A Korean American is emerging as a star fund manager and an especially astute futures trader on the Wall Street hedge fund scene. Paul Kim is the founder and "Chief Visionary Officer" of mISFIT Financial Group. According to international investment bank Barclays Capital, Kim's agricultural commodities fund, Calatrava, posted an annual return of 67.84 percent as of late May, making it the second best investment product in the sector.
Kim says he's achieved a stable annual return rate of more than 20 percent since he set up the company in 2001, which he attributes to his seasoning in the grain market. Soaring international commodities prices also pulled his returns up last year.
To avoid an agricultural crisis, he advised that Korea adopt a risk-hedging system that accurately predicts commodities prices and changes in demand. He plans to introduce an agriculture-focused fund called mISFIT-Delta fund to Korea in collaboration with Korean asset management company DeltaExchange.
Kim was born in Korea and moved with his parents to the U.S. state of Minnesota at the age of eight. After studying economics at Northwestern University, he joined international grain company Cargill as a trader. He worked in the grain market for eight years, then began futures trading with just US$5,000 in his hand. Now he handles transactions worth tens of millions of dollars, and he's become the first Asian member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
When Kim is not earning money, he's giving it away. He supports a humanitarian group that aids North Korean refugees in Yanbian, China, and provides food worth US$400,000 to North Korean children through international nonprofit organizations. His philosophy, he says, is to help others change their lives for the better.
