Arjun might never have gained much attention at all except for one thing: The numbers Meyer has been reporting have placed him, quite improbably, near the top of the hedge-fund game. In many ways, he’s a monument to the golden age of hedge funds. For folks hoping to beat the markets, investing in one of these private pools of money is a tantalizing prospect.
It’s also one that can take a bit of faith. David Recknagel, a sales executive in Detroit, met Meyer when the money manager was doing consulting work. Recknagel says he invested in Arjun after losing confidence in big banks and money-management companies. He concedes he’s not sure how Meyer does what he does.
“I understand it in general, but I probably don’t understand it completely,” Recknagel says.
Enticing Numbers
Meyer’s numbers certainly are enticing. Relying on data reported to Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg News ranked Arjun eighth in 2015 among hedge funds with between $250 million and $1 billion in assets. BarclayHedge, which also tracks hedge funds, has bestowed no fewer than 17 awards on Arjun, according to Meyer’s website. Arjun was named one of five top global macro funds of 2015 in HedgePo’s Investors Choice Awards.
Behind Meyer’s figures is a puzzle: In January 2015, BarclayHedge data showed Arjun’s main investment class had $115 million under management. A year later, data compiled by Bloomberg showed the total was $338 million. This past March, in a filing with the state of Georgia, Statim said Arjun managed $39 million in all. Funds with more than $100 million must file similar information with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of July 25, no such filing appeared on the SEC’s website.
Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg LP, said of the company’s ranking methodology: “Bloomberg’s hedge-fund rankings are based on a combination of Bloomberg data, information from the hedge fund, investors and other sources.”
BarclayHedge, HedgePo
Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge, pointed to a BarclayHedge disclosure that says performance and valuation information “has been supplied by the funds or their agents and although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified and cannot be guaranteed.” Ryan Kalish, co-founder of HedgePo, now known as Allocator, declined to comment.
Asked during an April interview to reconcile the numbers, Meyer said that Bloomberg’s $338 million figure was right and that it included money from a family account as well as from outside investors. In an interview this month, Munshi and Meyer both said the company doesn’t provide figures on the firm’s asset management “to anyone.”