A Brand Name for a Hedge Fund Happy Hour: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/dealbook/trump-mar-a-lago-for-hedge-fund-happy-hour.html

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The invitation suggests your run-of-the-mill weekday evening of drinks, canapés and networking for the hedge fund crowd.

Except for one thing. It’s at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.

In case anyone missed the significance of the site, the invitation offers a helpful clue: “Should the president be in residence, another letter will follow explaining the upgraded entry/security procedures.”

That’s right, President Trump’s members-only club, which has been called the winter White House, is the location of a “meet and greet” hedge fund event organized by the Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association.

David S. Goodboy, the association’s founder and the event organizer, is hoping that Mr. Trump will stop by.

“He is invited. Whether he comes or not is in the air,” Mr. Goodboy said. “I hope so,” he added. “It would be great P.R. for us.”

The reason for the evening is to introduce the Canadian firm Castle Ridge Asset Management (not to be confused with a Greenwich, Conn., firm with a similar name) to the Palm Beach set.

“It’s our debut to the U.S. markets,” said Adrian de Valois-Franklin, chief executive of Castle Ridge Asset Management.

The Toronto-based hedge fund pitches itself as a firm that uses artificial intelligence to invest in the market. On its website, which is illustrated with what looks like a high-tech crystal ball, it boasts of proprietary technology — called Wallace — that can “predict market events.” The technology is named after Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin.

Mr. de Valois-Franklin said he would welcome the chance to tell Mr. Trump about his firm.

“We’ve heard he’ll be in attendance at Mar-a-Lago — coming in on Friday,” he said. The event is the day before — next Thursday.

A spokesman for the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

It wasn’t too long ago that Mr. Trump was railing against hedge funds, saying that “hedge fund guys are getting away with murder.” On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump called for an end to the tax advantage that investment managers including hedge funds receive.

But that was then, apparently.

“I believe he was simply speaking to his fan base, you know, his constituents,” Mr. Goodboy said. “The truth is he is pulling back on those statements, the way I see it.”

Indeed, the president has surrounded himself with the titans of finance he once complained about — from both hedge funds and private equity.

The billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn is Mr. Trump’s special adviser on overhauling regulation; Steven Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager, is Treasury secretary; Wilbur L. Ross Jr., a contrarian billionaire investor in distressed assets, is commerce secretary; Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of the Blackstone Group, is chairman of Mr. Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum; and John Paulson, in whose hedge fund Mr. Trump was once an investor, is an adviser.

And Mar-a-Lago has gained some extra luster since Mr. Trump became president. He has visited the exclusive club multiple times and held gatherings, the most famous of which was a dinner with the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and his wife.

Diners seated in the outside dining area of the club were treated to a front-row seat of diplomatic negotiations after North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea and Mr. Trump, Mr. Abe and their aides scrambled to respond around a dining table.

Membership doesn’t come cheap: The club doubled its entry fee to $200,000 soon after Mr. Trump became president.

The Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association got a foot in the door through a friend of Mr. Goodboy’s who is a Mar-a-Lago club member.

While he would not give a specific price, Mr. Goodboy did say the cost of hosting the event was “the price of a pretty substantial wedding,” adding that it was well over $10,000. Castle Ridge is the sponsor and is paying a majority of the cost, he added

Mr. Goodboy said he hoped his association’s cocktail event would be a splash. It capped the event at 75 guests, but more than 100 people have expressed interest, he added. That’s a far cry from the turnout that the three-year-old association had at its first event.

Then, five people showed up, he said.