Franz Gaul
SPECIAL PARTNER
Franz currently runs his own company Adamant Assets, which is working with private equity funds, family offices and other institutional investors on strategy, asset allocation, portfolio construction and investment due diligence. He served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Max Planck
Foundation in Munich from 2008 to 2021. He was the first employee at the foundation and built a broadly diversified, global portfolio across traditional and alternative asset classes in both developed and emerging markets. The majority of the foundation’s assets are invested in alternatives including
hedge funds, marketable and private alternative asset managers, including a broad range of private equity strategies. He also established the foundation’s infrastructure and back-office operations.
Franz previously worked for a private software startup managing the financial department and was a portfolio manager with BTV, a Munich based family office, where he started to build an alternative investment practice.
Franz has accumulated extensive experience across a wide variety of private asset classes and funds. In his various roles he has dealt with a broad range of investment managers, allocators, and service providers. He has carried out investment and operational due diligence on more than 200 funds since
1999, dealing with legal, audit, broker, and administration counterparties across a variety of strategies and industries in hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real estate, and various niche alternatives. He has been actively involved in supporting new fund managers to launch funds.
Franz started his career as a management consultant in 1995, where he, amongst others, spent most of his time as a consultant at the Technical University of Munich. He holds a Master of Business Administration (cum laude) from the University of Passau, Germany.
