In choosing hedge funds or money managers to seed and support - besides evidence of performance - HCI's qualitative criteria include the following:

• The manager must be highly ethical.
• The manager is willing to grow soundly with a good foundation. We are wary of people who want to grow too fast.
• The manager must put investment results and client interests first. A responsible fiduciary.
• We prefer the manager to have a strategy or investment approach that seems transparent, has good risk controls and makes sense (although we do not exclude black box or trading strategies with enough data points).
• We are normally reticent about managers who are over confident or arrogant. These reflect a lack of understanding of the vagaries of the investment process.
• We like managers who are collegial and listen to input.
• We like managers with a long term horizon and view - looking ahead 10-20 years as regards development of client services and their own businesses. (We do realize many startups, however, are more focused on making a living during the first couple of years).
• The manager should have most or a good share of his or her liquid net worth (if any) in the fund managed.