The Hedge Fund Investment Landscape

Moderator

Neil Messing

Head of Hedge Funds

Neil Messing joined the Office of the New York City Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management as a Senior Investment Officer in the Hedge Fund Group in January 2011. In this role, he was responsible for building, managing and monitoring more than $3 billion in hedge fund investments. In 2014, he was promoted to Head of Hedge Funds to oversee the hedge fund portfolio for the New York City retirement systems.

Prior to BAM, Mr. Messing was a part of the hedge fund manager due diligence team for the US investment arm of Unigestion, a global alternatives investment firm.

Prior to joining Unigestion, he served as a Hedge Fund Analyst for Glenwood Capital Investments, a pioneer in the hedge fund of funds industry.

Mr. Messing received a B.S. in Finance from the University of Arizona.

Panelists

Fred Cummings

President, Founder, and Portfolio Manager

Fred Cummings is the President and Founder of Elizabeth Park Capital Management. He serves as Portfolio Manager for the privately-held, alternative asset management firm focused on long/short equity, event-driven, and customized investment opportunities in the banking sector. The firm supports community bank technology investment through a partnership with Strandview Capital and the Btech Consortium Fund. The firm is the investment manager for the Mission Driven Bank Fund that invests in CDFIs and MDIs throughout the country. Fred serves on the investment committee for the Btech Consortium Fund and the Mission Driven Bank Fund.

Mr. Cummings is an investment and banking portfolio manager with 30+ years’ industry experience leading disciplined, client-focused investment practices. His esteemed performance establishes him as a principled bellwether across the investing and banking industry. His singular focus on banks paired with his curated approach to investing, M&A, and risk analysis transcends the Elizabeth Park mission to be the best bank investment firm in the country.

Prior to founding Elizabeth Park, Fred achieved a distinguished 17-year career at KeyBanc Capital Markets as one of the sell-side’s foremost Senior Analysts covering the banking sector. He additionally served as a Senior Analyst for FSI Group, a financial services hedge fund. He launched his career at McDonald & Co. as a sell-side Junior Analyst.

Fred earned his BA in Economics with honors from Oberlin College. He actively supports Oberlin’s Connect Cleveland Initiative and Business Scholars Speaking Program as an honored guest speaker for 23 consecutive years. He is an alumnus and ardent supporter of Western Reserve Academy (WRA). Fred dedicates his time serving on several boards, including Blue Owl Real Estate Net Lease Trust, The Marshall Project, and Nirvana Analytics. He serves as an investment committee member for Western Reserve Academy and is a former member of Laurel School’s investment committee.

Fred was named 2017’s Crain’s Cleveland Business Who’s Who and Cleveland.com’s People to Watch in 2015. As an industry expert, he has been featured on various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, INC Magazine, Crain’s Cleveland Business, CNN Money, and was a cited expert in the recently published book by Wiley called “Bank Investing, a Practitioners Field Guide. Fred lives in the Cleveland area with his wife.

Nikhil Gadia

Director

Nikhil Gadia, Director, is a senior member of the Opportunistic Credit investment team responsible for sourcing and leading investments across sectors with a primary focus on the team’s hedge fund strategy (BlackRock Credit Alpha).

Before joining BlackRock in 2016, Mr. Gadia was a Managing Director at Watershed Asset Management where he was responsible for leading investments in corporate credit, structured credit and equity securities across various sectors as well as participating in portfolio construction and risk management discussions.  Prior to Watershed, Mr. Gadia was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at UBS from 2005 – 2007 where he worked on several multi-billion dollar M&A transactions.

He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical / Computer Engineering & Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. He graduated from The Wharton School with an MBA in Finance and Accounting in 2011.

Priya Kaftan 

Head of Investor Relations and Product Strategy 

Priya Kaftan is the Head of Investor Relations and Product Strategy at Heard Capital LLC where she oversees client relations, client communications, business development and product strategy.

Prior to joining Heard Capital LLC in 2019, Ms. Kaftan was a Senior Associate at Silver Point Capital, L.P., a credit and distressed focused hedge fund. Her responsibilities included managing relationships with Silver Point Capital’s existing and prospective investors, product strategy, reporting, credit market research and communications.

Prior to Silver Point Capital, L.P., Ms. Kaftan was a Vice President in JPMorgan’s Syndicated and Leveraged Finance group. In that role, she structured leveraged loan and high yield transactions for clients in the energy, metal, mining, packaging and chemical sectors. Ms. Kaftan also served as an Associate and Analyst in the group.

Ms. Kaftan holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Boston University where she was a magna cum laude graduate. She is a Board Member of Ten Thousand Villages Oak Park, an organization focused on fair trade and economic empowerment and on the Sponsorship Committee of Women Investment Professionals, a professional community that enhances women’s opportunities and growth in the investment industry.

Fernando Vigil*

Chief Investment Officer and Founder

Fernando has over 20 years of experience across both public and private equity investing. Most recently, he was a Managing Director with Brookside Capital (a.k.a. Bain Capital Public Equity), which he joined in 2008. He was co-head of the consumer sector, reporting directly to the fund’s Portfolio Manager. In that role he managed a portfolio of global long and short positions with responsibility for the sector investment process, including idea generation, due diligence, position sizing, portfolio and risk management within the sector. He worked on investments in all major geographies, with a focus on the U.S., Europe and Latin America. He was also actively involved in the fund’s private investing activity.

Fernando began his investment career with Bain Capital in 2001. From 2001 to 2008 he worked as an Analyst, Associate and Principal with Bain Capital Ventures, the venture and growth capital affiliate of Bain Capital. During his time there he was involved in a number of growth and venture stage investments in software, information services and healthcare services. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Fernando spent two years at Trilogy Software.

He holds a B.A. in Economics (with distinction) from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and Siebel Scholar.

Outside of work, Fernando enjoys spending time with his wife Kim, cycling, playing backgammon, and listening to history podcasts.

* indicates SEO Alumnus