Wealth & Finance June 2017

Wealth & Finance International 48 Experts in Technology- Driven Markets he fund’s primary goal in utilising a long/short strategy is to generate alpha for both the long and short investments, not to hedge the long book. The fund’s investment strategy encompasses a bottom-up, fundamentally-driven, sub- stance-oriented, research-intensive approach. The fund primarily invests in public companies operating in the technol- ogy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, telecommunication, manufacturing, chemical, digital entertainment and video gaming. In 2016, Barclay- Hedge ranked Bhatt Innovation Capital LP Founders Class at #48 out of 552 equity long/short funds, placing them in the top 10%. The firm’s clients are accredited and/or qualified investors, and include family offices, fund of funds, endowments, foundations and pension funds. They approach their contacts through referrals and conference venues. Vinit S. Bhatt is a founder and managing member of Bhatt Innova- tion Capital LLC, the Fund’s General Partner (BIC). His background in engineering coupled with his twenty years of experience in fundamentally-based investing affords him the potential for unique insights into firms poised to potentially benefit from advances in technology and to recognise those which are likely to fall behind. Mr. Bhatt is a holder of an MBA from The University of Chicago – Booth School of Business, an MS in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Hilarey Bhatt is a founder and managing member of BIC. She has five years of experience in basic and applied life science research, as well as seventeen years of experience as a practic- ing and teaching physician. These years of experience make her uniquely capable of evaluating companies’ product portfolios, from the earliest bench investigations into fully developed and marketed stages. Dr. Bhatt is a holder of an MD from the University of California – San Francisco, an MPhil in Neuroscience from Yale University, and a BA from Amherst College, where she graduated summa cum laude. Vinit S. Bhatt begins the interview by explaining where the firm fits into the wider hedge fund industry and how they stand out from the crowd. “Bhatt Innovation Capital is unique and top-ranked in its ability to understand complex opportunities in technology. And, we exploit these opportunities in both long and short investments. Our areas of expertise extend to BioPharma, medical devices, diagnostics, internet services, e-commerce, fintech, semiconductors, networking, software, telecom, industrial manufacturing and energy. We believe that we are one of the first funds to have been structured with top-tier service providers and out-sourced operational functions for transparency and oversight.” “Our firm is well differentiated from most in the hedge fund industry. We are a woman-and-minority-managed fund. We are well differentiated from competitors in the hedge fund industry with our focus on innova- tion-based companies, extensive backgrounds in medicine, science and engineering, and the firm’s unique outsource-based model. Bhatt Innovation Capital focuses on technology, science and innovation, and invests in areas that are normally too complicated and intangible for most on Wall Street. Both Vinit S. Bhatt and Dr. Hilarey R. Bhatt and have significant experience in investment, but they rely more on their backgrounds as scientists to invest in these sectors. Vinit S. Bhatt explains this point in more detail. “We manage risk through diversification, very careful stock selection, and allocating opportunity in accordance with the risk that we perceive. Understanding risk in innovation-driven companies requires extensive backgrounds in medicine and the sciences, and a bottom-up research approach. Consequently, we track the latest technological break- throughs in both industry and academia. “We spend a great deal of time reading articles in medicine and science publications, reviews of clinical trials in biopharma, and technical blogs. We are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, close to the advances occurring in Silicon Valley and key universities as Berkeley, University of California at San Francisco and Stanford.” “We also manage risk by shorting stocks. Our short strategy is not necessarily for hedging the long book, but for generating alpha. We de- veloped proprietary algorithms based on published academic research that can very quickly screen for companies with deteriorating business fundamentals. We then do further bottom-up research to identify those companies most likely to fail and suffer share price contraction.” Vinit S. Bhatt is eager to share his thoughts on winning the Hedge Fund Manager of the Year 2016 award. “We are very excited and thankful to have won the Hedge Fund Manag- er of the Year 2016 award. Since we launched Bhatt Innovation Capital recently in January 2016, this award gives us confidence that our efforts were worthwhile. Hedge Fund Manager of the Year 2016, Bhatt Innovation Capital LP, is a woman-and-minority- managed long/short equity hedge fund that seeks to capitalise on both innovation and obsolescence cycles in technology-driven markets. We interviewed the firm’s Vinit S. Bhatt to discover more. T