Episode summary
Episode 351: Adam Blitz of Evanston Capital: Hedge Funds, the polish and the promise
The Fiftyfaces Podcast
· · 32 min · Hosts: Aoifinn Devitt · Guests: Adam Blitz
Summary
Adam Blitz argued that hedge fund selection still comes down to finding a small number of genuinely skilled managers, staying disciplined on implementation, and avoiding the temptation to confuse polish with investment edge. He traced his own path from Goldman Sachs and AQR into the early days of Evanston Capital, saying the trader and prime brokerage experience gave him an enduring appreciation for transaction costs, liquidity, and the gap between a good idea and a good after-cost return.
Evanston Capital now manages a little over $4 billion, and Blitz said the firm’s core philosophy has stayed largely unchanged for more than two decades: identify the best hedge funds, know when to move on, and keep the portfolio fresh. He was especially constructive on long short equity and macro going into 2026, arguing that passive flows, pod shops, AI, tariffs, and geopolitics have created a better environment for fundamental stock pickers and macro traders than in recent years.
He also emphasized that hedge funds matter most as diversifiers in portfolios that are increasingly concentrated in public markets, including the Magnificent 7. Smaller, specialist managers remain central to Evanston’s process because they can uncover less crowded ideas, trade with less market impact, and exploit niche expertise. Blitz said the hardest part of manager evaluation is often the soft stuff: culture, motivation, and whether a team stays hungry after success.
Key takeaways
- Blitz said Evanston Capital manages a little over $4 billion and still focuses primarily on selecting hedge funds rather than building broad alternatives exposure.
- He is “extremely constructive” on long short equity and macro, citing less competition, wider dispersion, and higher geopolitical volatility.
- He argued that transactions costs and market impact remain underappreciated and can materially erode hedge fund alpha.
- Blitz said smaller specialist managers can add value because they know their niches better, trade more nimbly, and create less overlap in portfolios.
- He thinks hedge funds are most useful as diversifiers because many portfolios are highly correlated to the overall economy and increasingly concentrated in a few large stocks.
Notable quotes
“We're not investing in people based on their presentation skills, right? It's human nature a little bit to be drawn to folks who are compelling presenters”
“our core philosophy when we first started is the same as it is today. That there's not that many good hedge funds out there”
“we're extremely constructive on the hedge fund opportunity set”
“The key to hedge fund investing, it's not just being in hedge funds or or quote unquote having an allocation of hedge funds”
“we're not investing in people based on their presentation skills, right? We're investing in them based on how we think they're going to perform going forward”
How the episode opens
This podcast series is kindly sponsored by Evston Capital. For over 20 years, Evston Capital has had a key focus in identifying early stage investment managers it believes are capable of generating long-term value added returns and complex innovative strategy areas. This series is also sponsored by Alvine Capital.
Alvine Capital is a specialist investment manager and placement boutique with a particular focus on alternative assets with significant presence in London and Stockholm. We're not investing in people based on their presentation skills, right? It's human nature a little bit to be drawn to folks who are compelling presenters.
There's probably a slight correlation with being a good leader of a firm or being able to entice strong people to join you and be around you, but it's only a very small correlation there. And so we really try to look beyond the polish. I'm Ethan Devit and welcome to the 50 Faces podcast which showcases inspiring professionals in the world of investment and beyond by focusing on people and their stories.
I'm joined today by Adam Blitz who's CEO and co-CIO at Evston Capital Management where he has spent 24 years. He previously worked as a trader at AQR and in the prime brokerage division at Goldman Sachs. Welcome, Adam.
Thanks for joining me today.
Thanks, Ethan. And great to be here. — Well, we've known each other for many, many years. I think probably going right back to my time at Cambridge Associates, which is about 20 years myself. But I don't think we've ever gone through your career journey. What brought you to Evston? So, can you just talk us through that briefly?
Sure, definitely. Yes. So out of undergraduate at Penn, I joined Goldman Sachs in the asset management division and quickly linked up with the quantitative research group which was a fairly young group at the time but was the group run by Cliff Aznes and the team that eventually spun out and became AQR.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- hedge fund investing
- manager selection
- endowment model
- prime brokerage
- investment manager polish
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GS
- Evanston Capital
- AQR
- Goldman Sachs
- Alvine Capital
- NorthWestern University
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Fiftyfaces Podcast, this episode and its artwork belong to Aoifinn Devitt. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
