Valhalla is a boutique firm with an expertise in operational due diligence on hedge fund managers and brings this expertise, experience, and focus to fund governance. Although Joshua has worked with some of the largest asset managers and hedge funds in the world, Joshua has a particular expertise in working with the emerging manager to build the firm and funds in an institutional quality manner helping the manager and benefiting institutional investors. Joshua is also based in the US in California.

There isn’t a precise magic number to indicate the capacity but through years of experience globally monitoring managers from an operational due diligence perspective Joshua believes he could cover a maximum of 30 managers and continue to maintain an intense detailed deep dive approach. To be conservative Joshua is limiting his relationships to 20 to ensure the coverage is appropriate. After holding at 20 relationships for a time Joshua may choose to increase to 25 as his maximum number.

Valhalla believes the best practice approach to fund governance is to not have multiple directors from the same firm. Valhalla believes that directors and their firms should be fully independent from the manager and believes limiting to one director from a firm is a part of this approach. Valhalla is a proponent of directors having varying industry experience bringing different perspectives to the board.

This is not a requirement in Cayman. Joshua is licensed by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) under the Directors Registration and Licensing Law of 2014 and has extensive experience and expertise in covering Cayman domiciled vehicles.

Joshua does have ODD experience covering funds from other jurisdictions including US LPs, US 40 Act Funds, Ireland, Luxembourg, British Virgin Islands (BVI), and Bermuda but his historical primary experience and expertise comes from covering US LPs and Cayman based funds.

Valhalla expects to cover four primary investment manager locations (Greater New York City, California, London, Hong Kong) but is willing to accept manager relationships in other locations as resources allow. In addition to the four areas listed, during his career Joshua has covered managers throughout the US, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing, Brazil, Australia, Scotland, and Switzerland.

The onsite visit helps Valhalla to understand the manager and to evaluate the operational risk of the firm and the funds. This helps Valhalla and the fund investors to feel confident with the operations of the investment manager. In assessing a manager and fund there are few things more valuable than a face to face meeting and being onsite with the staff of the manager.

Valhalla is willing to interact with investors in the fund and potential investors performing due diligence and expects this to be the case. Valhalla’s duty is to the fair treatment of the investors and upholding the fund documents.

Valhalla believes that fees should be a flat annual fee that is based upon the director’s expected level of engagement. Valhalla limits the number of boards on which it sits and uses a highly engaged ODD model in working on the fund.

Yes, Valhalla carries its own D&O insurance policy which premiums are borne by Valhalla. Valhalla also requires the funds for which it serves as a director to also carry insurance.