meet the geeks

Robert R. Topping founded a hedge fund in 1998, a fund of funds in 2007, and formed the corporate structure of Topping Capital in 2006. He has been in the investment business for over forty years with prior experience in institutional and retail sales, venture capital, portfolio management, and the market making of securities. Beginning in 2010, and through 2013, Topping Capital reallocated approximately $5 million to distressed real estate with a group that had fifteen years and $100 million of prior acquisition experience. This initial reallocation away from the hedge fund, and the realization of the confluence of capital-market events provided the genesis of a major “pivot” of the business model. The subsequent merger of the two predecessor funds in 2013 was the foundation of a totally opportunistic, “freeform” business model in search of early identification of alternative solutions independent of market and economic outcome in a Nu40 world. We believe in ever increasing velocity and volatility in capital markets and a construct to the compartmentalization of risk.

Rob is a past board member of GlobeMed.org, a past treasurer and board member of the Old Masters Society at the Art Institute of Chicago and a former advisory board member of Cumulus Funding (Align Income Share Funding) . He was a member of the Evanston Entrepreneur Lab. He earned his BBA from Southern Methodist University in 1983 and was a member of the 1983 NCAA Track and Field national championship team. Rob received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in September of 1993. He has two grown children and lives in downtown Chicago while officing in Evanston.