> former CFO Laurence Tosi, who had previously worked Blackstone Group as CFO, took Airbnb’s cash flow and created an internal hedge fund.
> According to Bloomberg, Tosi “quietly built a hedge fund within the company’s finance department. He used a portion of capital from the balance sheet to buy stocks, currencies, and fixed-income securities, mimicking the treasury fund he ran at Blackstone. The side project represented 30 percent of the company’s cash flow last year and made about $5 million a month for Airbnb, the people said.”
For what its worth, its easy to make money in a low volatile, bull market. I'd be really interested to know how that fund does in the upcoming weeks.
Aside from the implication in the article (that this activity skewed the company's profits) is this normal for companies?
If so, if I am a investor in such a company (hypothetical, I'm not an investor) would I be concerned that the company is taking market risks with their money instead of investing in things like marketing and R&D?
I mean, clearly it works for them (so far) but any investment is risky. As an investor I would assume that if I wanted to invest in the market I would have put it in a full-time hedge fund or wealth management company.
> According to Bloomberg, Tosi “quietly built a hedge fund within the company’s finance department. He used a portion of capital from the balance sheet to buy stocks, currencies, and fixed-income securities, mimicking the treasury fund he ran at Blackstone. The side project represented 30 percent of the company’s cash flow last year and made about $5 million a month for Airbnb, the people said.”
For what its worth, its easy to make money in a low volatile, bull market. I'd be really interested to know how that fund does in the upcoming weeks.