Top Hedge Fund Investors: Stories, Strategies, and Advice

CHAPTER 4

Author of the Hedge Fund Investing Story

Richard Elden, Founder and Former Chairman, Grosvenor Capital Management

 

 

 

As a Chicago newspaper reporter in the late 1950s and early 1960s, if Richard Elden had discovered the story of someone with a life and career similar to the one that ultimately unfolded for him, he most likely would have regarded it with skepticism. The story of a reporter who becomes a leading hedge fund investor and a pioneer in the industry would seem to defy what one would expect.

Elden is the founder and former chairman of Grosvenor Capital Management, the nation’s first fund of hedge funds, which he launched in 1971. He retired as chairman after spending 34 years with Grosvenor. Then, after helping Carl Icahn launch an activist fund in 2004, Elden, together with two other partners, started a fund of activist hedge funds in 2006.

Prior to founding Grosvenor, Elden had been a reporter for the International News Service (INS), the City News Bureau of Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Next he was a financial analyst with Science Research Associates (SRA) and a securities analyst with A.G. Becker & Co., Inc.

He also has a distinguished educational background, including a BA from Northwestern University in 1956, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1966. He completed the Harvard Business School’s Owner-President Management Program in 1997. He has been on the investment committees of the University of Chicago, the Field ...