There, slightly damp I have a lovely relaxed lunch with Alex Erhlich, Global head of Prime Services, UBS. Formerly at Goldman Sachs he is well respected for being tremendously successful at growing the business substantially –and in no small measure for being an extremely nice guy. In a comfy banquette with shrimp salad we discuss the world and markets and life– not forgetting to press him for his favourite thinking spot away from daily travails and commuting. A low jutting crag on his property north of New York City doesn’t really do it justice but it is “simply the perfect place to become centred - from there you can see swamp to one side, forest on the other, and if your are still, grazing deer – just so peaceful and beautiful”.

Last meeting before JFK is with Brian Sears, (ex Merrill Lynch and former Gulf War naval veteran ) now Global Head of Distribution & Development Lehman Brothers covering both the asset management and securities side of the business including the alternatives platform as it relates to hedge funds. What I had not realised was the huge range of internal and external fund and businesses under this umbrella and unlike many other bank asset management businesses they are prepared to grow organically. For Brian, “the big story going forward is commodities (they own leading commodities fund Gresham ) emerging markets “and yes, quant funds such as their “fantastically successful GTAA funds under the brilliant CIO, Wai Lee.”

Back on East 52^nd Street I am delighted to catch up with one of the most experienced and successful veterans in the alternatives business Howard Berkowitz, MD, CEO of Blackrocks’s $22bn Fund of Funds business. I am sitting inches from one the eight original casts of Rodin’s “The Thinker” when Berkowitz tells me that low barriers to entry attract the best and worst managers means that ”Someone’s got to be the gatekeeper and do the ongoing due-diligence - the key is finding where the market inefficiencies lie and which is the best manager for the job”. He is hugely proud of his former role as Chairman of the influential Anti-Defamation League and now he is on the Executive Committee, Washington Institute for Near East Policy - committed to finding solutions to global terrorism that affects our world. I get up to go and he hands me a copy of “The Shia Revival“. ” If you want to know more about the most important movement that will affect the future of your children you must read this” he says.

I have not timed my meetings well this trip and underestimate how long it actually takes from A to B. Rush Downtown to Standard & Poor’s where I meet with Jacqueline Meziani working on a new generation of risk assessment. She is interested in ascertaining who lost and who is taking advantage of the sub-prime situation – how and why. “Valuation is the key and losers in the sub-prime debacle did not read their valuations correctly. Many funds are holding on in fear and valuation techniques are just going have to improve.” While she senses the jury is out on regulation she speaks highly of the Hedge Fund Working Party recently set up in London having a go at self-regulation. Current book at the top of her pile? “The Social Framework of Mediaeval Monasteries” –an old take on pertinent and perennial themes of perception versus reality?. “You got it”.

While there I hop two blocks to catch Kent Clark, CIO, Hedge Fund Strategies of Goldman Sachs fund of fund operation fed only by external managers -and proud new chairman of the board of trustees of New York School of Jazz And Contemporary Music. What interests him at the moment is at the macro asset management business level and the continued concentration of the big firms. “How do you mix the best of what is available in house and externally in a way that is free from conflict of interest within a large asset management house?” - Kent is speaking on this topic at the upcoming Gaim Invest. Favourite thinking spot? “Playing guitar in the basement –well it’s really much more like meditation”

Back Mid-town, I just about catch the train to Greenwich, CT to meet with Brad Williams, ex Goldman Sachs and now Director of Product Development for Tudor Investment Corp, one of President Mark Dalton’s right hand men. We talk about their new strategic directions and upcoming product launches -becoming more institutional than in the past. Apart from being a great opportunity to meet the legendary Tudor Corp, this has been a wonderful excuse to pass through Grand Central Station and wonder at the spectacular barrel-vaulted ceiling with its restored celestial green and gold mural of the heavens. Absolutely stunning. Hope London’s renovation of the Victorian railway masterpiece, St Pancras, will have the same Wow factor in its reincarnation as the new Eurostar terminus. What a difference a grand entrance makes!

Rushing to my next appointment at Blackstone I narrowly avoid being crushed by an extremely large lady dressed in vivid green. Compose myself in time to meet Bruce Amlicke, CIO, Blackstone Group, where we discuss the world, the markets and his take on what’s happening. Classic Western of all Time? A movie buff, Bruce says it has to be Clint in “The Good, the Bad and The Ugly“.

I thought New York addresses were supposed to be dead easy but Bear Stearns Asset Management is a particularly challenging experience with an address on one Avenue and the entrance way over on another. Eventually reach my goal of meeting Jeffry Brown, Head of Strategic Initiatives, Bear Stearns Asset Management. With organic growth of major asset management businesses so hard to achieve, his role is to look for all acquisitions to consolidate their position in the hedge fund space. What interests him is that in the “midst of all the credit crunch carnage market optimism is clearly high as there is no shortage of good teams or companies on the market. “

I drop into to see Marsha Roth, MD, Angelo Gordon, a top league boutique in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and distressed - with an extraordinary reputation for stable teams and an enduring and sustainable culture. “With the dislocation of the credit markets we expect distressed securities to give excellent opportunities in both private equity and the distressed debt hedge fund” she explains. Just back from Egypt, the last leg of a Middle East tour, she was reading “Pharoahs“. ” But I’m never going back to Cairo again” she said firmly.

Over to Park Avenue where with the quest to attract and keep exceptional talent underpins the alternatives industry I meet up with Maureen Brille, MD, The Gerson Group, strategic recruitment, in the hedge fund space. Optimistic, she thinks things are going to look very different come January – “We expect to see a flurry of new hirings, many more strategic initiatives and collaborations and much more deliberation about the optimum size and structure of successful global hedge fund operations. Favourite thinking spot? “Winter’s crashing surf and piping plover at Bridgehampton’s beach NY”.

Caught up with long-time Gaim friend, and another sometime guitarist, Andy Weisman, now CIO Hedge Fund Businesses Portfolio at the Hedge Fund Development Management Group, Merrill Lynch Investment Management. His market concern and research focus is currently how to adjust a portfolio of liquid and illiquid allocations in an increasingly correlated market place across all the asset classes. That’s the key, and he directed me to a new paper on the IAFE website. Andy’s inheritance track? Even if he plays second fiddle to his guitar it’s– “Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin - Elemental, beautiful, challenging yet gratifying to play”.

Jump Downtown to Old Slip to see Dr Bob Litterman, famed front man and quantitative guru of Goldman Sachs’s Asset Management’s internal quant hedge funds.  On the summer’s happenings, we discussed the extraordinary impact of the de-levering of the multi-strategy funds. The old questions remain about what are the real risks of investment? How much true transparency is there? A key academic research challenge, he added, over the coming months is to “understand how crowding, contagion, leverage and illiquidity conspire to magnify hedge fund risks?”  Coming full circle as the Stanford human biology major who turned to economics to understand better what drives societies forward;  Bob’s Enlightening Read of the moment is  “Before The Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade, a fascinating insight into what research in DNA tells us about human history and how we have evolved”.