By Irwin Speizer
Photographs Michael Edwards
Brian Taylor had just launched Pine River Capital Management in 2002 and was pitching investors when Brett Barth came calling. A partner in BBR Partners, the New York asset management company that serves a group of wealthy families, Barth had watched Taylor in previous jobs and sized him up as a promising new face on the hedge fund scene.
Barth found Taylor operating out of a remote lake cabin about 150 miles north of Minneapolis, with his business set up in the basement. Because of an unusual noncompete clause from his previous employer, EBF & Associates, Taylor was barred from establishing his firm within 100 miles of his old firm in suburban Minneapolis.
The cabin was a perfect location for weekend hunting and fishing trips. But for a hedge fund firm with ambitions of becoming a global multistrategy operation?
"A group operating out of a...