Ten years ago, Pensions & Investments took a big gamble: On the occasion of our 25th anniversary, we named and profiled the “25 people we believe represent the powers-to-be in the next 25 years” in institutional investment.
Back then, our sources were so convinced these were the 25 people who would change the industry that we said with not a little bravado: “They all have at least one thing in common: Long after we're gone from the business of editing P&I, these are some of the people our successors — and possibly yours — will have to reckon with.”
Well, it's a bit early. While certainly many players on our list are well known and highly regarded, none has yet attained the stature of household names like PIMCO's Bill Gross or Yale University's David Swensen.
In fact, three people on the list seem to have disappeared from the investment arena altogether.
“I think this list is evidence of how much has changed over the last 10 years. A lot of these folks are off the map now,” said David Barrett, managing partner of the executive recruitment firm David Barrett Partners LLC, New York.
“The investment industry was at a tipping point a decade ago, moving from the cottage industry stage, where most people in the business knew each other, to become a huge institutionalized industry that's gotten much more fragmented with so many moving parts,” said Mr. Barrett.
Given the devastation in the money management industry this year, sources said it's probably an achievement that the 22 we could find are gainfully employed as portfolio managers, consultants, pension fund executives, investment bankers, attorneys, lobbyists, institutional marketers and pension fund administrators.
One notable subset of the 1998 list is four pension fund and endowment executives who capitalized on their investment skills and founded their own — or became key players in — successful money management firms.
• Mark W. Yusko is president and chief investment officer of Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Morgan Creek Capital Capital Management, which manages about $2 billion in hedge funds of funds. Mr. Yusko was CIO of UNC Management Co., which manages the $1.5 billion endowment of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Mr. Yusko founded Morgan Creek in 2004.
• Jay A. Yoder now is partner, portfolio manager and head of real assets at private equity manager Altius Associates Ltd., London, which manages $12 billion, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission ADV form. Prior to joining Altius last month, Mr. Yoder was a portfolio manager at alternative asset manager Tuckerbrook Alternative Investments LP, Marblehead, Mass., where he also managed real asset strategies. He served as director of investments at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1998.
• Robert F. Hill Jr. was just setting up his long-short equity management firm, Shenandoah Asset Management LLC, Richmond, Va., when P&I profiled him in 1998. The firm now manages $323 million, according to its ADV filing, in U.S. long-only and long-short equity, as well as in portable alpha and 130/30 strategies, under Mr. Hill's guidance as chief executive officer and principal. Mr. Hill had previously been director of equities at the now $55 billion Virginia Retirement System, Richmond.
• Irwin C. Loud turned his passion for emerging and niche private equity investment into a new career when he joined startup Muller & Monroe Asset Management LLC, Chicago, in 1999. He now is managing director and CIO of the firm, which manages $286 million, according to its ADV filing.