It’s just so shocking.”
“Shocking because Evan didn’t have any enemies?”
“Everybody in our business has enemies. I’m sure Evan had his share. No, I meant shocking because people go broke all the time in our business, or people wind up in prison because they embezzle funds. People don’t get murdered.”
“Sometimes murder can even reach such rarefied air,” Justin said.
“I’m not being some kind of prima donna asshole,” French said. “I know it happens. It’s just never happened to anyone I know. Or anyone quite so rarefied as Evan.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Fairly well. We were approximately the same age; we moved in somewhat the same circles, at least professionally.”
“Not socially?”
“No, not really. I mean, I’d see him around. At clubs or at a tennis match or something like that. But mostly we knew each other through business.”
“I’d like a list of the people here who dealt with him regularly.”
“Almost everybody on a certain level dealt with Evan. He was a player. I can get you the list, but it’ll be fairly long and I don’t know how helpful.”
“You don’t have anyone who’s primarily assigned to Ascension?”
“As I said, we have a few—”
“How about Ellis St. John?”
Dan French was good. He barely missed a beat. “Ellis certainly spends a lot of his time on the Ascension account. He probably could be—”
“He was Evan’s primary broker, wasn’t he?”
“He is
Ascension
’s primary broker, not Evan’s. He’s been one of our main connections to people there for the past three or four years.”
“One of?”
“Yes. Although I suppose he would be considered the main—”
“If he was the main contact, why did so many other people here need to be in touch with Evan? Or with other people at Ascension?”
“Because we have a lot of different departments, and sometimes it’s easier for people to simply talk directly to the person who can best address a specific need. If Ascension wants some research done on a particular type of investment, they deal with someone in that department. Ellis might coordinate it but not always.”
“Is that Ellis’s main job, coordinating?”
“No. It’s just a by-product of his link to Ascension. And to other companies, by the way. Ascension’s hardly his only account.”
“What exactly is his link to Ascension? Can you define it?”
“ I suppose. It’s not as if it’s a unique job—it’s fairly standard for any company of our size. As I said, R and W is the primary broker for quite a few funds.”
“So let’s go with the basics and explain to me what that really means.”
French smiled broadly. Justin didn’t know if he was smiling because he liked teaching people what he did or whether he just liked talking about how much money his company made. “The prime brokerage business is a direct beneficiary of the growth of the hedge fund business. And the hedge fund business has become, by far, the most—how shall I put this—active segment of the asset management business.”
“Active meaning lucrative?”
“When it works,” French said. “When it doesn’t work, it results in the biggest losses.”
“So it’s the most unstable.”
“We don’t really use that word around here. Let’s just say it’s the most volatile.”
“Okay. Keep going.”
“Twenty years ago, money that was managed by hedge funds was probably somewhere around thirty, thirty-five billion dollars. Now it’s substantially over a trillion. There’s no other segment of the financial world with anywhere near that kind of growth and profitability. But, as a result, there’s more and more competition. That’s normal and it’s probably healthy, but it also means you have to be more aggressive and you have to be good. You have to be better than your competitors, which means you need every edge you can get. So a lot of hedge funds hook up with companies like ours who can provide prime brokers,
“Shocking because Evan didn’t have any enemies?”
“Everybody in our business has enemies. I’m sure Evan had his share. No, I meant shocking because people go broke all the time in our business, or people wind up in prison because they embezzle funds. People don’t get murdered.”
“Sometimes murder can even reach such rarefied air,” Justin said.
“I’m not being some kind of prima donna asshole,” French said. “I know it happens. It’s just never happened to anyone I know. Or anyone quite so rarefied as Evan.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Fairly well. We were approximately the same age; we moved in somewhat the same circles, at least professionally.”
“Not socially?”
“No, not really. I mean, I’d see him around. At clubs or at a tennis match or something like that. But mostly we knew each other through business.”
“I’d like a list of the people here who dealt with him regularly.”
“Almost everybody on a certain level dealt with Evan. He was a player. I can get you the list, but it’ll be fairly long and I don’t know how helpful.”
“You don’t have anyone who’s primarily assigned to Ascension?”
“As I said, we have a few—”
“How about Ellis St. John?”
Dan French was good. He barely missed a beat. “Ellis certainly spends a lot of his time on the Ascension account. He probably could be—”
“He was Evan’s primary broker, wasn’t he?”
“He is
Ascension
’s primary broker, not Evan’s. He’s been one of our main connections to people there for the past three or four years.”
“One of?”
“Yes. Although I suppose he would be considered the main—”
“If he was the main contact, why did so many other people here need to be in touch with Evan? Or with other people at Ascension?”
“Because we have a lot of different departments, and sometimes it’s easier for people to simply talk directly to the person who can best address a specific need. If Ascension wants some research done on a particular type of investment, they deal with someone in that department. Ellis might coordinate it but not always.”
“Is that Ellis’s main job, coordinating?”
“No. It’s just a by-product of his link to Ascension. And to other companies, by the way. Ascension’s hardly his only account.”
“What exactly is his link to Ascension? Can you define it?”
“ I suppose. It’s not as if it’s a unique job—it’s fairly standard for any company of our size. As I said, R and W is the primary broker for quite a few funds.”
“So let’s go with the basics and explain to me what that really means.”
French smiled broadly. Justin didn’t know if he was smiling because he liked teaching people what he did or whether he just liked talking about how much money his company made. “The prime brokerage business is a direct beneficiary of the growth of the hedge fund business. And the hedge fund business has become, by far, the most—how shall I put this—active segment of the asset management business.”
“Active meaning lucrative?”
“When it works,” French said. “When it doesn’t work, it results in the biggest losses.”
“So it’s the most unstable.”
“We don’t really use that word around here. Let’s just say it’s the most volatile.”
“Okay. Keep going.”
“Twenty years ago, money that was managed by hedge funds was probably somewhere around thirty, thirty-five billion dollars. Now it’s substantially over a trillion. There’s no other segment of the financial world with anywhere near that kind of growth and profitability. But, as a result, there’s more and more competition. That’s normal and it’s probably healthy, but it also means you have to be more aggressive and you have to be good. You have to be better than your competitors, which means you need every edge you can get. So a lot of hedge funds hook up with companies like ours who can provide prime brokers,
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