smaller multifamily buildings on the gulf coast of Florida.

Greg interviews Robert Frankfurt of The Living Fund. Rob talks about his early beginnings at Wharton and UCLA Business School as well as me spent as an investment banker and activist investor. After becoming an activist investor in the parent company of Lane Bryant (largest plus size retailer) and tearing his ACL in Jiu Jitsu Rob became focused on improving his own lifestyle choices and subsequently investing in companies focused on reversing the growing obesity and chronic illness epidemic. Rob is now actively raising capital for a fund focused on helping these companies grow, and making money for investors at the same time.