There are many tribes at the conference … The American men wear suits and have sweaty armpits. The women are tall and lean and plain. By contrast, some of the Royal and Ancients from the big London FOFs have stripped blue shirts with white collars and double-barreled names and chins. The Swiss, with their pinched lips and dark blue business suits, seem aloof and cynical as they chatter away at each other in French and Schweizerdeutsch. This group of professionals are the serious seekers with the big money … Then there is the rest of the crowd, the amateurs, mostly wealthy individuals and small, wannabe funds of funds. Germans with bulging eurobellies from family offices mingle with bloated Arabs in pale suits and white shirts, their handshakes as cool and clammy as snakeskin. Former investment bankers exchange distinguished lies with portly ex-diplomats, permanently deformed by self-importance. Wrecked old Texans with faces like road maps, sour breath, and fitted Hawaiian shirts chatter with fast talking private wealth bankers from Miami with pompadours and slicked back hairdos. Retired, vastly rich investors with private jets, homes in three climates, and Bootox-smoothed foreheads name-drop and talk about their golf games as their bored wives and sleek and skinny girlfriends, social X-rays suffering from anorexia richiosa, bubble about dude ranches and plantations. Wealthy divorcees and widows with artificial brightness in their unpouched eyes and hard, chiseled faces and tucked stomachs and bottoms, work the crowd. Are they looking for a man or a hedge fund? They have smiles for you like cold leftovers.
Love the typology and audacious sarcasm. Very well written, very visual.
From Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs
