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In Asia

Detroit expat Aaron Boesky leads China's top hedge fund.

Adam Finkel I Special to the Jewish News

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Groucho Marx AZA as a teen in Detroit, is
proving to be hen c/urn ming (very smart in
Chinese) for his big bet on Shanghai.
His fund was ranked as the top-perform-
ing China hedge fund in 2014, gaining 46
percent in the second half of 2014. China
is now the world's second-largest economy
with a 2014 nominal Gross Domestic
Product that exceeded $10 trillion. Boesky's
fund benefited most notably over the last
year from its ownership of developers. He
finds reason to be bullish this year on the
Central Banks ability to stimulate growth
during its weakest expansion in almost 25
years.

The JN recently interviewed
Marco Polo's CEO Aaron Boesky
on a variety of topics.

How do you see yourself as a part of the
next generation of fund managers?
My Chinese partner and CIO, Ms. Chris
Tang, and I launched Marco Polo in 2003
with the aim to create a team and fund that
would pioneer the newly opened Shanghai
stock market back in 2003. We were the first
fund and team to enter and specialize in the
Shanghai market when it first opened to
foreigners. We now have the longest track
record of any team and fund in the world
in China's Shanghai stock market. It is the
largest market in Asia and has daily turnover
often higher than that of the New York Stock
Exchange.
Our team represents a new brand of global
finance that is about crossing cultures and
borders while making partnerships across
multiple countries. We have investors across
five continents and we bring them together
to be managed by a team of professionals
from China, Hong Kong and the U.S.A. in
China's stock market. It's truly a global expe-
rience.

Growing up, how were you involved in the
community?
I grew up in Huntington Woods and attend-
ed Temple Emanu-El. For summer camp, I
went to Tamakwa and Tamarack. I graduated
from the Eli Broad School of Business at
Michigan State University and did my post-
graduate studies at Oakland University and
Beijing Foreign Affairs University.

Do you still have family in Detroit?
All of my family is in Detroit: my mother,
Marlene Rosenberg, who does charity work

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April 9 • 2015

tunity, learning the language
and immersing myself in the
culture. It's been an experience
beyond my wildest dreams, and
I feel connected to the history
of my family and people in
carrying on this tradition that
could be at the heart of the suc-
cess of Jews worldwide.

Aaron Boesky, CEO of
the Marco Polo Pure
China Fund, in his offic
in Hong Kong

helping cancer patients in the community;
my lovely sister and brother, Marlo and Jason
Scott, who live in Birmingham and are in
real estate; my father, Robert Boesky, is a
CPA, one of the best there was; and my Uncle
Howard and Aunt Brenda Rosenberg are
there, too.

How often do you return home?
Three times a year.

Who in Detroit has helped you most to get
your initial fund off the ground?
Norm Pappas at Pappas Financial is among
the greatest of people to work beside and a
host of my closest friends and family who
believed in me and supported me in the early
stages. Without the community who stood
behind me, we would probably never have
gotten off the ground.

What led you to move to Asia and have
such a high conviction in that investment
thesis?
I looked at the background of my ancestors,
Aaron and Eddie Rosenberg and Sol Boesky;
they were immigrants to the U.S., and their
story was always one of passion, adventure,
success and excitement. To be in a new land
learning new languages and starting new
businesses — ifs a theme Jewish people
share throughout history. In my early 20s, I
decided that I would be the next in line to
travel to the new world and lands of oppor-

How has your investment
thesis changed/evolved since
moving to Asia?
The thesis was always that
China is a land and people who
are extremely industrious and
hard-working and represent a
quarter of the world's popula-
tion. They went through a
century of turmoil after the col-
lapse of the Qing Dynasty at the
turn of the last century. They
came out of that period to enter
the modern age just in the
past 15 years since I came out
here. Ifs been an amazing transformation.
But today the Chinese only generate
approximately $7,000 GDP Per Capita, while
Japan, the U.S.A. and Germany (the other top
economies) are doing between $35,000 and
$55,000 GDP Per Capita. The truth is now
that most of China has smart phones, new
highways, electrical grids, modern cities,
airports, etc. It is hard to conceive that they
won't very quickly catch up to the economic
output of their Asian neighbors, along with
Europe and the U.S.A.
There is no reason a Chinese employee
should be doing seven times less than a
European or Japanese worker. China is
going to catch up and fast over the next
decade. The boom in the early 2000s put
the infrastructure in place, but now we are
entering the next cycle of development and
growth that will see China grow quickly.
This will be in services mostly.
The Shanghai Stock Market is China's own
exchange and where almost all the biggest
companies in the country are listed. We have
approximately 2,700 companies and they
power Childs economy. With incomes in
China growing quickly along with savings,
the future is bright for fund flows to our
market. Marco Polo wants to be the solution
people can count on long term to provide
them reliable access and management in the
most promising market in the world in com-
ing decades.
China has entered its next phase of devel-

opment. Again, it is still only at an eighth of
the output per person of the USA and other
leading nations so there is a lot of growth to
go. This next decade will be a shift to servic-
es becoming the driver of growth rather than
manufacturing and infrastructure spend-
ing. Consumption and services is where the
growth will be.

What led Marco Polo to have such great
success over the last year?
Marco Polo was the top-performing fund in
the market last year as tracked by Asia Hedge
and Eurekahedge, the top databases. We
were at the top of around 50 funds, and this
is the second time we have won the Super
Bowl for China funds in the past 10 years. It's
an honor to see the hard work our team puts
in everyday, all day, to come to fruition. We
are grateful and humbled by the many years
of effort we put into managing the capi-
tal. We are just so pleased that our investors
can feel the work we put in.

What's your long-term vision for your
fund?
We see our fund and brand growing along-
side the market in China. Our team is mostly
in our 30s, and we have several decades
ahead in our careers together, so we hope to
see assets and performance grow dramati-
cally over our next 10 years.

What is a typical day like for you?
Meeting with potential investors or having
calls with them, communicating with our
existing investors (we have around 200 of
them), working with our brokers, lawyers,
bankers, auditors, administrator and our
internal team on any issues we face daily,
communicating with the media through
television, Internet and newspapers, and
reviewing Chinese economics and company
releases.

Have you ever faced anti-Semitism in
Asia?
No, in fact, Asians typically hold a positive
view of Jews — that we are smart and indus-
trious and successful.

Do you have any involvement with Jewish
life in China?
Sure, we have a big community in Hong
Kong and, although I don't attend much in
the way of services as I'm not too religious by
nature, I do socialize and work with dozens
of Jews in the region. There are around 6,000
here in Hong Kong alone.

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