Charity Looking for Musical Hedge Fund Professionals

NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com)–A Leg to Stand On, an organization that provides prosthetic limbs and ongoing support to children with limb disabilities in developing nations, has put out a “call to instruments” of sorts among people in the hedge fund industry.

The organization is holding a charity event–called, appropriately enough, Hedge Funds Rocktoberfest–this October at Planet Hollywood in New York. Claire Mackay, executive director of A Leg to Stand On, said the goal is to raise money to pay for prosthetic limbs; training for doctors in prosthetic design and rehabilitation; and long-term care through the child’s 18th birthday.

In February 2003, not long after its founding by C. Mead Welles, founder of Octagon Asset Management LLC and former Cargill Financial Services International Inc. emerging markets trader, A Leg to Stand On opened its first clinic, in Ahmedabad, India. That clinic, partnering with the Indian government, has been helping children ever since.

A Leg to Stand On’s connections to the hedge fund industry are deep. The organization works out of Octagon’s New York offices, and its past donors include WoodAllen Capital Management, Princeton, N.J.; John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, Washington; Kirk Rostron, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Hovde Capital Advisors LLC, Washington; and the matching gift programs at Lehman Brothers Inc., New York, and Citigroup Inc., New York.

Rocktoberfest follows another successful fund-raising event in March at the Chelsea Hotel. There, an array of hedge fund managers and analysts from New York and London played classic rock and put on other special performances. Ms. Mackay said the Rocktoberfest fundraiser is designed to build on that success.