June 13 (Bloomberg) — Ten hospitality huts border a grassy amphitheater like quayside brothels waiting for the next ship. Bankers from Credit Suisse Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Capital loiter at the entrances, champagne and pick-up lines at the ready to seduce passing trade.
Welcome to “Hedgestock,” a two-day festival at an English country estate last week featuring about 4,000 of the great, the good and the hangers-on of the hedge-fund industry. En masse, the new Masters of the Universe are a pretty good-looking bunch. They are drifting into a disappointing adulthood, though, after a promising adolescence, much as the Swinging Sixties morphed into the Soporific Seventies.
The vibe at “Hedgestock” serves as a metaphor for what ails the hedge funds. Instead of changing the world of investing with idiosyncratic gambles, new strategies and outrageous bets, hedge-fund managers are turning into their parents.
