YouSaid · the spoken record

Dawn Fitzpatrick

lines on the record: 73
first: 2019-11-04
most recent: 2019-11-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“We were, so we were wholly owned by UBS and we actually had prime brokerage kind of assets exposed at that point in time. And actually one of the somewhat controversial decisions I made was I pulled from a number of different prime brokers, but UBS was one of them and again that from my perspective, I had a fiduciary responsibility to protect our clients. And I also felt an obligation to the team members if something had happened to UBS during the financial crisis, we all had a lot of deferred that depending on what legal opinion you believed may or may not have been money good anymore. So I felt a real responsibility to both stakeholders. I knew that politically it could be dangerous, but I didn't think that should be part of my calculus.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our average tenure there was on the investment side was over a decade at that point. So we really knew each other well. We knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. We didn't hold back in terms of opinions. And it was really invaluable at that moment in time.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think it's the actions leading up to that point in time, the moments in time when someone invariably loses money, but loses money for the right reason. We're in a business where we make calculated bets, and sometimes they just go against you. So I think that trust in moments like that had been built up over a long period of time. I'm also a really, really big believer in like physical proximity. So spending time kind of shoulder to shoulder with people over 20 years, it matters. And it's really helpful. I'm also, I'm a pretty candid person. You know, and I have an Irish temper. So people tend to know where they stand with me.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think we did that well. And in doing that, we had to sell some things where we were basically crystallizing losses and pivoting to other areas. But it was, I think, the only way to execute on that is if you have a team that trusts each other and is communicating really well. The other thing I think we executed well in that moment in time is as markets started to recover post the first quarter, there was a ton of momentum and we didn't sell into that momentum, if anything, we added into it. Whereas I think a mistake some investors would make is taking their ball and going home at that moment in time.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, a couple things. And again, this I think goes back to the culture that O'Connor has is in the fall of 2008 when things obviously were going pretty badly for markets generally, the group of senior investors and myself, we literally hunkered down in a room and we looked across the opportunity set and we were instead of people wanting to hoard capital or point fingers, we really were able to kind of evaluate and pivot to where we saw the best opportunity. And at that point in time, one of the things that was really key is you didn't know the next firm or bank that was going to get tacked on the shoulder and liquidated. So you wanted to go to opportunities where there was a catalyst that might not be market dependent. And you also wanted to make sure you weren't beholden to financing markets and leverage.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wanted to produce returns that weren't highly correlated with natural risk assets that clients would have in their portfolios. We were trying to keep a fairly high liquidity profile to give us the ability to be nimble. From a return perspective, we were looking at something in low single, mid-teens type of returns. And I think we did a really good job for a period of time in the financial crisis. I think we navigated as well as anyone, both in terms of truncating risk, but as importantly, taking advantage of the dislocation that was created. And we started to make money in November of 2008, just by kind of repositioning the portfolio and taking advantage of areas where kind of the rubber band had really stretched.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we were primarily market neutral equities and credit. And it was a multi-strategy, but it's distinct to kind of a millennium type strategy in that we really were a team. And I think one of the things that I always loved about my time at O'Connor is that we were an incredibly cohesive team. We were really good at kind of connecting the dots and looking at relative opportunity sets. I think that's really, really important. And it's probably becoming increasingly important. And at O'Connor, I took over equities and credit in 2006 and I took over running all of O'Connor in 2007 right before the financial crisis.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I traded converts for a while. And then over time, I was parachuted in when we had risk that needed to be kind of watched over or things kind of went off the wheel. So I ran our murderer desk for a little bit. And also I should step back. So a group of original O'Connor traders, myself included, reassembled in Chicago probably in 1998, January of 1998 to start what became O'Connor the Hedge Fund. And we launched O'Connor as a hedge fund in June of 2000. And at the time that we launched, it was actually the largest hedge fund launch post-long-term capital, which, to remind you, blew up in the fall of 1998.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So from there, I went and I traded convertible bonds, which when you look across the hedge fund industry, it's kind of interesting because there's a lot of us who spent some formative years trading convertible bonds. And I think that's because, first of all, they're cross-asset, class security, but it's also a security where a lot of things can go wrong and right. So it's a great teacher. You also learn about the perils and benefits of correlations between equities and rates and what can happen when a dividend arrives or disappears. So it makes you think in a lot of different dimensions that I think ultimately has served myself and a couple of my peers pretty well throughout their career.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A really formative moment in my career. And also, by the way, watching the opportunity on the back end of that when there weren't too many people left standing and able to take advantage of that, there were two sides to that, but it was a pretty awesome learning experience.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the first lessons you have to learn, and it's a painful lesson to watch, is gap risk, especially when you're an options trader. So I was down in the pits in 1994. And the way a lot of trading operations worked in O'Connor was one of them. You got paid each year at the end of the year. And December 1994, the peso devalued. And we went from having a spectacular year to having a horrendous year and then one of the pits I was in, because you would cover more than just one pit, we traded a lot of Mexican ADRs. And that pit was probably the only trader that was associated with an institutional platform. The rest were local. So they were primarily risking their own money and watching them get devastated by the peso devaluation was like.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd like to say I'm still trading or investing. I intermix the two words, but I still watch markets. I still put on positions. It's what makes me excited to get up in the mornings.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's about sharing risks, it's about sharing opportunities, helping kind of cover blind spots for everyone. So it's an interesting kind of culture, but it actually worked pretty well”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was an amazing education. I think you learned a lot in terms of how to think on your feet. You learned to understand technicals in terms of how flows operate and how momentum operated. You learn to work as a team with the other members of the pit. And you had to earn respect. You know, the interesting thing is when you first go into those pits back in the early 90s, you were invisible. They did not acknowledge you until you could prove you had utility value to them.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is a big family joke because I come from a family of my dad's 6'6", my brother's 6'7, 5'4" in the program and probably two in real life.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the American Stock Exchange was a specialist system, and O'Connor back there, we were the specialist for U.S. surgical, which was the most active option in the world at that time. So that was a fun place to clerk. And then the CBOE was open outcry. And that was a real education going from clerking in a specialist system and then going to an open outcry pit in Chicago, but it was great.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I might have overstated, so we had good computers, but the truth is when we went down to the trading floor each day to make markets, we had things that we called were pilgrims and they were paper sheets where you'd set off of spot price and they'd basically, and you could move around vaults and spot, and you could use them to give you some context when you were making the markets. But it wasn't quite high tech when you were actually on the floor, but the models were used to make those sheets were pretty advanced.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, right out of college, I went to O'Connor, which at the time was arguably the preeminent derivatives trading firm. They were actually a beta test site for Steve Jobs next because they were one of the first trading kind of franchises to really embrace technology and compute power. And it was fun because it was run by a bunch of 30-something year olds, mostly from MIT. And then I went to CBOE where I was a market maker.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was hard what they were solving for at that moment in time, and there was a lot of politics and you didn't necessarily control your own destiny and being an investor and being a trader, it felt like every day I would have a report card and you'd live and die on the merits of the work you did.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they all sat at three hundred ninety nine Park on the second floor. And believe it or not, the chief of staff's chief of staff sat on that same floor, but better yet because he was the lowest ranking executive on that floor, my desk that summer was right outside the men's room. So you're at a front row seat with City Bank was the biggest bank in the country at that time to this crisis, and it was incredible. And right then and there, I decided that I wanted to be an investor and not an investee.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I had an interesting summer intern experience. It was 1990 and I was going to be an intern at Citibank. And if you remember 1990, it was in the midst of probably the biggest banking crisis since the Great Depression. So we show up for the first day of the intern program and someone comes and asks for a volunteer to be an executive assistant. And the other interns around me are looking at this person incredulously wondering why anyone would raise their hand. But I figured there had to be a catch here. So I raised my hand. And long story short is they needed an executive assistant for John Reed's chief of staffs, chief of staff. But the good thing was back then the city group was run by the policy committee.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Including creating a long term strategy tied to the needs of the foundation, building in short and medium-term targets to allow flexibility, blending internal and external management, connecting the dots across asset classes, sharing perspectives on public markets, private credit and private equity, and measuring and managing risk. Dawn contends that Soros has a uniquely attractive platform for the right type of leading investors to apply their trade, and I would agree. If you're a manager interested in having a look, reach out to Brenda Forms at Brenda.forms at soros dot com. That's Brenda. complete my conversation with Dawn Fitzpatrick. Don't, it's great to see you”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My guest on today's show is Dawn Fitzpatrick, the chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management, where she manages twenty five billion dollars in Soros Family and Philanthropic Assets. Dawn started her career as a trader at O'Connor and went on to serve as the global head and chief investment officer of O'Connor. In 2016, UBS asset management promoted her to Global Head of Equities, Multi-Asset, and O'Connor, where she oversaw more than $500 billion in assets. Dawn regularly appears on lists of the most powerful women in finance, most recently getting named to the 2018 Worth Power one hundred. Our conversation starts with Dawn's development in the industry from trading an option pits to navigating the global financial crisis at O'Connor and leadership roles at UBS. We then turn to her taking the helm at Soros Fund Management.”
2019-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Dawn Fitzpatrick – Multi-Faceted Investing at Soros Fund Management (Capital Allocators, EP.112) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source