Black Enterprise – Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Secretary of State under former President Bill Clinton, announced the creation of a new hedge fund carrying her name – Albright Capital Management -and conveniently based in Washington. Ms. Albright will chair the new firm. Last week, Albright Capital announced that PGGM, the huge Dutch pension fund, injected $329 million (250 million euro) toseed the new multi-asset class, emerging markets hedge fund.
The Albright fund, a vehicle registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, will be led by Gregory Bowes and John Yonemoto, both managing principals and chairs of the investment committee.Mr. Yonemoto was a managing director focusing on emerging markets at Darby Overseas, the emerging market investment arm of Franklin Templeton Investments. Darby was founded in 1994 by former U.S.Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. Mr. Bowes has 20 years’ experience working at Fairfield Greenwich Group, an alternative investment firm, as well as Greenwich Capital Markets, a value arbitragetrading firm.
Ms. Albright’s new venture is the latest in a recent trend of politicians with no investment experience jumping on the asset management or alternative investment bandwagon. Al Gore, for instance, theformer U.S. presidential hopeful, is chairman of Generation Investment, a London-based asset management firm he formed in 2004 with David Blood, previously chief executive of Goldman Sachs AssetManagement. The team is routinely called “Blood and Gore” in the press.
