Keep pulling the thread on Jenny Heller.
Brandywine Trust Group cites a past investment in a quantitative tax strategy as a mistake where they over-focused on the strategy's complexity and missed critical red flags regarding the manager's broken culture and team dynamics.
Brandywine Trust Group typically avoids investing in long-only managers who exhibit high portfolio turnover, charge very high fees, or maintain large cash holdings.
Brandywine Trust Group's investment strategy focuses on durable managers and strategies, generally avoiding short-term tactical opportunities.
Brandywine Trust Group allows team members to conduct "deep dives" into areas of personal interest, with the understanding that this research may not result in a direct investment.
Brandywine Trust Group's investment in securitized affordable housing bonds generated pre-tax returns in the mid-teens with very low default risk.
A multi-month deep dive into the broader affordable housing asset class by Brandywine Trust Group concluded that their existing investment in securitized bonds was the most efficient approach, resulting in no new investments.
A deep dive into cryptocurrency led by two junior team members at Brandywine Trust Group resulted in the firm making a small investment in the asset class.
Brandywine Trust Group's investment thesis for crypto focused more on its potential as a new technology platform (Web 3.0) and its use cases rather than as a store of value like Bitcoin.
Brandywine Trust Group viewed the crypto space as analogous to the internet in the 1990s, justifying a small initial investment to learn about the emerging asset class and its potential opportunities.
Brandywine Trust Group's investment strategy is to invest through external managers rather than directly, and this approach was applied to their crypto investment without considering direct ownership of tokens.
For Brandywine Trust Group, a "venture size" investment in a fund is typically $10 million or less.
Jenny Heller believes the best venture capital managers significantly limit their fund sizes, which constrains the allocation sizes available to LPs like Brandywine Trust Group.