I wouldn't let any of this color impressions of Dave, he's a really solid individual.
Thanks to all for your thoughts.
To clarify - everything I've read from Dave, and emails from him have impressed me - without having met him (would love to get to Pittsburgh, but I'm quite far away!), so far, I believe he has great integrity.
So I think it's a real shame, as I think the involvement of ENDI makes one pause in a way that you wouldn't otherwise.
Furthermore, things are potentially further confused as Alluvial and Arquitos have some overlapping holdings - if the ENDI issues mean people retreat from Arquitos, I don't know if this would be problematic in the forced selling of illiquid shares.
I think it's easy to say something is 'good' or 'bad'. I have a hunch that Mr Kiel is not a 'villain', that he meant well and has talent, but got way over his head with ENDI, and it's really spiralled, with errors now compounding.
Ultimately though, I think Alluvial is really interesting (and Dave seems like he cares about clients) and I think that if the fund extracted itself from ENDI, it would be pretty killer.
I don't know as much about Bonhoeffer and Keith, but I imagine a lot of the above also applies.