With over 1,500 employees in international locations, over 250 employees and 40 partners dedicated to the financial services practice, EisnerAmper LLP has the breadth to handle global engagements and provide comprehensive guidance and support to its roster of hedge fund clients.
Over the years, EisnerAmper has forged a reputation in the US market for delivering proactive, responsive, high quality service. Now, with the opening of its inaugural European office in London this year, EisnerAmper is actively winning new UK clients and raising its profile. The office is headed up by Robert Mirsky whose focus is to grow the business across the entire asset management industry, in addition to alternatives.
“We’ve had lots of good exposure here in London and we’re building our staff numbers. It’s a really exciting time. In the UK, I’m not sure there was a real alternative specialist accounting firm like EisnerAmper. I think the UK marketplace was looking for an alternative to the Big Four. It’s not just a pricing factor it’s also an attention factor. We have the same, if not better, specialism. If you look across our business, we have somewhere in the region of 1,500 hedge fund clients.
“We are working with many large established fund management groups as well as start-up and emerging managers. People recognise there is a lot we can do,” asserts Mirsky.
EisnerAmper prides itself on the level of focus and attention it gives to clients it partners with. There is an expectation, says Mirsky, that as a partner “you will be actively involved and giving senior level attention on engagement. Every client is that much more important to the firm and they appreciate this.”
In the US, EisnerAmper has won some significant mandates, including those from a number of prominent of start-up hedge funds. As Frank Napolitani, Director, Financial Services at EisnerAmper explains, 2018 has proven to be the year of the big launch.
“Earlier in the year we won some work from a billion dollar fund ahead of their launch and we have taken on a multi-strategy fund that should be launching with no less than USD300 million in October, which is great for us as a middle-market accounting firm,” says Napolitani.
The consulting group at EisnerAmper financial services, which comprises Napolitani, Jaclyn Greco in New York and Eugene Tetlow in San Francisco, is actively engaged with the market every day. This places EisnerAmper at a competitive advantage to other accounting firms who don’t have a consulting group and is one of the reasons for its continued year-on-year success.
“I talk to portfolio managers every day and allocators,” says Napolitani. “I am able to share the prevailing views and concerns allocators might have regarding hedge funds to our hedge fund clients. And my advice to those raising capital has been as follows: Whatever you think you’re going to raise, cut it by 50 per cent and however much time you give yourself to raise that capital, double it.
“If you can afford to budget yourself over two years instead of 12 month, raise USD50 million, and if you can build a track record and demonstrate outperformance versus the market and your peers, then you’ve got a good shot. If you can’t, I wouldn’t think about launching a hedge fund right now.” n
