Interviews

Neal Goyal, chief investment officer of Blue Horizon Asset Management, outlines his firm's strategy to capitalise on the volatile market environment and continuing fall-out from the sub-pr

The five-year-old Julius Baer Absolute Return Bond Fund managed by London-based Augustus Asset Managers has delivered euro-denominated returns of 3.8 per cent over the past three

Alistair MacDonald, co-manager of the newly-launched Merrion European Absolute Return Fund, argues that Ucits III hedge funds are benefiting from the current uncertainty over the final form and substance of the European Union’s AIFM Directive as well as concerns over the costs of implementing its requirements.

Frédéric Durr, a principal and fund manager with Shanghai-based Maoming Investment Management, says the firm’s Maoming Fund aims to generate returns while preserving capital through an intense focus on the companies it invests in, with liquidity the key element in risk management.

Richard Sherwin, partner and head of investment research at Blacksquare Capital, says the newly-launched IFSL Blacksquare Multi-Manager Absolute Return Fund, of which he is portfolio manager, is accessible and affordable to a large majority of investors thanks to a minimum investment of GBP1,000 for its UK retail share class and the absence of a performance fee – a unique characteristic for a multi-manager absolute return fund.

Alternative Advisors’ William Kitchin (pictured), portfolio manager of the Castillon Diversified Fund, a Ucits absolute return fund of funds, says that while the fund is constrained in its selection of underlying managers by the need to match the liquidity it offers to investors, this is not a particular disadvantage in the short term given the current macro economic conditions.

Florian Wagner, founder and head of Qbasis Invest, which specialises in exchange-traded managed futures, says that after achieving returns of 72 and 145 per cent respectively in 2007 and 2008, the firm also proved the effectiveness of its systems by outperforming the CTA sector the following year despite giving back 15 per cent.

Gary West (photo) and James Inglis-Jones say the Liontrust European Long/Short Fund they manage has enjoyed solid growth this year amid the gloom f

Ezra Sun, manager of Veritas's Real Return Asia Fund, says that while Asia is set to suffer by proxy from the global economic slowdown, experiencing a reduction in domestic consumption and export g

Bernard Lambilliotte, chief investment officer of specialist utilities and infrastructure investor Ecofin, says the firm's newly-launched China Pow

The founders of MarketPsy Capital have developed a systematic investment strategy that arbitrages sentiment-based stock mispricing by analysing the

SAM Capital Partners is looking to expand the investor base of its SAM Capital Equity Opportunity Fund, launched in September 2007, on the back of a run of 13 successive months of positive return. Founder and chief investment officer Dietmar Schmitt says the firm’s approach is being validated by the plans of other groups to launch trading funds with short-term investment horizons.

Adam Balinsky, president of Stamford, Connecticut-based life settlement investment specialist Caldwell Life Strategies, says the key to his firm’s success in an asset class full o

Anthony Eaton, manager of the six-year-old, GBP54m JM Finn Global Opportunities Fund, says the fund aims to invest in the consequences of globalisation as industrialisation and urbanisation within non-G7 countries create greater global output but also greater capacity, moving pricing power from what is made to what is required to make it.

Ilya Golubovich (pictured), managing partner of specialist clean technology fund manager I2BF and Irakli Menabde, manager of the I2BF-Arbat Technology Fund, say the fund is unique in its field by employing a relative value strategy with a fully systematic investment process based on the notion of consistent outperformance.

James Thornton, fund director at Mayfair Capital Investment Management, says investors with the specialist property fund manager have benefited from the firm’s ability to time the UK market – for example in 2007, when they called the peak of the market and decided to wind up the MC Property Growth Fund early to protect investors’ capital and take profits.

Michael Azlen, founder and executive chairman of Frontier Capital Management, says his firm’s index-based approach to multi-asset investing is modelled on the tried and tested approach of US university endowments, aims to create a globally diversified portfolio through exposure to eight traditional and alternative asset classes or strategies to generate long-term uncorrelated real returns above inflation and cash.

Olaf van den Heuvel, European head of tactical asset allocation at Aegon Asset Management and portfolio manager of the Ucits-compliant Global Opportunities Fund launched last December, expects the fallout following the credit crunch to continue along with further ‘surprises’ like Greece or Dubai.

AIMhedge chief investment officer Richard Bibb says the firm’s combination of a systematic, emotion-free trading approach over a large, well-diversified basket of futures markets and an effective active risk management system is a very powerful argument for investors just starting to look for better-performing investments in the wake of the financial meltdown in 2008.

QIC Global Fixed Interest, part of the investment business originally set up by Australia’s Queensland state government to manage its long-term liabilities and pension obligations, saw its assets under management grow from around USD23bn to USD35bn between mid-2007 and the end of last year. According to managing director Susan Buckley, the key competitive advantage of the business is the strength and quality of its investment research and process.

Tim Gascoigne, global head of portfolio management at HSBC Alternative Investments, says that what is reckoned the third largest alternative business worldwide with more than USD30bn in assets has been built on a combination of bottom-up and top-down research, a focus on diversification and strong approach to due diligence.

Robert Milroy, chief investment officer of fund of hedge funds manager Corazon Capital, says that having cut its ties to the fallen Dawnay Day grou

Chief executive Dr Glenn Baggley says Eddington Capital Management aims to offer investors a high-octane fund of funds portfolio through the selection of talented managers capable of achie

David Sheasby, a member of the management team for the Martin Currie Omnium Fund, believes the fund of funds, which invests in the firm's range of

Stephen Greene, partner and chief investment officer of the multi-manager business at ACP Partners, says that having undergone an unprecedented sho

Tai Tam Capital'sHui-Wen Shiau (see attached photo) and Jun-Tsiang Lam outline the
thinking that is driving the investment strategy of their new As

Simon Luhr, chief executive of PCE Investors (pictured), and Gyldmark chief investment officer Mahmood Noorani, explain the approach of the Gyldmark global macro fund launched in July and that is currently targeting the overall level of demand and supply for risky assets.

Luca Rubinelli, portfolio manager of the Global Macro Absolute Return Trading strategy at systematic trading specialist Xenfin Capital, says uncertainty over G10 government balance sheets and weake

Mick Swift, director of research at Dublin-based Abbey Capital, says the firm, which runs global macro and managed futures multi-manager funds with more than USD1.7bn under management, is enjoying strong allocations from investors thanks to the high levels of liquidity offered by the funds as well as the firm’s eight-year track record.

William Wong, director of Qbasis Capital Management, argues that after a successful year in 2008 while other hedge fund strategies stumbled, the firm's systematic managed futures funds

SVM Asset Management managing director Colin McLean says the SVM Highlander Fund he manages, which has returned an annualised 15.1 per cent since i

Brian Gilmore, chief executive of Palatine Asset Management, says the Capitoline Global Media Fund, which aims to exploit capital inefficiencies in the market for asset-based financing

Head of funds Manfred Schrapler says that as one of the few banks with a dedicated hybrid structuring and trading team, Deutsche Bank is able to use unique risk management techniques to

Michael Derks, chief investment officer of Arch Financial Products, says the CF Arch cru Finance Fund launched in November to invest in short- to medium-term private finance deals enjoy

Andreas Koettner, managing director and head of portfolio management at Malta-based Golden Hedge Alternative Investments, says the firm’s multistrategy fund stands to benefit from its specialisation in relatively unusual niche strategies that display low correlation to typical CTA or hedge fund styles.

Direct investment in farmland has outperformed stock and bond returns over various timescales with substantially lower volatility than the US equit

Marc Thiel, chief executive of real estate investor and manager Euro Ejendomme, says the firm’s new hotel fund, which is aiming to close with EUR500m in capital by next June, aims to capitalise upon the relative lack in Germany of the middle-range business hotels common in the UK and France.

Manuel Alejandro Dopazo, managing director of London-based investment manager and corporate advisor Fincere, says that despite the recent impact on emerging markets of global financial turbulence, the world's developing economies are well placed to continue to build on their growth of the past few years.

Peter Halloran, founder and chief executive of specialist Russia and CIS manager Pharos Financial Group, says the firm's presence in Russia and its network of local contacts are the key to

Todd Voigt, manager of Cohen & Steers' Global Real Estate Long-Short strategy, which differentiates itself through bottom-up fundamental resear

Carlo Scevola, president of Carlo Scevola & Partners, which is portfolio manager to the Leader Fund, says his firm's model-driven process for i

Julie Bouhuys, founder and chief executive of Concerto Asset Management, says that although the Concerto Credit Opportunity Offshore Fund I benefit

Majedie Asset Management'sTortoise Fund returned 12.1 per cent in 2008 and was up more than 25 per cent in the first half of this year despite a co

President Stephen Siderow says credit investment specialist BlueMountain Capital Management is planning to launch a series of funds this year to ex

Sergey Grechishkin, a principal with Alcantara Asset Management, says the firm’s newly-launched Alcantara Russia and CIS Fixed Income Opportunities Fund, which follows a mix of active long-only and relative value strategies, draws heavily on its founders close understanding and experience of fixed-income issuers in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

Steven Gerbel, founder and president of merger arbitrage specialist Chicago Capital Management, expects a historic number of mergers within the US banking industry over the coming years as a result of the crisis highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of institutions, and believes this will present the sector with some of the largest merger arbitrage spreads and profit margins ever seen.