Adult entertainment hedge funds get Wall Street investors excited

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Author: Business Report

 Peter Lynch, the famed investor and vice-chairman of Fidelity Investments, often advised to "invest in what you know".

Maybe that is why Francis Koenig thinks Wall Street is ready to come around to putting big money into the adult entertainment business.

Koenig is the chief executive and founder of AdultVest, "the world's first and only investment community designed specifically for the adult industry", according to the company's website.

AdultVest matches buyers with sellers of strip clubs and other businesses; offers a forum for "talent" to be bought and sold in the adult industry; and seeks out investors to pony up money for hedge funds that invest in clubs, adult toy companies, porn movie producers and other legal players in the sex business.

It is the latter - the hedge funds - that is the "primary focus" of AdultVest, according to Koenig.

His investors may all be anonymous, his business may be sordid and the amount of actual money he is managing may be a mystery. But none of that will keep him from being among the luminaries at New York's Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, where hedge fund icons will gather for the Sixth Annual Hedge Fund Industry Awards. AdultVest is among four nominees for the Hedge Fund Launch of the Year award.