Title Details

Mark J.P. Anson is the President and Executive Director of Investment Services at Nuveen Investments. Previously, he was the chief executive officer of Hermes Pensions Management Ltd. Before joining Hermes, Anson was the chief investment officer of the $245 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)—the largest pension fund in the United States. Anson is the author or coauthor of four financial books, including the Handbook of Alternative Assets (Wiley). He has published over eighty research articles on topics ranging from alpha and beta separation to corporate governance.

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

About the Authors.

PART I INTRODUCTION TO ALPHA DRIVERS AND BETA DRIVERS.

1: What Is an Alternative Asset Class?

2: Why Alternative Assets are Important.

3: The Beta Continuum.

4: Alpha versus Beta.

5: The Calculus of Active Management.

PART II: REAL ESTATE.

6: Real Estate Investment Trusts.

7: Introduction to NCREIF and the NCREIF Indexes.

8: Real Estate as an Investment.

9: Core, Value Added and Opportunistic Real Estate.

PART III: HEDGE FUNDS.

10: Introduction to Hedge Funds.

11: Establishing a Hedge Fund Investment Program.

12: Due Diligence for Hedge Fund Managers.

13: Risk Management Part 1: Hedge Fund Return Distributions.

14: Risk Management Part II: More Hedge Fund Risks.

15: Hedge Fund Benchmarks and Asset Allocation.

16: Hedge Fund Incentive Fees and the Free Option.

17: Hedge Fund Collapses.

18: Top Ten Hedge Fund Quotes.

PART IV: COMMODITIES AND MANAGED FUTURES.

19: Introduction to Commodities.

20: Investing in Commodity Futures.

21: Commodity Futures in a Portfolio Context.

22: Managed Futures.

PART V: PRIVATE EQUITY.

23: Introduction to Venture Capital.

24: Introduction to Leveraged Buyouts.

25: Debt as Private Equity Part I: Mezzanine Debt.

26: Debt as Private Equity Part II: Distressed Debt.

27: Trends in Private Equity.

28: The Economics of Private Equity.

PART VI: CREDIT DERIVATIVES.

29: Introduction to Credit Derivatives.

30: Collateralized Debt Obligations.

31: Risks and New Developments in CDOs.

Appendix A: Basic Principles of Return and Present Value.

Appendix B: Measures of Risk and Risk Management.

Appendix C: Correlation and Regression Analysis.

Appendix D: The Quantitative Analysis of 130/30 Products.

Index.