Joe Feshbach was the archetypal short seller. With his two brothers, Kurt and Matt, Feshbach ran a $1 billion short-only hedge fund during the 1980s and 1990s. They were a force to be reckoned with, hunting down fraudsters and hounding them into bankruptcy. "There is nothing better and more fun than when you find a good fraud story and a good stock to short," reminisces Feshbach. "The laughs are much better on the short side than on the long side." But those were the days when there were just a few hundred long/short hedge funds running around $50 billion in money, and broker rebates on the short credit. And so Feshbach has done what was once the unthinkable, he's moved to the long side. In April this year he launched his long-only equity hedge fund, Joe Feshbach Partners, and has about $22 million in invested capital.
For Feshbach, the 180 degree turn to long only was the only option. "The market has been changing over the last 10 to 15 years, and that is coming to a head now," he says. "For a start, there is the issue of competition. When we sold stock short, it was almost an exclusive strategy.