N America News April 2017

44 NORTH AMERICA NEWS / APRIL 2017 , LoPresti LawGroup, PC (‘LLG’) is a boutique securities lawfirm inNewYork that has been dedicated to the alternative asset management industry since its inception. Dedicated to the Alternative Asset Management Industry Please tell me about your firm, the work you do and the types of clients with whom you work. LLG serves both the buy and the sell side of the hedge fund marketplace, representing fund managers and the funds they advise as well as allocators to hedge funds. On the sell side, LLG represents hedge fund managers both large and small, start-up and seasoned, in connection with launch of various fund vehicles and related advisory entities. On the buy side, LLG advises fund investors in most all categories in connection with the evaluation, due diligence, and structuring of investments in hedge funds, managed accounts, and other investment vehicles. In this capacity LLG advises multi-manager funds, single and multi-family offices, and high net worth individuals when they deploy capital to hedge fund strategies. The firm works with trusted local partners in many prevalent offshore jurisdictions to accommodate its Clients’ needs outside the US. Specifically, within the hedge fund space, what services does your firm offer and how do you tailor these around the needs of individual clients? LLG provides advice regarding fund structuring, fund formation services (domestic and offshore), investment advisor registration / exemption compliance, negotiation of fund investments (including seeding agreements), structure and registration of 1940 Act Funds, due diligence and investor document review and preparation, and related services and advice. If your firm directly invests, what is your approach to risk and how do you ensure that investors are not exposed to unnecessary volatility? The firm does not invest in hedge funds. LLG advises its high net worth and smaller family office clients to mitigate fraud risk by investing – whenever possible – through separately managed accounts and trusted allocation platforms that perform independent due diligence, obtain daily and intra-day portfolio information, and that maintain custody of cash and securities. Larger allocators are advised to conduct independent operational and other due diligence that involves obtaining references from key service providers and confirming that basic safeguards are in place to prevent risks unrelated to investment strategies. LG advises all fund investors to perform a detailed attribution analysis. Alpha is getting harder to find, and correlation among sectors, strategies and asset classes makes the search even harder. Today’s hedge fund investors need to have a deeper and more dissected understanding of the composition of a particular fund’s portfolio and how the investment in question will fit into their overall portfolio. What is your firm’s overall mission and what steps do you take to achieve this? LLG’s mission is to provide legal advice to the alternative asset management industry that is based on practical experience gained outside the confines of the law firm environment, and to provide such advice and related services on the basis of sensible, fixed-fee arrangements wherever possible. Clients large and small demand that legal services – like any other business expense – are to be understood, budgeted and controlled wherever possible as part of the duty our clients owe to their own investors and shareholders. LLG takes this into consideration in formulating fees for the services it provides. Working within such a fast-paced industry, how do you ensure that your firm remains on the cutting edge of new developments and how do you ensure that you are always best placed to meet your clients’ needs? Staying abreast of regulatory developments is relatively easy; any law firm can subscribe to the usual suspect news services that provide weekly or even daily information on regulatory changes and enforcement activity. The harder part of keeping up with changes and trends in the industry is understanding and anticipating changing investor preferences for investment structures, fees, offshore jurisdictions, and due diligence expectations and demands. This information can only be gleaned by staying in communication with fund investors and their consultants, and by representing these parties when they make investments with hedge fund managers. You can’t really tell managers what investors want if you haven’t been on the other side of the table on a regular basis! How do you differentiate your business from that of your competitors and ensure clients know that you are the best option? We believe that our non-legal industry experience gives us a major edge over our larger competition. LLG’s founder, Marc X. LoPresti, Esq. is a Wall Street veteran with over 20 years’ experience in the asset management industry, having started his career on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange working for Lehman Brothers. He understands the asset management business not only from the legal and regulatory perspective, but also the intricacies of securities trading, asset allocation, and operational nuances. In addition to being founder of LLG, Marc is a co-founder and serves on the investment committees of two multi-manager funds – BattleFin Fund (‘BattleFin’) and Structured Alternative Solutions (‘SAS’). Both BattleFin and SAS allocate to emerging and early- stage, alpha-generating fund managers. Marc also serves on the Executive Board of Ranger Global Real Estate Advisors, 1701CA51