Andrew Lahde

Who is Andrew Lahde?

Andrew Lahde was a California-based hedge fund manager who in 2007 earned some fame for achieving return rates in the vicinity of 1000% with his Lahde Capital, based in Santa Monica, California. The fund speculated on increases of U.S. subprime mortgage defaults. He earned a bachelor's degree in finance from Michigan State University and an MBA from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California Los Angeles. Lahde's hedge fund strategy was based on his knowledge of real estate, real estate finance, the complex world of securitized real estate finance and various financial vehicles associated with the transactions. What differentiated Lahde from many other hedge fund operations was an understanding of the underlying asset, residential real estate.

In September 2008, Lahde closed his fund, telling investors that credit problems - the basis of his profits - were likely to continue, but that the possibility of defaults by counterparties was too high. On October 17, he released an open good-bye letter to his investors, in which he said that the "low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking."