When I joined OAKS Family Office in Singapore in early 2004 I absolutely loved it. What I always knew, however, was that I was not ready to settle in Singapore. Had I decided to settle in Asia for good, there was no doubt in my mind that the only people I would work with was the team at OAKS.

In early 2006, a team then at Dresdner Kleinwort came to me with an interesting business plan. In May 2006 I was once again in London. It was not the ideal situation to be part of a business that sat in a largish bank. By August the team had lifted itself out as an independent firm. First Avenue Partners was born.

It has been an uphill task ramping up a start up. The team has been super and I am a little ashamed to say that if anything, my role has had the lighter load. Still, I haven’t been completely inactive:

• An internal database of hedge funds has been established.
• An operational procedure has been established. The operations manual is in drafting.
• Quant screens have been written to search through the Bloomberg Database.
• Econometric models have been built to handle returns streams.- A business plan for a fund of funds business is in the works and close to completion.
• An investment process manual has been drafted.
• Prime broker relationships have been established with all but one major.
• I am on the speaker circuit again.

Today will mark effectively the last working day of the year for most of us. Its been a frantic time and progress is good. I need to be mindful of a couple of things:

• I need to get some help in origination. This do it all yourself thing does not work for an institutional businesss.
• I need to not try to do too much in terms of range. I need to push further on a smaller set of matters.
• I need a vacation.