Hedge fund awards 2015

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Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC) Gen2 is thrilled to be named Best Multi-Strategy Fund – Asia for KSAARF. We believe the award will be a stepping stone to greater success for Gen2 Partners Limited.

Kyle Shin, Founder and CIO, Gen2 Partners

Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds This award, to us, reflects the effort we put in on a daily basis to generate solid risk-adjusted returns for our investors.

Per Djerf, Head of Asset Management, Peak Core Hedge

Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation & Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global We are honoured that Stonegate Global has been recognized for its innovative work in global hedge fund formation. Our unique, comprehensive approach to fund formation, fund administration, global prime services and cap intro positions us a significant player in the alternative investments industry.

John McCorvey III, CEO, Stonegate Global Fund Services

Best Russian Fund (Since Inception) We are proud to have the distinction, especially given the strong competition we know to have faced. The key element of the award is the fact that it is voted on by peers. The industry is driven by competition and we are proud to have been selected.

David Amaryan, Director, Copperstone Alpha Fund www.acquisition-intl.com

AI

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foreword Welcome to the 2015 Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards.

Nominated by clients, peers and fellow professionals; voted for by our subscribers; agreed by our industry experts – our awards are given to commend outstanding work around the world over the past 12 months.

And what a 12 months it’s been. After a difficult four years due to the economic downturn our contributors are reporting that the past 12 months has seen not just renewed confidence but a bullish equity market; a view echoed by Eurekahedge, which found that hedge funds globally expanded assets under management by $228.8 billion to an all-time high of $2.01 trillion in 2013. In addition, new trends along the lines of alternative mutual funds are testing even the most traditional of investors and the industry is also facing an increased regulatory challenge.

It’s clear from our awards that hedge fund professionals around the world, and those who support them, have grasped the opportunities, risen to the challenges of the past 12 months and produced some outstanding work. The sheer scale of interest in our awards took us by surprise and we’re delighted that the industry has been so determined to recognise its stars. The awards recognise everything from funds, managers and advisors to IT provision and niche areas. All of our winners can be proud of their achievements.

So read on, and find out who made the cut and what it takes to be an Acquisition International award winner.

Gen2 Partners

Herculis Partners

LR Global

Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC) / Page 4

Best Swiss Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Hercules Partners Aries Fund / Page 8

Best in Frontier Market Investing - New York, Emerging Manager of the Year - Cayman Islands, Frontier Markets Hedge Fund of the Year Cayman Islands & Best Frontier Market-Focused Fund (Since Inception) / Page 10

Stonegate Global Fund Services

Peak Core Hedge

Copperstone Alpha Fund

Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation & Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global / Page 14

Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds / Page 16

Best Russian Fund (Since Inception / Page 18

Copperstone Alpha Fund

Dix Hills Partners LLC

Carlisle Management Company SCA

Steben & Company

The ECU Group

Best in Global Interest Rate Specialists / Page 34

Best Fund Manager - Luxembourg & Best European Long-Term Growth Fund - Page 48

US Fund of Hedge Funds - Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund / Page 52

Best for Currency Management Services & Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK / Page 56

Carlisle MANAGEMENT

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC)

4 Fact File

Address: Unit 7702B, Level 77, International Commerce Centre, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong Tel: +852 37274500 Email: info@gen2ks.com Web: www.gen2ks.com

Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC)

Gen2 Partners Gen2 Partners, based in Hong Kong, is one of the leaders in customised Asian Hedge Funds for institutional investors and family offices, in addition to being a trusted partner to help manage its investors’ exposure to Asia across all Asian alternative strategies. The firm’s flagship hedge fund, the KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC has been named Best Multi-Strategy Fund – Asia in the Hedge Fund Awards. Gen2 Partners also named as the Best for Customised Asian Hedge Funds Award. We spoke to Kyle Shin, Founder and CIO, Gen2 Partners, to find out more about the fund and Gen2 Partners and their on-going success Gen2 Partners is an independent specialist alternative investment firm in Asia with the deepest team of experienced senior professionals in the Asian financial industry. The firm’s main office is located in Hong Kong’s 118-story Landmark building, International Commerce Center (ICC). “We actively manage the portfolio of investment that uses unique investment strategies, such as benefiting from regulatory and market inefficiencies in the Investment Grade Asian Fixed Income market, long and short equities, and derivate positions mainly for hedging purpose in Pan Asia markets,” says Kyle Shin, Founder and CIO. Shin was the head of Kingdon Capital Korea, and is one of the first Korean national to set-up a hedge fund in Asia who had previous hedge fund experience at a tier 1 hedge fund, Kingdon Capital Management.

In January 2010, Gen2 launched the KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC (KSAARF). “The fund’s goal is to deliver double digit returns while keeping the volatility at less than one-third of market (benchmark is MSCI Asia Equity Index),” says Shin.

Gen2 has prestigious high profile clients, such as quasi-sovereign pension funds, leading financial institutions, listed corporates and family offices. “All our clients have different risk appetite and Gen2 Partners has been able to customise the funds tailored to each investor’s risk/return profile. Most of clients are looking for stable return plus growth with low/medium risk appetite,” says Shin.

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“

We are good at quickly evaluating where values are and we can use such opportunity into profit. We also keep good relations with diversified brokers who are helpful to find out such opportunity. We are also strict on risk management and use diversified hedges as we acknowledge that there is no perfect hedge in the financial world. In short, we are not a mega hedge fund and thus we can be nimble in making money in Asia.

”

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

“We are good at quickly evaluating where values are and we can use such opportunity into profit,” he says. “We also keep good relations with diversified brokers who are helpful to find out such opportunity.

We are also strict on risk management and use diversified hedges as we acknowledge that there is no perfect hedge in the financial world.

In short, we are not a mega hedge fund and thus we can be nimble in making money in Asia.”

Asked how Gen2 distinguishes itself from the competition, Shin points to the firm’s flexible approach. “We can customise the fund that can be tailored to each client’s investment risk and return appetite at competitive cost in short period of time. It seems our competitors cannot or don’t offer our quality of service for the time being. We have a good network in Korea and access to the local hedge fund development and regulatory requirements. Also, our strategy fits well with Korean clients’ investment mandates.”

As 2014 comes to a close and we move into 2015, Shin says regulation remains the key word in the hedge fund industry. “Whether we are talking about FATCA, AIFMD or others, there is more and more time needed to be spent on regulations.”

Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC)

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We can customise the fund that can be tailored to each client’s investment risk and return appetite at competitive cost in short period of time. It seems our competitors cannot or don’t offer our quality of service for the time being.

”

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

The changing regulatory environment in the global banking system offers both opportunity and risk to generate absolute return for hedge funds, Shin says. “Upcoming Basel III, Dodd Frank and so on new regulatory regimes have affected global banks to reduce or even shut down their proprietary fixed income trading desk/prop-book in Asia, which has been one of the key reasons for declining liquidity, especially in fixed income market. Declining liquidity can be both opportunity and risk. Hedge fund who has good network can engage in providing liquidity with stable profits that global banks used to enjoy. “However, if fixed income funds who do not have good network and have to unwind large position in the short period of time, it may negatively affect the performance on the flip side.

“Korean, Japanese and so on regulations on off-shore USD/EUR/JPY/ and so on currency bond issuance have also provided opportunity to generate alpha for off-shore hedge funds, such as Gen2 Partners, to generate stable returns”.

“On the other hand, strengthening regulatory has negatively affected capital raising efforts. In order to solicit new investors, there is mounting regulatory requirement which practically close the door for smaller hedge funds to raise the assets in such countries. We attribute this as one of reason for big hedge funds getting bigger, while small hedge funds are getting smaller.”

Gen2 offers a high degree of transparency, says Shin. “We can provide transparency through independent risk monitoring firms at reasonable fees to the clients. It can be monthly or even daily risk report provided directly to the investor in customized formats. Clients may even have their own ID/PW to access their daily/weekly/monthly risk information from our independent risk monitoring company’s website.

“Our Fund Administrator can also provide ITR (Investor Transparency Report) directly to the investor, which is not common in Asian hedge fund industry. We are trying to provide as much comfort as possible to the investors, while not affecting the Funds and/or other investors’ rights.”

Working in Asia presents both challenges and opportunities, Shin says. “In terms of opportunities, regulatory arbitrage may not widely be available outside of certain countries in Asia. And in terms of challeng-

“

We can provide transparency through independent risk monitoring firms at reasonable fees to the clients. It can be monthly or even daily risk report provided directly to the investor in customized formats. Clients may even have their own ID/PW to access their daily/ weekly/monthly risk information from our independent risk monitoring company’s website. Our Fund Administrator can also provide ITR (Investor Transparency Report) directly to the investor, which is not common in Asian hedge fund industry. We are trying to provide as much comfort as possible to the investors, while not affecting the Funds and/or other investors’ rights.

”

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Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC)

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Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia (KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC)

“

The fund has been consistently nominated by leading Hedge Fund institutions since the fund launched in 2010 and we won our first award in 2014, which means something to us (we have won HFM Week Best Asian Multi-Strategy Fund in 2014).

”

es, the liquidity of Asian fixed income market is much smaller than the US/UK/EU liquidity. Capital raising for hedge fund is more difficult as big investors are still in the US/UK/EU.”

in Korean hedge fund market. Gen2 also has strong relationship with other leading Korean Asset Managers and currently in the process to accept investments from Korea.”

Looking to the future, Shin says Korea is probably the only country in the world that government aggressively try to build the hedge fund industry and is in the process to open the door for even high net-worth retail investors, while most of countries, including the US/UK/EU/ and so on are trying to impose more regulations/restriction.

Gen2 is planning to continue to build up KSAARF in 2015. “We are planning to offer a few more commingled fund options,” says Shin, “such as 1) Multi-Strategy Fund as we have been doing, 2) Fixed Income Strategy which has been the dominant strategy for the past 5 years of Multi-Strategy, and 3) Equity L/S Strategy of the Multi-Strategy. Investors can choose either 1) multi-strategy, 2) fixed income strategy only out of KSAARF’s multi-strategy, 3) equity L/S strategy only out of KSAARF’s multi-strategy.

“The Korean government allowed to launch on-shore Korean hedge funds a few years ago and now on-shore Korean hedge funds AUM increased to US$2.5bn, which is expected to grow at a fast pace given the US$1.1tn market cap of Korea.

“NPS (National Pension Services, which is the 4th largest pension fund globally) is growing rapidly and its AUM is expected to jump from US$414bn currently to US$770bn by 2020 and US$2,328bn by 2043.

“Gen2 Partners has MOU with Woori Asset Management (the asset management arm of Woori Financial Group, which is owned by the government, now acquired by Kiwoom Investment & Securities, which is the leading Korean broker which the largest market share for the past 8 consecutive years) from September 2011 and actively involved

Shin says Gen2 is “thrilled” to be named Best Multi-Strategy Fund – Asia for KSAARF, and believes the award will be a stepping stone to greater success for Gen2 Partners Limited. “The fund has been consistently nominated by leading Hedge Fund institutions since the fund launched in 2010 and we won our first award in 2014, which means something to us (we have won HFM Week Best Asian Multi-Strategy Fund in 2014). Our staff and investors are excited to win the award after five years of hard work and successful returns to the investors.

Kyle Shin and the team are very appreciative of the award which reflects the hard work done over the last few years. n

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Best Swiss Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Hercules Partners Aries Fund

Fact File

Company: Herculis Partners SA Name: Nikolay Karpenko Address: 30, rue du 23 Juin 2900 Porrentruy, Switzerland Phone: + 41 32 552 0 227 Fax: + 41 32 446 5 018 Email: info@herculispartners.ch Web: www.herculispartners.ch

Best Swiss Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Hercules Partners Aries Fund

Herculis Partners

The Herculis Partners Aries Fund pursues a Long/Short investment strategy. Nikolay Karpenko, Board Member, tells us about the fund and its aims

Herculis Partners SA is a Wealth & Investment Boutique which was established in 2009 by group of Russian and Swiss partners for bringing new added value to the Wealth Owners (HNWIs, Family Offices, Charities and Endowments) through responsible business approach in Wealth & Asset Management and Investment Banking industries taking into account principles of ethics, transparency and performance.

The Herculis Partners “Aries” Fund pursues a Long/Short investment strategy. It is explicitly pointed out that the fund may purchase investment instruments (long positions) as well as short-sell such instruments (short positions) and undertake transactions in derivative financial instruments. Moreover, the fund is entitled to maximise its earnings potential by deploying derivative financial instruments and by financing investments with loans (up to max. 50%). The maximum permissible leverage is the 5-fold value of the fund’s assets (aggregate net value of all long/short positions relative to the fund’s assets).

The annual target is 10% in CHF with volatility 12%.

Herculis Partners provides wealth owners with easy access to unique set of alternative investments like hedge funds, private equity funds, wine and precious stone investments in order to preserve and multiply their capital. Our approach is to make alternative investments accessible, liquid and cost effective as much as possible. On top of that, we invest our own capital at the beginning and only then propose to our clients to join us. We call this approach an alignment of interests.

There are many pension funds and single and multi-family offices located in Switzerland. They are our core investors. Also, a well developed financial infrastructure allows make very efficient execution on securities market. And Switzerland has a strong brand of developer of innovative products among global investors. www.acquisition-intl.com

The strongest part of our business is creating tailor-made reverse convertible structured notes with high coupon and 50% barrier for our own proprietary position. Our products are completely different from what other players are pushing on the market. The key advantage is that Investors can join us in our investments and share with us all risks and rewards. The prospective area of our business development is Sharia-compliant products with elements of Social responsible investments.

Now are finalising our negotiations with relevant parties in Dubai about launching there Sharia-complaint hedge fund. It was a challenge how to combine aggressive strategy with requirements of local Sharia scholars who will monitor the Fund’s holdings. We see a big demand from Muslim investors for two-digital return with low volatility.

The industry today The current industry tectonic movements along with regulatory environment changes are bringing a challenge for all players nevertheless their size and experience. In these circumstances Herculis Partners sees his main task in helping the Wealth Owners to increase Wealth through VC & PE Investments and M&A deals, to preserve and multiply Wealth through passive and active operations on Global Securities Markets, to protect Wealth from states, creditors and raiders and pass it on successors, to distribute Wealth on environmental and society needs according to customers altruistic ideals and values.

Now, investors are more familiar with alternative investments than they were 20 years ago. The hedge fund industry is growing fast and absorbing huge amount of money. Clients are looking for low volatile instruments but with attractive return in conditions of low interest rates when all securities markets are overvalued. The allocation of alternative investments in their portfolios is achieving 15-20%. It gives a big

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Best Swiss Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Hercules Partners Aries Fund

opportunity to strengthen relationships with the clients as they are becoming keen on alternative investments.

Perceptions of hedge fund managers are changing. I think the most illustrative example of how people perceived hedge fund managers in the past, is the main character in the movie “The Wolf from Wall Street.”

Now, the situation has changed dramatically. Taking into account high competition in the market, hedge fund managers must show to their investors not only sustainable performance but also how they went about achieving it. The reputation of managers also is a key element of perceiving. They are avoiding big scandals with burning tons of money for parties, luxury toys and exclusive real estate.

Awards success It’s a thrilling feeling to know that Herculis Partners SA was named as Best Swiss Long/Short Hedge Fund. Also there is a feeling of pride that our efforts in alternative investments have been noticed by our peers.

I think the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards is a testament to the skills and dedication demonstrated in the always challenging environment and often turbulent landscape. It rewards individuals and firms for their courage to achieve ambitious goals and bring adding value to their investors. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

LR Global

10 Fact File

Company: LR Global Frontier Fund, Ltd. Name: Michael St.Germain Email: ms@lrglobal.com Web: http://lrglobal.com Address: 430 Park Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022 Phone: +1 212-821-1412

Best in Frontier Market Investing - New York, Emerging Manager of the Year - Cayman Islands, Frontier Markets Hedge Fund of the Year - Cayman Islands & Best Frontier-Market Focused Fund (Since Inception)

LR Global

LR Global, which has won four awards in this year’s Hedge Fund Awards, has, since its inception in 1997, achieved international brand recognition as a result of strong performance, a steadfast commitment to fundamental analysis and an extensive network of well-respected contacts and relationships. Michael St. Germain, Director of Business Development, filled us in on the secret to the firm’s runaway success LR Global is a boutique frontier markets specialist founded in 1997 as part of the Rockefeller family office. Headquartered in New York, the firm has a research centre in Vietnam and an asset management company in Bangladesh.

“What makes LR Global unique is its institutionalised investment process designed to minimise biases and information asymmetries through a systematic approach to gathering and analysing the full frontier markets opportunity set,” says Michael St. Germain, Director of Business Development.

LR Global first started a frontier fund with seeding from its founders, the Rockefeller family, Jack Nash, and Leon Levey (founders of Oppenheimer & Co. and Odyssey Partners). “LR Global quickly achieved international brand recognition as a result of strong performance, a steadfast commitment to fundamental analysis and an extensive network of well-respected contacts and relationships,” says St. Germain. “LR Global grew its assets to nearly US$1bn, before the unfortunate deaths of our original seed investors and co - founder. The ensuing fund redemptions, approximately 50% of our assets under management, were compounded by the global financial crisis, which catalysed the redemptions of our remaining asset base. This led to the winding-down of the strategy in 2009.”

LR Global’s 13 years of frontier markets experience at that point provided the necessary insight to re-design an institutionalised investment process and infrastructure specifically tailored to these markets.

“With this experience, and the development of our new infrastructure, investment process, and proprietary frontier markets database, LR Global re-launched its frontier markets strategy in January 2012,” St. Germain says.

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“LR Global is truly unique in that we were one of the first institutional investors in frontier markets, pre-dating the formalisation of the asset class,” he continues. “Our record of success in frontier markets, a market segment which many investors are looking to enter for the first time, provides unparalleled experience which we view as a core strength.”

On the surface, LR Global’s strategy may appear like any other long-biased frontier fund, says Germain. “However, what makes us unique is our institutionalised investment process designed to minimise biases and information asymmetries by systematically monitoring and analysing the full frontier markets opportunity set.”

Of course, the challenges involved in gathering and processing intelligence from many diverse frontier markets are substantial. “As one can imagine, there is a tremendous amount of moving parts when covering more than 50 markets,” St. Germain says. “The constantly-changing economic, political, industry and corporate dynamics all need to be identified and analysed as to their potential impact on the portfolio and new opportunities. Without an infrastructure design to assimilate the continuous stream of news flow, a frontier manager is easily inundated with noise or must accept significant blind spots.

“Our solution to this information challenge is to attack the challenge in numbers. For a boutique-specialist manager, the AUM constraints of the asset class place limitations on staffing a large team of research analysts out of New York or London. However, we have done as many multi-national corporates have in tapping the low-cost, highly educated labour available in frontier markets to build a team of analysts to help us tackle the informational challenges of the asset class. This team, primarily based out of our Vietnam research centre, has allowed us to build systems tailored to frontier markets well as well as an institutionalised investment process.

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

“Informational inefficiencies are abundant in frontier markets given their inherently nascent and opaque nature. Domestic and foreign investors in these markets process information with local influences and biases that result in the mispricing of frontier market stocks relative to their long-term fair values.

“LR Global believes that the informational inefficiencies present in frontier markets can be exploited through active portfolio management. LR Global’s approach is designed to minimise biases utilising a systematic approach to gathering and aggregating information.

Utilising unbiased analysis that incorporates a consistent valuation discipline, enhanced by strict adherence to risk management, results in the construction of a diversified frontier markets portfolio built for long-term, risk-adjusted outperformance.”

LR Global, with its extensive experience in frontier markets and its development of innovative tools, has engineered a strategy founded on risk management and rigorous analysis that reduces biases and increases the repeatability of long-term, risk-adjusted returns. “The LR Global Frontier Fund, Ltd. enables institutional investors to access a meticulously designed and tailored frontier markets strategy that underpins an institutional investment process that is unique to this opaque and diverse set of markets,” says St. Germain.

LR Global’s competitive advantages come from its experience, manpower, investment process/systems and relationships, he says. “The experience from investing in frontier markets for 17 years helps us avoid many of the pitfalls of investing in this unique asset class as well as the needed insight in designing an investment process and infrastructure specifically tailored to these markets. LR Global’s investment process and systems, which utilise both fundamental and quantitative disciplines, are designed to reduce biases and increase the repeat-

LR Global

11 ability of long-term, risk-adjusted returns. LR Global leverages the manpower from its 17-person research team to systematically monitor and report key economic, political, market, and sector-specific news flow. This efficient aggregation of data allows us to overcome the informational challenges present in frontier markets.”

Frontier Markets tend to have relationship-based cultures and dynamics that require going beyond data when evaluating investments. “In addition to understanding the industry and competitive landscape for each potential investment, one needs to have a particularly thorough understanding of political and ownership dynamics behind each company,” says St. Germain. “Relationships with informed people in each frontier market are crucial when trying to piece together and triangulate the full investment landscape for each stock in our portfolio.

“Drawing on our experience, we have developed an extensive network of local relationships and an intimate understanding of each frontier market we invest in. These are crucial components of our investment process that give us an advantage that is nearly impossible to replicate.”

Since LR Global opened its doors in 1997, much has changed in the industry, says St. Germain. “What was once an industry predominantly comprised of family offices and high net worth individuals, has transformed into its own distinct asset class that is dominated by large institutional investors.

“What has also changed is the regulation and attention which our industry is now accustomed to. The JOBS Act and AIFMD have ushered in a new dimension of regulation and compliance procedures which should improve the level of confidence in our industry. The downside for small, capacity constraint managers like ourselves is the significant costs that are associated with meeting the industry’s new requirements.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Investing in frontier markets naturally has its challenges. “There are many challenges in frontier markets from both business and investment standpoints,” says St. Germain. “While asset allocators and investors have increasingly come to recognise frontier markets as a distinct and viable asset class from traditional emerging markets, their excitement is often tempered by a lingering perception that the asset class is ‘riskier’ than developed or emerging markets.

“We assessed the validity of this claim using empirical data from country indices of 80 developed, emerging, and frontier markets over the last 10 years. Our analysis suggests that frontier markets as a group are not only less risky than traditional emerging markets, but have also exhibited comparable or lower risk to developed markets over most periods. While it is natural to fear the unknown or unfamiliar, the prevailing perceptions about risk in equities in frontier markets appear to be unfounded.

“Risk, defined as the probability of loss of capital, can stem from a variety of sources. In the case of frontier markets, commonly perceived sources of additional risk are attributed to greater political instability, weaker corporate governance, unstable currencies, and an over-dependence on commodities. Based on these factors, the presumption is that frontier markets will lend themselves to greater market risk.

Our empirical analysis of common risk metrics suggests such perceptions of increased market risk appear to be unsubstantial.

“While the market risk in investing in frontier markets may be lower than perceived, there are still some unique aspects to frontier markets that need to be considered with selecting a frontier markets manager.

One must scrutinise closely how a manager balances the liquidity constraints of the asset class with overall fund size. The lower risk advantages of frontier markets erode quickly in portfolios that are excessively large or offer overly frequent redemption terms.

“Other challenges unique to frontier markets relate to how a manager handles the informational challenges of investing in such a diverse set of opaque markets, each driven by its own idiosyncratic dynamics. The first-movers to frontier markets are not necessarily the household Wall Street names that have popped up with frontier funds over the past 2-3 years. As a result, the frontier markets experience, infrastructure, and relationships of a manager may matter more than what might feel comfortable when selecting an emerging or developed markets manager.”

It has been a tumultuous year for some frontier markets like Ukraine, Iraq and Ghana, says St. Germain, while others like Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have seen largely a slow and steady improvement in market outlook. “The sell-off in October and November has helped expose some of the frothy valuations that had been in some of the well-known frontier markets consumer names that a lot of new money piled into. As there is a huge opportunity set found beyond these larger, ‘easy-to-research’ names, we are not concerned by the sell-off.

We actually see it as a great opportunity to scoop up names at a sharp discount to where they traded only six months ago.”

As bottom-up stock pickers, LR Global does not try to time markets, he says. “We try to identify the best stocks in their respective sectors from across the 50 frontier markets in our investment universe.

Sometimes the best stock may be in the worst looking market. Likewise, the fastest growing most stable markets can have this information more fully priced in.”

Compared to emerging markets, frontier markets are a more attractive proposition, says St. Germain. “Frontier markets offer asset exposure similar to what emerging markets did 20 years ago. These are high growth markets with low correlation to the developing world and to each other offering greater diversification benefits than emerging markets. There are few foreign fund managers picking over these markets so it is still a market segment ripe for stock pickers.

“The traditional emerging markets, more specifically the BRICS, have increased their correlation to developed markets and as such are www.acquisition-intl.com

LR Global

12 susceptible to monetary and fiscal changes outside their own boarders. This infusion of capital helped fuel economic booms in emerging markets albeit at the mercy of their older developed siblings. The reversal of this capital flow, due to federal reserve tapering reductions, has resulted in currency weakness, rising interest rates, rising inflation, growing account deficits, and slower growth. Additionally, many emerging markets failed to diversify their economies relying on their commodity industries to spur and sustain growth and sovereign wealth creation.”

This year, LR Global has enjoyed success in the Hedge Fund Awards, being named Best in Frontier Market Investing – New York, Frontier Markets Hedge Fund of the Year – Cayman Islands, Best Frontier Markets Focused Fund since Inception and Emerging Manager of the Year – Cayman Islands.

“LR Global is truly honoured to have won four awards in the Acquisition International 2015 – Hedge Fund Awards,” says St. Germain. “LR Global has spent the past five years developing, what we believe to be, a unique and differentiated investment approach to frontier markets.

To be awarded and recognised by fellow industry professionals is a proud achievement for all of us. These awards are a validation and testament to the effort, commitment and hard work our dedicated team has put forth over the years in developing an innovative investment process and infrastructure.

“LR Global is an ‘established start-up’ uniquely positioned to re-establish itself as a frontier markets leader. As one of the first institutional investors in frontier markets, LR Global is unique in that we are not a new entrant to these markets given our 17 years of frontier investment experience. LR Global has successfully implemented a cost-efficient, institutional calibre support office of research analysts, technicians, and data specialist in our Hanoi, Vietnam office which facilitated the development of our proprietary frontier markets database and quantitative tools. From this database, our information processing architecture provides critical advantages versus our peers.

“LR Global distinguishes itself as a pure, dedicated frontier markets manager and has avoided including smaller emerging countries and or blending frontier with emerging to increase the capacity of our fund to improve revenue potential. We are active managers and maintain, in our opinion, a well-diversified and risk-controlled portfolio of true frontier markets equities.

“In this way, relative to the benchmark and even many of LR Global’s peers, our steadfast commitment to valuation and risk management may appear as defensive. However, LR Global is not a defensive manager, but merely ahead of our time. Until recently, the bulk of volume in most frontier markets owed to local or regional investors. Global frontier markets investing is a relatively more recent phenomenon. LR Global believes that in the future, more global investors will drive the critical volumes in these markets, which will abet the strategy’s longer-term, sector-oriented and valuation-sensitive investment style, which is in many ways contrary to the market behaviour since inception of the strategy.” n

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LR Global

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation & Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator – Global

14 Fact File

Name: John McCorvey III, CEO Web: www.StonegateGlobal.com Address: The Seagram Building 375 Park Avenue, Suite 2607, New York City, NY 10152 USA Phone: +1 212 500 5977

Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation & Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global

Stonegate Global Fund Services Stonegate Global Fund Services, winner of two Hedge Fund Awards, offers global fund formation and fund administration, consolidated prime brokerage services and cap intro, coupled with a cost-effective pricing model to hedge funds, venture capital funds, private equity funds, fund of funds, real estate funds, REIT funds, ABL funds and oil and gas funds. We caught up with John McCorvey III, CEO, to find out more about the firm and its recent work

Stonegate Global Fund Services is an offshore and domestic alternative investment fund services business focusing on fund formation, fund administration, prime services and capital introduction. The firm specialises in hedge funds, venture capital funds, private equity funds, oil and gas funds, fund of funds, insurance dedicated funds (IDFs), real estate funds, private REIT funds and ABL funds.

Stonegate Global works with family offices, traders, and other institutional clients who are interested in forming hedge funds and other alternative investment fund products, and the firm also services existing alternative investment funds and fund managers to provide fund administration and other institutional services.

The firm provides full domestic and offshore fund formation and administrative services in numerous offshore jurisdictions across the globe, including Guernsey, Jersey, Cayman Islands, Ireland, Bermuda, BVI, Isle of Man, and Luxembourg.

The current business environment in the alternative investments industry is very exciting, says John McCorvey III, Chief Executive Officer at Stonegate Global Fund Services. “The industry is evolving in many ways as technology advancements continue to have an impact: the prime brokerage business continues to change with price compression, lower commissions, liquidity pool and dark pool access; technology and innovation are assisting service providers such as Stonegate Global in streamlining processes, such as consolidated prime brokerage, fund formation and fund administration, and subsequently passing along significant cost savings to its clients.”

Stonegate has changed the way traders, family offices and investment managers create and run hedge funds and other alternative investment vehicles, says McCorvey.

“At Stonegate, we provide an efficient, streamlined and cost effective approach to starting a hedge fund or other investment fund vehicle through our Hedge Fund In A BoxSM product and our Innovative Alternative Fund SolutionsSM,” he says.

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“Our comprehensive solution allows Stonegate to handle all of the minutiae associated with complex fund formation, as well as quarterbacking the set-up process. This allows the fund manager to focus on other key aspects of their launch, such as raising capital.

“Additionally, our relationship with BlueFlame Global Wealth Management, which runs a multi-strategy, multi-manager platform, allows for a “plug and play” approach to establishing, launching, managing and marketing a hedge fund or other alternative investment fund.”

Stonegate Global excels in providing its comprehensive solution to alternative investment fund managers. The firm has invested heavily in world-class technology and possesses some of the industry’s most experienced senior management and staff members, he adds.

A truly global firm Stonegate services a global client base, and sees opportunities across the globe in the alternative investments industry. “We have noted an increased regulatory environment in the United States over the past few years. However, the United States is still one of the most advanced and strongest alternative investment fund markets in the world, and it has a very healthy supply of talented fund managers with innovative ideas,” McCorvey says.

As a global firm, which routinely works through challenges and issues in various countries and jurisdictions on behalf of its clients, it’s vital that Stonegate stays on top of the latest regulatory changes around the world, says McCorvey. “We have noted a trend in the United States’ alternative investment industry becoming more and more regulated.

Stonegate remains current on regulatory and tax changes, as our clients often seek us for advice as to how the changes affect fund managers.”

A growing industry The hedge fund industry has often, in recent years, found itself painted in a negative light, particularly by the media. But despite public outrage at the numerous negative stories concerning hedge fund managers, McCorvey says the industry is maturing. “As is in most situ-

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

ations, the public tends to mainly remember negative news more so than they remember positive news. Given the publicity surrounding major hedge fund fraud cases and large compensation packages for hedge fund managers, the public perception of hedge fund managers is in a fairly negative state. Having said that, the institutionalisation of the hedge fund industry continues. The industry is primarily filled with professionals of great character and integrity and we at Stonegate Global are committed to furthering these values in this burgeoning industry.”

Awards success Stonegate won two awards in the Hedge Fund Awards 2015, being named Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global and winning the Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation.

“We are delighted to have won these two awards,” says McCorvey.

We pride ourselves in providing institutional quality global fund administration in a cost effective manner. Being named Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global recognises Stonegate as a significant player as a global fund administrator.

“We are also honoured that Stonegate Global has been recognised for its innovative work in global hedge fund formation,” he continues.

“Our unique, comprehensive approach to fund formation, fund administration and global prime services positions us a significant player in the alternative investments industry.

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Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation & Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator – Global

“The AI Hedge Fund Awards are extremely important to recognise key players that are making an impact in the alternative investments industry,” he adds.

Recent successes, and the future Asked about recent projects that illustrate what is special about Stonegate, McCorvey points to the firm’s recent work with a prominent northeast US-based family office that has an extensive history of investing in energy and oil and gas projects on a global basis. “The family office was looking to start an alternative investment fund through a joint venture with a team of geology experts,” he says.

“The fund would further allow other wealthy families and large accredited investors to co-invest in the oil, gas and mineral rights opportunities. Stonegate Global created a complex offshore and domestic fund structure that allows both US and foreign investors to participate in the fund. The proprietary structure developed by Stonegate captured various dynamics for the benefit of the private equity fund’s investors regarding expense pass-throughs, fee sharing, distribution rights, as well as significant tax advantages. The family office is now well positioned to market and deploy its innovative investment strategy.”

As for the future, Stonegate plans to continue to provide world-class services, technology and client assistance through its streamlined and cost-effective solutions, McCorvey says. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds

16 Fact File

Company: Peak Asset Management Name: Per Djerf Email: info@peakam.se Web: www.peakam.se Address: Hamngatan 15, 111 47 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 400 282 00

Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds

Peak Core Hedge

Peak Core Hedge is a market neutral fund of hedge funds run by Peak Asset Management in Stockholm, Sweden, that invests in a blend of uncorrelated hedge fund strategies globally. Per Djerf, ‎Head of Asset Management, told us more about the firm, the fund and its goals

Peak Asset Management is making its name as a leading Nordic hedge fund manager. But the firm is offering more than just pure hedge funds. Per Djerf tells us that there are actually two separate business divisions operating independently of one another.

“Obviously, one is the Investment Management division, where we run our hedge funds and managed accounts,” says Djerf. “Moving into 2015 we will have two multi-strategy fund offerings, one managed internally and one focusing on external managers, as well as two internally managed single strategy funds.

“The other is our Advisory division, where our Financial Advisors work with clients to tailor portfolios and long term strategies to their specific needs and wishes. Here, we offer an integrated platform with unlimited investment opportunities and unbiased advice. As we do not accept third party compensation, and Advisors are not incentivised in any way to recommend our own funds or other specific investment products, we can ensure that the best interest of the client always comes first.”

The award-winning Peak Core Hedge is a market neutral fund of hedge funds that invests in a blend of uncorrelated hedge fund strategies globally. It has proven very popular with clients of Peak, as well as outside investors, in the current market environment. “The aim of the fund is to generate superior risk-adjusted returns in all market conditions through active portfolio management and a careful manager selection process,” says Djerf. “We strive to deliver a long-term annual growth rate of 6-8 percent net of fees with a reward-to-risk ratio above 2 to 1 and low Beta to traditional asset classes, such as global equities and bonds. For the calendar year of 2013, net returns for institutional shares were 7.0 percent with a volatility of 1.1 percent.”

The fund is engineered to provide a one-stop solution for investors looking to add defensive hedge fund exposure to their portfolio. “In our view, most investors – both wealthy individuals and institutions – are still very underweighted in the asset class,” says Djerf. “This could be partly because most investors would not want to go “all-in” with a single manager or a specific style of investing, which means a lot of work to build and maintain a solid portfolio. Through Peak Core Hedge, we do the heavy lifting with regards to portfolio construction, manager selection and risk management. Our investors can keep their focus on overall asset allocation and reap the benefits of risk diversification and uncorrelated returns.”

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Many people think that, as a multi-manager product, Peak Core Hedge primarily goes out and finds the very best fund managers and invest with them. “Indeed, finding ‘the best in the business’ by some standard is the edge that some of our competitors claim to have,” says Djerf. “While identifying great managers is certainly important, we find that the top-down view of how the portfolio is composed in terms of different investment strategies and the way that these complement each other in different market environments is the main driver of risk-adjusted performance. For example, an arbitrage-style strategy could be neutral in Beta but turn out to be short Vega. In that case we would look to combine that strategy with positive Vega exposure from another strategy in order to offset any implicit biases and keep the overall portfolio as market neutral as possible. In our analysis we put special emphasis on bear market conditions and tail risk events to make sure that we do everything possible to protect capital in adverse situations.

“Another important point of difference is that we are very mindful of our market neutral mandate. Therefore, we are unlikely to include some of the strategies that are most popular with hedge fund investors in general. One example would be trend following managed futures, a strategy that is inherently dependent on directional market bets because it seeks to exploit the trending nature of markets. There are many top of the line managers in this space and if the goal was to mirror the hedge fund universe, we would probably allocate 10 or 15 percent of the portfolio to this type of funds. For the purposes of Peak Core Hedge, however, it would invariably add market sensitivity and lessen our return consistency which, as we speak, is 90 percent positive on a monthly basis. This is also one reason why we are relatively uncorrelated with other multi-strategy funds.

“Lastly, we run a portfolio that is diversified, but not to the point of being diluted. Too often, portfolios get bloated and lack focus. We want each of our holdings to have a meaningful impact on overall performance. It currently consists of nine broad strategy classifications, which we call Primary Strategies, such as Long/Short Equity or Fixed Income Arbitrage. Underlying these classifications is a total of fifteen funds, which are run by thirteen mutually independent managers across the globe. We never invest in any of our own funds as this would certainly call into question the objectivity of the selection process.”

Djerf says the firm feels very honoured to have been named Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds. “This award, to us, reflects the effort

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds

we put in on a daily basis to generate solid risk-adjusted returns for our investors. Our philosophy of creating value by compounding a small edge over time – while avoiding the periodic, debilitating losses of equity markets – is fundamental to all the funds and mandates that we run. This value of this philosophy is, in our view, well represented by the success and track record of Peak Core Hedge.”

erage somewhere around 5 percent nominal returns over the coming decade, probably with significant volatility, and that bond investments will generate zero or negative returns for the foreseeable future,” he says. “This means that investors will need to look for other ways to compound their capital at a reasonable rate while mitigating the risk of loss, which should be very positive for the alternatives space.”

While many managers are frustrated with the general lack of market action in recent times, Djerf says the firm is very excited about the prospects for the hedge fund industry going forward. “Over five years into the expansion, with no more than a brief correction in 2011, there is complacency everywhere. We believe volatility will return to the markets sooner rather than later and that volatility will mean opportunity for managers such as ourselves.”

However, he is also clear about what he believes to challenges for the industry. “For example, low market returns are likely to keep increasing focus on management fees and, more importantly, what the investors actually get for their money. In a low return environment, can you really afford paying several percent per year to a manager if they do not enhance risk-adjusted returns versus a passive portfolio? Pressure on fees combined with ever rising costs for operations and compliance will impact small and emerging managers the most. We do not believe that a concentrated industry with a few very large players would be a favourable development for anyone.

Recent reports say that Sweden is leading the way for Nordic-based hedge funds. Why is this? “That is very interesting and it is hard to say exactly what the reason might be,” says Djerf. “We know for a fact that there are excellent managers in our neighbouring countries, but it would probably be fair to say that Stockholm is the hedge fund capital of the Nordics. Perhaps it is the fact that Swedes embraced long-only investment funds as early as 30 years ago and the industry is taking its next natural step. In any case, we believe that Nordic fund managers have a strong heritage of innovation and integrity and we try to be at the forefront of that.”

Djerf feels the hedge fund industry is healthy and has a lot going for it in the years to come. “Based on the current level of cyclically adjusted equity valuations and interest rates, we estimate that equities will av-

“On the flipside of the discussions on fees, institutional investors are currently being bombarded with proposals for purportedly cheap “smart” or “alternative” solutions – most of which are neither smart nor alternative, in our view. These products are often based on faulty research with the primary purpose of creating the illusion of alpha where there is none.

“The bottom line, in our minds, is that managers will need work harder in order to earn their keep and that investors will need to choose wisely to get value for their money.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Russian Fund (Since Inception)

18 Fact File

Company: Copperstone Capital Address: 16 Sadovnicheskaya Street, Moscow, 115035, Russia Tel: +7 495 988 0010 Web: www.copperstonecapital.com

Best Russian Fund (Since Inception)

Copperstone Alpha Fund Copperstone Alpha Fund, run by Moscow- and London-based investment management firm Copperstone Capital, is a global long-short fund with a long bias and strong knowledge of Russia and CIS. Copperstone Capital’s Director David Amaryan told us more

The Copperstone Alpha Fund has been named best Russian Fund (Since Inception) in the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards 2015. Copperstone Capital is an investment management firm founded in 2009 with offices in Moscow, Russia and London, managing wealth for high net worth individuals and institutions through various hedge fund strategies.

The firm’s main fund, Copperstone Alpha, is a global long-short fund with a long bias and strong exposure to Russia and CIS. The fund uses various strategies to generate alpha returns.

“Today, we are 100% concentrated on growing Copperstone Alpha Fund,” says David Amaryan from Copperstone Capital. “That is what keeps us up at night and toiling during the day. We still run managed accounts, advise on M&A and run a number of private equity projects.

Our Team is the key to the success. Our HR approach has brought us to a certain decision-making process which has in turn resulted in the performance and growth to date. The Team is young, but experienced and most importantly all of us share common values in business and life. We are looking to grow in 2015 and beyond and this growth will bring challenges in itself.”

The current hedge fund landscape is full of challenges and uncertainty, says Mr. Amaryan. “Uncertainty with regards to regulation and the tax environment is most challenging from an operational perspective.

The risk in markets in Russia, and globally, are on-and-off predictable and we strive on having a directional view which is independent of short-term volatility. However, political developments have contributed negatively to the performance of Russian financial markets, and we will take this into consideration going forward.”

Over the course of 2014, David Amaryan says it seems that the big managers have grown to manage the lion’s share of assets dedicated to alternatives. “We are a growth play and are just starting to gather scale. The challenge is to maintain performance and grow assets under management in a steady and sustainable fashion.

Copperstone offers exposure to public assets which are impacted by the Russian economy and political decisions. Our team has significant experience and knowledge of Russia and our exposures are a result of careful planning and consideration of every eventuality.

For a hedge fund manager, Russia is a large and untouched piece of fertile land. High Net Worth individuals have a limited number of products which are both easy to understand and are organised and run www.acquisition-intl.com

according to the highest legal and operational standards. Asset prices vary significantly as the market over (or under) assigns perceived risk, so being a local has big advantages. On the other hand, we develop the investment approach, which can be used in other markets as well, and thus offer more diversification to our clients.”

Asked whether the Ukraine political crisis with Russia has hurt investor sentiment, David Amaryan says it is always a great time to be involved in Russia. “The term investor sentiment generally seems to encompass a long and passive approach. Whilst favourable views on Russia as a destination for a ‘buy-and-forget’ view have diminished, Russia will continue to offer opportunities for active management in any political scenario.

As the most volatile period of the Ukrainian conflict was in play we repeatedly used this reality to trade both Russian and non-Russian names to our benefit. This is an important theme our research Team is following permanently and depicts exposure which very few other alternative funds can offer.”

Mr. Amaryan admits he feels great to be named Best Russian Fund (Since Inception) in the Hedge Fund Awards. “We are proud to have the distinction, especially given the strong competition we know to have faced. The key element of the award is the fact that it is voted on by peers. The industry is driven by competition and we are proud to have been selected.”

“Continuity and stability are two components not regularly associated with hedge funds, but we always strive to behave in such a manner. We believe these are impressions with which our clients and peers come away with after working with us for a relatively short period of time.”

Over the coming months and years, Copperstone plans to expand and grow assets under management. “Our strategy allows for a significant increase in the size of our assets and in 2015 we will start doing what we have not done at all during this period of time – actively market our fund. We will also be opening a full London office and seeking FCA regulation over 2015.” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best Russian Fund (Since Inception)

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best Systematic Equity Market Neutral Fund - Sweden (QQM Equity Hedge) & Best Nordic Equity Focused Hedge Fund

Fact File

Company: QQM Fund Management Name: Ola Björkmo Email: ola@qqm.se Web Address: www.qqm.se Address: Kungsgatan 48, 111 35 Stockholm, Sweden Telephone: +46 70 618 33 80

Best Systematic Equity Market Neutral Fund - Sweden (QQM Equity Hedge) & Best Nordic Equity Focused Hedge Fund

QQM Fund Management AB QQM is a Swedish management company responsible for managing the Swedish market neutral hedge fund QQM Equity Hedge. We spoke to their Managing Director Ola Björkmo who believes fund managers do not get better when they get bigger, and skill and performance are what’s important in the hedge industry QQM are a company that achieves consistent returns. They believe this is the result of a fund management process that is systematic and based on proprietary quantitative models. “We never try to time the market,” says Ola Björkmo. “We always make sure that the fund´s beta to global equities is always close to zero. In terms of security selection, our models have been based on academic studies and economic principles.”

“In terms of risk management, our approach is to be proactive and that it is integrated at each step of the investment process. Our fund is constructed to target pre-defined levels of expected risk in the medium term. It is also monitored against a number of risk measures to ensure these remain within their prescribed limits.”

Speaking on the industry as a whole, Björkmo believes that boutique firms are a better option for investors. “We believe investors have realised that fund managers do not get better when they get bigger, and that boutique firms are often a better bet. In the future, we think that smaller managers will continue to outperform.”

According to Bjorkmo, investors are also opening up towards equity market neutral funds. “Many investors realise today that adding an equity market neutral fund can significantly improve the long term risk-return profile of a conventional asset allocation. As a company that deals with these type of funds, what separates us from our competitors is that we generate absolute returns entirely from security selection, not market exposure. The strongest part of our business is our risk-oriented approach to fund management, where risk management is integrated at each step of the investment process.”

Speaking about the award itself, Björkmo maintains that this award is a validation of the company’s success. “We believe it is important for the hedge fund industry that skill and performance is recognized. Especially in this industry, where the size is not a reflection of performance. I feel this award is because we were able to generate a positive performance, despite some tricky trends in the market.

“For the future, we remain focused on our mission to generate performance, and to stand out from the crowd.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Growth Equity Investment Manager - California

21 Fact File

Name: Frank Husic Email: frank@husic.com Website: www.husic.com Address: 555 California St. Suite 4925, San Francisco, CA 94104 USA Telephone: +1 415 398 0800 Contact: Tom Boster Email: tboster@husic.com

Best Growth Equity Investment Manager - California

Husic Capital Management Founded in 1986, Husic Capital Management manages the full capitalisation range of U.S. growth equity strategies, as well as several hedge funds. We spoke to Frank Husic, Managing Partner, to find out how the firm continues to generate superior returns for its clients

Husic Capital Management is a fundamental, growth equity investment manager based in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 1986 by Frank Husic and has continued to successfully serve institutional and private clients for over 25 years.

“There is no doubt that experience is the most important factor in explaining our success,” says Frank Husic, Managing Partner. “Our strongest skill set is being able to link and integrate the ‘35,000 foot’ thematic view with ‘boots on the ground’ stock selection across industries and sectors. We hope to be among the small number of people who can walk out of a meeting and see an idea, change or theme emerging that others don’t. Knowledge gained investing in different cycles and industries provides a leg up on analysing current and future opportunities. The objective is to realise multiples on our investment typically in names not generally known by the investment community. This leads to generating superior rates of return for our clients.”

“We believe that the best investment ideas and the greatest return potential come from thorough independent research and informed judgment,” Husic continues. “As an opportunistic growth manager, we strive to deliver exceptional returns for our clients. Our investment philosophy is based on fundamental, research-driven, bottom-up stock selection, which has been the cornerstone of our investment process since the firm’s inception.”

Husic believes five factors drive superior returns: early recognition of fundamental or secular changes at the company or industry level that will lead to revenue and earnings growth for our target companies; concentration in the greatest beneficiaries of those changes; the early identification of future stock market leaders; thematic orientation; and the sale of issues that have reached their potential or no longer exhibit the ability to do so. “By focusing on change, we develop an ‘edge’, or specific insight, into the companies that we select for investment,” he says.

Examples of how this approach has translated into successful returns include investments in Cheniere Energy (LNG), American Airlines (AAL), and the Macau gaming stocks.

“The U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance theme drove our Cheniere Energy investment,” Husic says. “Driven by the development and implementation of disruptive energy producing fracturing technology, the U.S. has moved toward energy independence. The abundance of natural gas is one of the outcomes with U.S. prices a fraction of those abroad.

“Though initially built to import liquid natural gas when natural gas prices were cheaper overseas than in the U.S., Founder and CEO Charif Souki is

now adding the infrastructure to export liquid natural gas from the U.S. now that the pricing differential has reversed. Cheniere is a unique company with experience in these multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects that result in 20-year production contracts. The value of identifying this management team, gained through our experience, resulted in a successful investment.

“American Airlines is a successful example of our Phoenix Rising from the Ashes theme,” he continues. “Having simultaneously emerged from bankruptcy and merged with US Airways at the end of 2013, it is now one of the world’s largest airlines. Historically, the industry has been plagued by its poor investment returns. Reeling from a couple of recessions following the September 11 tragedy, the industry is now consolidating into an oligopoly structure. By rationalising costs including fleets, routes and labour, American is able to increase fares and profitability. The recent drop in energy prices provides an additional tailwind.

“The Macau gaming stocks including Las Vegas Sands (LVS) and Wynn Resorts (WYNN) are successful plays on our Beneficiaries of the Rise in Consumer Incomes in Emerging Countries theme. On the island of Macau, the Chinese government created an oligopoly for a handful of companies.

Despite concerns over the speculative nature of this venture, our experience with gaming stocks and these management teams proved extremely advantageous in the due diligence process.

“Among numerous other successes of ours were United Online (UNTD) and Chaparral Steel (CHAP),” he adds. “We offer a long term track record of superior returns with an unlevered approach to portfolio management and a longer term perspective.”

Husic says he came to California to 1980 when few saw California as the future of the country. “In line with our skill to be early in the anticipation of change, we accurately foresaw the importance of the U.S. West Coast as a driver of growth over the next 50 years. We have the best of both worlds here. We have a great combination of being in a vibrant financial community but not being enveloped by the disease of group think common in places like New York, Chicago and Boston.”

Husic Capital Management’s continued success in generating superior returns for its clients has been recognised in the Hedge Fund Awards, with the firm being named Best Growth Equity Investment Manager – California. “This award gives us exposure to new and existing investors and enables us to help cast our net further and elevate our visibility in the industry,” says Husic. “We look forward to discussing our investment strategies with any potential new clients.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Innovation in Exchange Traded Futures and Best for Technical Analysis Methods - UK

22 Fact File

Company: Finex LLP / Finex Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC Name: Andrew Gebhardt Email: andrew.gebhardt@ finexlondon.com Web: www.finexlondon.com Address: 50 Cannon Street, London, EC4N 6JJ Phone: +44 20 3008 2539

Innovation in Exchange Traded Futures, Best for Technical Analysis Methods - UK, Best for Risk Allocation - UK (Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC), Top Performing Fund: Finex Navigator Futures Fund (UCITS IV) and Best Emerging New Fund (1 Year) - Malta (Finex Navigator)

Finex LLP / Finex Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC

After over a decade of designing, implementing and trading technical analysis models for Tier 1 institutions, in 2010 Andrew Gebhardt, Marcello Bugnoli and Michael Carney created Finex LLP, an asset manager specialising in multi-asset futures and options portfolios. We caught up with Gebhardt to find out more about this young firm and its rapid rise Finex is a UK regulated fund manager with a UCITS listed Fund and also offers Managed Accounts. The strategies combine mean reversion, breakout, and trend following in an effort to deliver uncorrelated, “all weather” returns.

“In terms of AuM, our focus is to grow the UCITS fund, which currently stands at $2.5 mln, since the bulk of our assets ($50 mln) is in Managed Accounts.” says Andrew Gebhardt, Managing Partner.

“However, almost all the money in the fund comes from external investors, which vary from multinationals to private pensions (SIPP).”

Asked which strategies performed best throughout 2014, and which he thinks will be the most successful as we move into 2015 and beyond, Gebhardt says that, without a shadow of a doubt, the mean reversion strategies worked best due to low volatility. “This made the fund return a solid 7.4% annualised for 2.2 Sharpe. As the strategies are sufficiently diverse the fund is ready for anything 2015 wishes to throw at us. Despite the limited AuM we are already running 29 models with this going up to 57 as we near 15m and then 80 as we reach 40m in the near future.”

Asked about current industry trends, Gebhardt says, “For us the obsession of validation from AuM rather than performance is the industry’s greatest weakness. It is well documented that small to midsize managers perform best, yet the allocators and investors prefer lower profits in return for a more recognisable brand.”

Hedge funds are often viewed less than favourably by the general public, and this is due to a lack of understanding of the work managers do, says Gebhardt. “Hedge funds are easy targets for the press; the industry has no real lobby and struggles to collaborate at any level.

Whilst individually some funds are well represented the majority do their work in total darkness. The estate agent analogy works quite well; no one likes them until they are selling your house for a higher price than you thought.”

Finex distinguishes itself by using a hybrid approach, using both machines and humans to generate returns, says Gebhardt. “We firmly believe that humans still have an edge over machines when it comes to spotting patterns and taking imperfect decisions. However the machines surpass us in the capacity to act without emotion. We www.acquisition-intl.com

combine these attributes to create totally distinct methodologies than when applied collaboratively in a single portfolio can generate returns in all conditions.

“Coming from a trading background, the team is focused on delivery of returns over the simple accumulation of assets. Judge us on our NAV, not on our AUM.” Recently, apart from having built all its own models from scratch, Finex also internally developed the execution engine which transacts for the fund, says Gebhardt.

“However, our latest technological achievement is to build a live positional and regulatory reporting system which displays all parametric risk values for the fund on a continuous basis. The output includes everything we need to know to comply with UCITS regulation as well as day to day risk management. The system also automatically reconciles all positions and broker end of day files.

“We run over 80 distinct models, of which 70% of them are intraday.

Since there is little available off the shelf that can cope, we invested heavily in model building and developed an execution engine which transacts for the fund.”

Finex was recently named winner of five awards in the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards. “As an emerging manager it is a great satisfaction to be publicly recognised for the extraordinary efforts made by the whole the team behind closed doors,” says Gebhardt.

“In such a highly regulated environment the public sometimes cannot grasp the work that goes into corporate governance and regulation, let alone having to raise assets whilst at the same time being involved in the markets 24/7.

“These awards go some way to raise our profile in an industry where it is increasingly difficult to compare the true return on risk of various funds. Even within the relatively tight constraints of the UCITS environment risk is not always utilised in the same way by all participants.

“I think that a lot of clients and peers like the candid approach we have towards investment. We have a very humble, approachable culture and realize that the only reason why Finex exists is because of

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

the confidence and trust of our investors. The whole team also firmly believes, both in business and in our personal lives, that we should treat others (and their money) as we would like to be treated.”

As for the future, Gebhardt says Finex is looking to America as the place to do business. “We very much like the US at the moment; as a small firm the access you get is unrivalled in Europe. People there still remember that even funds like Winton were stuck at US$1.6m for the first two years.

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Best for Risk Allocation - Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC – UK, Top Performing Fund: Finex Navigator Futures Fund (UCITS IV) and Best Emerging New Fund (1 Year) – Malta (Finex Navigator)

“Finex sees an opportunity in exchange listed derivatives and the intention is to offer a discretionary futures and options fund to run alongside the systematic futures fund in the medium term. Futures are clean, liquid, easily priced, and available on an almost continuous basis.

“More specifically, we see the regulators turning their attention towards the cash foreign exchange market and Finex is already implementing models in exchange listed FX futures in its current portfolios.” n

“Europe is in a regulatory and taxation tailspin and the pilot is chatting up the airhostess.

“Whilst the UK still offers a small bastion of sanity we firmly believe that investors should prepare themselves for many years of lacklustre returns as profits are diluted to the state and regulators.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Auscap Long Short Australian Equities Fund

24 Fact File

Company: Auscap Asset Management Pty Ltd, Address: Level 24, 9 Castlereagh St, Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia Phone: +61 2 9238 8298 Email: info@auscapam.com Web: www.auscapam.com

Auscap Long Short Australian Equities Fund

Auscap Asset Management Pty Ltd Auscap’s vision is to create a leading funds management business that has a reputation for consistent outperformance, strong risk management, a positive culture and integrity. Matthew Parker, Principal and Portfolio Manager and Co Principal and Portfolio Manager, Tim Carleton. tells us more

Auscap is a value-based, long biased Australian equities fund manager. “We are primarily focused on finding good companies with a history of delivering strong returns on invested capital that are trading at low price to sustainable cash flow ratios,” says Matthew Parker, Principal and Portfolio Manager. “While markets are in a constant state of flux, there are always opportunities for value based investors such as Auscap to assess.”

The firm’s success comes down to the management team’s expertise and a firm set of investment principles, Parker says. “We have an experienced team who are focused on wealth creation and capital preservation in equal part. We have strict investment criteria and are disciplined about where we deploy capital. Importantly the interests of the manager and investors are aligned through significant co-investment in the fund by the Auscap principals.”

Among the firm’s USPs is its newsletter, Parker says. “Auscap produces a newsletter that we would like to think is somewhat differentiated.

We spend a few pages each month discussing our view on a subject that has been topical in the market or media recently. We hope the newsletter gives our current and prospective investors an insight into, and comfort around, the way that we think and invest. We want to attract like-minded investors for a long period of time.”

The Australian financial market is the 8th largest in the world, the 2nd largest in the Asia Pacific and Australian GDP ranks 12th in global terms. Despite its size, the domestic market is heavily exposed to a few critical sectors such as financial services and mining, says Parker.

“As the economy transitions away from the mining led investment that has been particularly dominant over the last decade toward the east-coast based domestic service and manufacturing sectors there will be some sectors witnessing considerable expansion while others are contracting. With the pool of capital exposed to domestic equities destined to continue its growth trajectory, due to mandatory superannuation, we think this dynamic will create meaningful opportunities on both the long and short side over the coming years. Despite this there are few long short funds of significant size that operate purely within the Australian market.”

Tim Carleton believes that, today, both international and domestic investors are increasingly looking at absolute return as the true measure of performance. “This focus is pronounced given the ageing profile of most developed nations, with investors focused on capital preservation and risk as much as an investment’s potential returns. In Australia www.acquisition-intl.com

there has been an explosion of self-managed super funds (SMSFs).

With interest rates at record lows these SMSFs are increasingly looking at hedge funds as a viable option for delivering returns with lower than market volatility.”

The firm recently achieved success in the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards. “We are excited and humbled to have been named winner of the Best Long Short Equities Hedge Fund - Australia award,” Carleton says. “It has been a strong year of performance for the Fund and we hope to continue to deliver strong risk adjusted returns for our investors. We are thankful for the support of our investors, service providers and the financial community.” n

“

We are excited and humbled to have been named winner of the Best Long Short Equities Hedge Fund - Australia award.

It has been a strong year of performance for the Fund and we hope to continue to deliver strong risk adjusted returns for our investors. We are thankful for the support of our investors, service providers and the financial community.

”

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best US Alternative Investment Technology (FastPro) & Best Alternative Investment Team - USA

25 Fact File

Company: UMB Fund services Web: www.umbfs.com Locations: Milwaukee, WI Ogden, UT Chadds Ford, PA Kansas City, MO Phone: +1 888.844.3350

Best US Alternative Investment Technology (FastPro) & Best Alternative Investment Team - USA

UMB Fund Services

UMB Fund Services provides a broad array of services for mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity funds. Tony Fischer, President, told us about the firm’s industry-renowned service

UMB Fund Services is a client-focused fund services provider offering a strong combination of industry expertise, proven technology and outstanding service. We provide a broad array of services for a growing client base of mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity funds – as well as turnkey solutions to help clients launch a mutual fund, collective investment fund, or a registered hedge fund.

UMB Fund Services is a boutique service provider that differentiates itself from competing firms through its intense focus on service.

Our company is truly client-focused and continually strives to deliver on our vision of providing the unparalleled customer experience.

Our full range of services for hedge funds, private equity funds and fund-of-funds include administration, accounting, tax administration and investor services. We are experts in servicing both unregistered and registered alternative funds and also offer custody services through our affiliate, UMB Bank, n.a.

UMB Fund Services is known within the industry for high-touch service and leading-edge technology.

offerings. Our mission moving forward is to continue to live up to these accolades and provide the industry with award-winning client service and technology. n

“

Our mission moving forward is to continue to live up to these accolades and provide the industry with award-winning client service and technology.

”

Winter sunset in Milwaukee - downtown seen from the lakefront

We are constantly investing in our technology offerings – including building proprietary technology designed specifically for private equity and hedge fund managers. The AI industry is dynamic, constantly offering new products along with sophisticated fee structures. FastPro, our proprietary general ledger and investor servicing application, is highly customizable and can handle all the nuances of these complex and sophisticated structures.

FastPro also delivers unlimited reporting capabilities. Fund managers can generate their own reports or data extracts on demand via the web application. With a mobile app scheduled to launch this year, managers will have complete access to their information anytime, anywhere they have an internet connection.

Over the past 12 months, we have continued to grow our business through innovation of turnkey products, expansion of our business via organic growth and acquisitions, and most importantly by providing our clients with the unparalleled customer experience. We remain focused on the fact that our people and the talent, energy, and commitment they bring, are our most important asset.

Recent awards continue to underscore the high quality service that is delivered by our associates and our state-of-the-art technology www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Award for Excellence & Innovation in Start-Up Hedge Funds

26 Fact File

Company: Swiss-Asia Web: www.swissasia-group.com Address: 8 Shenton Way, #25-02 AXA Tower, Singapore 068811 Phone: +65 6836 1866

Award for Excellence & Innovation in Start-Up Hedge Funds

Swiss-Asia

Swiss-Asia is a platform for professionals operating in the private wealth management space as well as the fund management space, providing four main services: Fund Platform, Independent Wealth Manager Platform, B2B Platform and Capital Introduction

Starting its operations in 2004, Swiss-Asia Holding Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-registered Financial Holding Company with two main subsidiaries: Swiss-Asia Financial Services Pte Ltd and Swiss-Asia Asset Management (HK) Ltd. Swiss-Asia works around the values, respect, excellence, integrity and independence. With extensive experience and network across Asia, we make that available to our partners.

Leaving the day to day operations to professionals and an experienced team, the fund manager can focus on building his or her track record.

Swiss-Asia increases the efficiency of setting up a fund by reducing the cost ratio for funds setup faced by the fund manager, and also by giving fund managers access to third party service providers to expedite the process.

We are proud to be the winner of the Award for Excellence & Innovation in Start-Up Hedge Funds by Acquisition International, Best Hedge Fund Platform - Asia Pacific by Acquisition International and Best Hedge Fund Platform in Asia by HFM Week in 2014.

Partnering with Swiss-Asia will also allow access to reports and research from different institutes, as well as world markets and different asset classes. Topped with automated reporting, news highlight and active, unbiased research, fund managers will be empowered to make the best decisions for their clients. Besides providing middle and back office support, Swiss-Asia plans focused capital introduction events for our fund managers, allowing them to meet investors and expand their network and portfolio potential. n

Fund manager platform The Swiss-Asia fund platform is designed to cater to fund managers who want to focus on their investment process and managing money.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Asset Manager of the Year - Bermuda

27 Fact File

Company: Equilibria Capital Management Limited Email: infobda@eqcapm.com Web: www.equilibriacapital.com Address: O’Hara House One Bermudiana Road Hamilton HM08, Bermuda Phone: +1 441 295 2233

Asset Manager of the Year - Bermuda

Equilibria Capital Management Limited Since its inception in 2011, Equilibria Capital has grown to US$250m in AuM, and has offices in Geneva and Bermuda. We caught up with Fabio Lopez Ceron and Daniel Tafur, the firm’s founding partners, to find out more

Equilibria Capital is an alternative asset management firm that manages global macro-based funds across various asset classes. The firm was founded by Lopez Ceron and Tafur, who spent the majority of their careers with Morgan Stanley in London.

“Our funds invest in global equities, fixed income and currencies as well as agricultural commodities,” says Fabio Lopez Ceron. “We provide full transparency to investors and the liquidity of our funds ranges from daily in our UCITS funds to monthly in our Bermuda offshore funds.”

The firm’s flagship product is its global, multi-asset class fund (called Avance Global), which Daniel Tafur and Fabio Lopez have been managing since 2003. The fund, which has both onshore (UCITS) and offshore versions, follows macro-driven themes and follows a value-driven approach to investing. The fund invests globally across different asset classes.

“We avoid overly diversified portfolios or any sort of index-driven investing, whilst we strive to obtain superior returns combined with capital preservation. Our funds typically hold 40 to 60 high-conviction and deeply-researched investments,” says Daniel Tafur.

The Fund has achieved annualized returns of over 6.2% since its launch in January 2003, and has run an annualised volatility of just over 4% during the last 3 years. These numbers handily surpass those delivered by global equities, global fixed income and hedge

funds over the same period - both in terms of absolute returns and risk-adjusted returns.

In 2014, Equilibria added a senior portfolio manager to manage a new fund focused on agricultural commodities. The fund was launched in February of 2014 and invests across different asset classes (equities, bonds, loans, ETFs and real assets) in the agriculture space.

“We believe that the agriculture space offers unique opportunities for achieving superior long-term returns combined with limited correlation with traditional strategies”, says Lopez Ceron.

“Our agriculture fund offers a unique value proposition,” adds Tafur.

“Unlike other agriculture-themed funds, which normally trade only futures and are more short-term and highly speculative in nature, we view agriculture investing as a long-term theme and prefer to own shares of public companies or bonds/loans in conjunction with having exposure to real assets, where possible.”

The fund has delivered a return of +5.5% in its first year, with only one negative month, despite choppy markets and rising volatility.

Equilibria Capital has grown steadily since its launch in 2011. In 2014, the firm surpassed the US$200m mark in assets under management.

“We look forward to continuing to deliver superior returns and in taking Equilibria Capital to the next level,” concludes Lopez Ceron. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Performing Niche Hedge Fund (Five Years) and Excellence in Value Investing

28 Fact File

Company: Castellain Capital LLP Name: Robert Goldsmith Email: robert@cascap.co.uk Website: www.cascap.co.uk Address: 34 New Cavendish Street, London, W1G 8UB Phone: +44 (0)20 7034 1916

Best Performing Niche Hedge Fund (Five Years) and Excellence in Value Investing

Castellain Capital LLP

We spoke to Robert Goldsmith, Portfolio Manager at Castellain Capital LLP, to find out how the firm’s fund is generating superior returns for its clients

The Castellain Value Fund aims to profit from the mispricing of listed closed-end funds relative to their intrinsic value, using an event driven approach, says Robert Goldsmith, Portfolio Manager. “The first leg of the strategy entails identifying those funds that are trading at a price that is below our estimate of their intrinsic net asset value. The second leg is to invest in those funds where there is a potential catalyst/event that can close the discount and unlock value for shareholders. In implementing the second leg, we actively liaise with the management of our investee companies, making recommendations for potential action. Our core focus is on closed-end funds listed in the UK and Western Europe.”

Castellain uses an actively managed proprietary database that tracks closed-end funds that the firm has researched in the past, says Goldsmith. “Using this data, we monitor a wide array of key metrics that may not be easily available elsewhere. Potential investments are flagged up both automatically and through manual due diligence.

sitions and restructurings. I have also been involved in the structuring of such closed-end funds, having been part of a team that raised over EUR1bn in the closed-end fund space. This buy-side and sell-side experience has led me to develop a unique and intricate insight into the sector.

“Most importantly, the weight of money in the sector stems from the wealth management and multi-asset firms. These firms have a very different approach to the closed-end fund sector than me or my peers – utilising it principally for making asset allocation decisions. These fund flows often provide the deepest source of buying and selling opportunities for Castellain. As a smaller fund, we can be nimble in taking swift advantage of these opportunities.”

“We adopt a research intensive approach to analysing potential investments, placing emphasis on primary sources e.g. financial accounts, offering documentation etc. We analyse the investment’s capital structure, its shareholder base, the make-up of its board, as well as its constitutional and other supplementary documents such as management contracts. This enables us to build a comprehensive snapshot of the company, its assets and to understand the reasons why it trades at a discount to our estimate of its intrinsic net asset value.

The initial investors in the Castellain Value Fund were the founding partners, and together they remain the largest shareholders in the fund. “Our client base principally comprises high net worth individuals and family offices hence we tend to have direct relationships with the underlying providers of capital,” Goldsmith says. “Both these points help to align our interests with those of our clients. Our primary focus throughout the firm’s life has been on managing the investments rather than aggressively seeking to grow assets under management.

We believe that in the long term this will help us to be more successful with the performance of our funds, our clients’ satisfaction, and the growth of our business.”

“We then undertake an exercise to identify catalysts that could reasonably be expected to narrow the discount to NAV at which the company trades. This process draws on our considerable experience and expertise of previous events that have taken place in the closed-end fund sector. These catalysts are diverse and could include, amongst other things: liquidations, sales of assets, repayments of debt, corporate governance improvements, tender offers, share buybacks, re-organisations, mergers or takeovers.

Castellain has recently expanded its fund range, with the Castellain Income Fund being run by Stephen Ackerman. “This is a new long-only multi-asset fund based on an established strategy. The fund has a one year track record, having returned 9.7% in 2014,” says Goldsmith. “In addition, we have expanded our team, having made hires in the areas of Investment Research and Marketing. Our current investor base comprises of family offices and high net worth individuals. We are seeking to broaden our investor base to include suitable institutions.”

“Our universe broadly consists of around 600 non-US listed closedend funds with a combined market capitalisation of over US$300bn.”

On being given the awards for Best Performing Niche Hedge Fund (Five Years) and Excellence in Value Investing, Goldsmith says, “We are very pleased that the strong performance and longevity of the Castellain Value Fund has been recognised. Our fund specialises in an inefficient sector that not every investor is familiar with, namely the listed closedend fund sector. By staying within our area of expertise, we have been able to demonstrate our ability to generate superior returns, as well as the sustainability of the strategy. The strategy has been running for over five years and has annualised over 23% since inception.” n

Castellain operates within a space where there are only a handful of other funds operating. “The Castellain Value Fund focuses on European listed closed-end funds, a sector in which I have been working for most of my career,” says Goldsmith. “With close to 15 years of experience, I have been an activist investor in the sector, having been involved in a range of corporate activity such as takeovers, board powww.acquisition-intl.com

Strachan Partners Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Integrity, transparency guaranteed... at all times

From when Strachan Partners was established in 1991, by the founding partner Charles Adeyemi Candide-Johnson Esq., SAN, Strachan Partners has consistently insisted on proffering commercially-focused legal advice to facilitate legal solutions second to none and as such is known for taking an innovative approach when advising institutions on their most challenging commercial transactions and dispute resolution matters.

Such dedication has commanded a high success rate together with commendable global recognition & awards.

Our Expertise: Banking & Finance Business Establishment & Corporate Immigration Company Secretarial Services Corporate Advisory (including Foreign Investments & Acquisitions) Energy & Natural Resources Intellectual Property Insolvency & Debt Recovery Labour & Employment Matters Litigation, Arbitration & Alternative Dispute Resolution Maritime Project Finance Real Estate Regulatory Compliance Telecommunications

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Fund of Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

30 Fact File

Website: www.yulish.com

Best Fund of Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

Yulish & Associates

Yulish & Associates, founded in 1993, is a fund administration company servicing the alternative investment industry, with a focus on hedge funds and funds of hedge funds

Yulish & Associates is delighted to have been named Best Fund of Hedge Fund Administrator – USA by Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards. We’re honoured that our clients continue to strongly endorse us as evidenced by this award and we remain committed to providing industry leading service coupled with outstanding value.

About Yulish & Associates Yulish & Associates was founded 20 years ago with a simple objective: to provide our clients with the highest quality service personalized to their specific needs at price levels that will preserve manager performance. In our view, it is our strict adherence to these guiding principles that led our peers and clients to nominate us for this important award.

We are also able to bring far more to the table than basic fund accounting taking into consideration our hands on experience running the operations of sizeable hedge funds and fund of hedge funds. We believe this high level breadth of experience and superior ability is what distinguishes us from our competition and enables us to provide the support our clients need in order to help them become better entrepreneurs. Our clients think of us as trusted advisors committed to helping them succeed.

Some of the services we provide include: fund accounting, audit support, financial statement preparation, investor services, reporting to investors, compliance and taxation, fund structuring, fund-of-funds administration and consulting expertise in a variety of areas crucial to the proficient growth of any fund.

Commentary on the Current State of the Hedge Fund Industry The hedge fund industry is as strong as ever with assets under management at all-time highs although significant challenges lie ahead.

The biggest developments have been the implementation of numerous regulations and an increase in the complexity of financial instruments. As a result, compliance costs are on the rise which will place additional stress on a Fund’s infrastructure and prove to be another challenge for hedge fund managers and their service providers. n

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“

We are also able to bring far more to the table than basic fund accounting taking into consideration our hands on experience running the operations of sizeable hedge funds and fund of hedge funds. We believe this high level breadth of experience and superior ability is what distinguishes us from our competition and enables us to provide the support our clients need

”

Hedge Hedge Fund Fund Awards Awards 2015 2015

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Best Fund of Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Nordic Fixed Income Fund - Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund

32 Fact File

Address: Nordkinn Asset Management, Kungsgatan 33, 6tr, 111 56 Stockholm, Sweden Tel: : +46 8 473 40 50 Email: post@nordkinnam.se Web: www.nordkinnam.com

Best Nordic Fixed Income Fund - Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund

Nordkinn Asset Management AB

The Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund aims to consistently generate stable absolute return over time and in all market environments by utilising a broad range of financial instruments to exploit desirable risks, neutralise undesirable risks and combining directional and non-directional positions. Ludvig Uddeholt, Partner and Head of Investor relations at Nordkinn Asset Management, told us more about the fund

Nordkinn Asset Management AB was founded in 2012 as an independent Nordic asset management firm by a selection of absolute return specialists with outstanding track records within investment, risk and client management.

Specialised in fixed income macro with a particular edge on the Nordic markets, the firm’s PMs have backgrounds from blue- chip organisations such as NBIM, Central bank of Norway, First Securities and Ericsson Group. As a single hedge fund manager seeking to capitalise on the institutional backgrounds of the seven partners, Nordkinn builds its business with the investor viewpoint in mind.

“We strive for maximising absolute returns in all market environments as measured by consistent risk adjusted performance,” says Ludvig Uddeholt, Head of Investor relations at Nordkinn Asset Management. “Our investment philosophy resides in identifying fundamental fair values of assets across the developed economies and exploit when market dislocations and significant deviations from long-term fundamentals occur.

“We do that by deploying a fixed income macro strategy, where we seek to express combinations of directional and non-directional views across developed markets and with a clear edge on Nordic markets. The team follows a strict “game plan / tagging concept” inspired from behavioural finance. This concept brings discipline to our PMs in cutting losses in time and letting profits run. This results in a clear asymmetry in losses vs profits over time, which in combination act as the fundament in our ambition to generate consistent absolute return. Our volatility target band corresponds to an annualised standard deviation of 4-8% over rolling 24 months.”

The firm is a strong believer in absolute return as a concept, and, by extension, therefore hedge funds as an investment strategy – as it, if deployed correctly, can provide investors with clear diversification benefits in a portfolio context, says Uddeholt. “Entering into 2015 and onwards, this notion may prove even more evident when looking at hedge funds within fixed income in particular. Given the extremely low interest rate levels across developed markets, we believe that the challenging prospects for traditional long-only investing in fixed income going forward provides opportunities for hedge funds like Nordkinn to truly prove its worth for investors.”

A significant development within the hedge fund industry currently is the accelerating trend for regulation, Uddeholt says. “A more regulated industry has its merits in securing confidence for the industry, yet is attached with risks for over-regulation, which needs to be properly addressed by both the authorities and the industry.

We believe for instance that the European AIFM Directive provides the combined benefit of remaining within the strict regulatory framework in Sweden protecting investors, and an ability to market ourselves towards professional investors across Europe through so-called passporting.”

Uddeholt says Nordkinn’s team are strong believers in prioritising investors’

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interests. “Our investor viewpoint is expressed in features such as equal ownership across our partners (with no bonus payments and partners reinvesting dividends in the fund with lock-ups), which we believe ensures an incentive structure truly aligned with the investors’ interest.

“Regarding transparency, we believe that it is in Nordkinn’s interest that our investors truly understand what we do, thus we engage with our investors to ensure that they, from their perspective, receive full relevant transparency from us. Further, a team based investment process, integrated yet independent proactive risk management, onshore structure with strict FSA supervision, strong fund governance, are all elements that support in securing investors’ confidence in Nordkinn. In aggregate this, we hope, emphasises the uniqueness of Nordkinn as a modern institutional hedge fund.”

Nordkinn says the Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund, which has been named Best Nordic Fixed Income Fund in the Hedge Fund Awards, has a “Nordic edge”.

This, explains Uddeholt, refers to the team’s local focus. “We seek to maximise our Nordic edge in our investment strategy, where being present in Stockholm and Oslo and attached to the local market information flow provides us with a clear competitive advantage,” Uddeholt says. “The strong backgrounds of the members of our investment team having successfully managed large portfolios for some of the most prominent institutions in the Nordic region is in the core of our investment skill-set. We are different from our global hedge fund peers in that we tend to approach the global markets from a Nordic perspective.

“With the Nordic countries being open economies, our PMs have unique experiences and deep understanding of how the Nordic markets may relate to global markets. This does not only lead to Nordkinn having different exposures than those of our global peers (i.e. all equal higher allocation to Nordic markets) but also in Nordkinn having different underlying rationale/analysis behind our positions outside the Nordic region compared with our global peers.”

Asked whether working in the Nordic region presents any specific challenges or opportunities that may not necessarily apply to firms in other parts of the world, Uddeholt says all fixed income hedge funds globally are faced with the same foray of challenges/opportunities in current market environment. “Specifically, however, Nordkinn sees ample opportunities in the wake of the ever decreasing level of proprietary trading from banks across Europe. In a Nordic context, less market participants are seeking to fill the gaps following market dislocations, which is something Nordkinn aspire to capitalise upon through the edge and skill-set of our investment team.”

Over the coming year, Nordkinn will continue to focus on building its business further.

“We’ll do this by means of remaining true to what we are and by focusing on consistent generation of risk-adjusted performance for our investors,” says Uddeholt. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Global Diversified Multi-Strategy Fund of Hedge Funds - UK

33 Fact File

Name: Henry Watkinson Email: hwatkinson@headstartadvisers.com Web Address: www.headstartadvisers.com Address: Headstart Advisers Ltd., 1 Knightsbridge Green, London, SW1X 7QA Telephone: 0207 376 54 37

Best Global Diversified Multi-Strategy Fund of Hedge Funds - UK

Headstart Advisers

We spoke to Henry Watkinson, Director at Headstart Advisers Ltd, about the HeadStart Fund of Funds and its continuing success

HeadStart Fund of Funds, managed by London-based Headstart Advisers Ltd, is a multi-strategy fund of funds, focused on capital preservation and delivering high risk-adjusted returns to its investors across market cycles.

“Post-2008 asset-raising remains a significant challenge for small to mid-size hedge funds, mainly due to institutional investors approaching hedge fund investment in a very formalistic way,” says Henry Watkinson, Director. “Despite this we have managed to attract significant inflows in 2014.

“More generally, recent economic data coming out of China and Europe, numerous geopolitical issues, QE in Europe, and oil prices have made markets particularly treacherous. We believe that in uncertain times like these our well-diversified portfolio approach with a focus on tight-nets is crucial for safeguarding investor’s capital. Equally, turbulent market conditions are likely to create exciting opportunities for hedge funds, and we will seek to capitalise on this where and when it is prudent to do so.”

recognised for the hard work we do on behalf of our investors,” says Watkinson.

“We have always strived to deliver the best risk-adjusted returns possible for our investors and have consistently delivered risk-adjusted returns in excess of hedge fund and traditional asset class indices. We believe that our core/ satellite approach enables us to successfully navigate market cycles preserving capital, but also to capitalise on short and mid-term market trends. The tight-knit investment team and entrepreneurial nature of the Fund enables us to react quickly to changes in the market further delivering value to our investors.

“It is great to be acknowledged for our work and we hope that it reinforces our investors’ trust in us. More generally, awards are an excellent way for investors to judge the quality of a fund by acknowledgement from a credible third-party. This is particularly true for those investors without the expertise or means to effectively to evaluate prospective hedge funds themselves.” n

The strongest parts of HeadStart Fund of Funds, says Watkinson, are, quite simply, risk management and capital preservation.

“The Fund’s philosophy is based on a focus on capital preservation and strong growth through effective risk management, with a focus on Alpha, uncorrelated returns, and a core/ satellite model of portfolio construction.”

The main benefit of investing in funds of hedge funds, as opposed to hedge funds is reduced risk, Watkinson says. “Principally, risk is reduced through diversification across a range of underlying managers. Other advantages include access to closed funds, avoiding difficulties associated with high minimum investment amounts, and benefitting from the industry expertise of the fund of funds manager.”

Headstart believes the optimal number of hedge funds to effectively benefit from diversification is 20-30 hedge funds, Watkinson says. “This provides sufficient diversification, but also allows us to know each of our managers intimately, as well as to monitor them very closely.”

Asked about the Fund’s future, Watkinson says Headstart constructs its portfolio with a long-term view. “Key to our investment approach is a core holding/satellite holding model to our portfolio construction. We will continue to pursue short and medium term opportunities through satellite positions, whilst remaining in our core positions which have historically performed well across market cycles.”

A best-in-class fund The HeadStart Fund of Funds has been named Best Global Diversified Multi-Strategy Fund of Hedge Funds – UK in the Hedge Fund Awards. “It is an honour to be

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best in Global Interest Rate Specialists

34 Fact File

Name: William L. Gordon Email: wgordon@dixhillspartners.com Website: www.dixhillspartners.com Tel: +1 516 393 9136

Best in Global Interest Rate Specialists

Dix Hills Partners LLC For over 11 years, Dix Hills Partners LLC has specialized in managing global interest rate exposure, converting interest rate volatility into excess return. We provide custom-tailored investor solutions, ranging from interest rate hedging to an absolute return strategy employing either long or short positions in global bond futures. We caught up with William L. Gordon, Partner and CEO, for a quick Q&A session on his firm s investment strategy, the state of the industry and where the company is headed in the future

Please tell us a little about your business and the work you do.

Our systematically based investment strategy is derived from extensive research on over 50 years of interest rate movements. We forecast the short-term direction of interest rates with sufficient accuracy to generate attractive returns that are sustained over the long-term. Our expectation is to forecast these moves with 60-65% accuracy. Additionally, we expect the profits on winning forecasts to be greater than losses on unprofitable ones, leading to an attractive risk-adjusted return for investors. To achieve high liquidity and diversification, we trade the four most liquid sovereign debt markets (US 10 Year Treasury Note, German Bunds, UK Gilts and Japanese JGB’s).

Our investment process is designed to be independent of interest rate direction, having a net zero duration exposure over time. Our resulting alpha has no correlation to most major traditional and alternative benchmarks or assets classes. Thus, blending our strategy with other programs often improves the resulting portfolio’s risk-adjusted return as well as the absolute return characteristic. While no future guarantee, our past track record demonstrates we have delivered on these objectives since inception.

Does managing a strategy solely based on interest rate forecasting present any specific challenges or opportunities?

Significant opportunity exists because institutional and individual investors are requiring this expertise now more than ever, as they seek to manage the conundrum of historically low yields combined with potentially high future interest rate risk. The value of the opportunity can be seen in the tremendous dispersion of total returns in the 2014 performance results of those mutual funds in Morningstar’s Non-Traditional Bond category.

Individual annual fund performance in 2014 ranged from a low of a -10% return to a high of a +10% return. This helps to highlight the return potential that exists in successfully forecasting the interest rate or duration decision, while also highlighting the risks.

There are some big challenges as well. Despite being such an important concern for most investors today, few of them seek out a pure “interest rate specialist”. Several reasons may be driving this: • Interest Rate Specialist is not a “bucket” within institutional allocations

Investors seek us out our expertise to capture the potential to achieve two objectives:

• Few managers have demonstrated consistent and substantive alpha from interest rate decisions.

• We can be invaluable to investors who are concerned about managing their global interest rate exposure.

• Investors delegate interest rate exposure to their existing fixed income or global macro managers.

• We offer investors a unique opportunity to capitalize on these short-term movements to generate excess returns.

Investors who are expecting their managers to answer this decision effectively going forward should focus their due diligence on manager return attribution, specifically analyzing the success of a manager’s interest rate exposure decisions. Alternatively an investor might suggest that the manager avoid making that decision (as some investors do).

Potentially attractive attributes of our strategies are as follows: • Our “alpha” has no demonstrated correlation to most major traditional and alternative benchmarks or assets classes

What would you say is the strength of your investment process?

• No long-term directional exposure bias, resulting in a net zero-duration exposure over time.

The strength of our investment process is rooted in its philosophy’s four major building blocks:

• Daily liquidity with minimal counterparty risk

Fundamentally Based - Global interest rate movements reflect economic fundamentals ● We carefully track economic fundamentals that show consistent value

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Shorter-Term Horizon - The long-term is difficult if not impossible to predict ● We employ a shorter-term forecast horizon, which demonstrates ro bust accuracy over decades of varied economic and market conditions Diversified Factor Drivers - Integration of economic, value and technical factors is key ● We integrate measures of value and momentum to improve forecasts ● Similar to earnings growth, P/E and momentum in equities A Disciplined Process - Adherence to objective/disciplined vs. discretionary investment approach ● Avoids human bias in the investment decision The true value of our philosophy is shown in our ability to convert our robust back-tested research results into an actual 11½ year track record of excess returns across a variety of market conditions, including a global financial crisis.

You have been named Best Global Interest Rate Specialist in the Hedge Fund Awards. What about your business do you think led to your peers and clients voting for you?

I believe we have been selected by our peers and clients for the Acquisition International hedge fund award for several reasons. First, we have achieved significant positive alpha over the past 11 ½ years, a period of both rising and falling interest rates, a global financial crisis and extensive central bank intervention, a challenging period for many, including Dix Hills Partners. Second, we have generated this alpha using a highly disciplined process in the most liquid global sovereign debt markets - US, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. Third, we have been able to generate an attractive return level based on our skill level, not on extensive leverage. Finally, our 11 ½ year return profile has demonstrated a consistent “non-correlation” to the major benchmarks and assets classes, which has enabled investors to achieve true diversification through an allocation to our strategies.

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Best in Global Interest Rate Specialists

How do you see the current state of the hedge fund industry?

The hedge fund industry has grown to become a fully institutionalized marketplace. As the process is now institutionalized, the bulk of new allocations often find their way to the largest hedge funds. This results in a drag on the performance of some of the largest hedge funds as they lose flexibility in the markets due to their size. While there are many programs for emerging managers, very little of the overall assets are allocated there.

As a result, it is becoming difficult for new ideas and strategies to enter the marketplace. Investors want to allocate to the largest funds for safety and comfort, and yet at some point, too much money ultimately affects returns.

What plans does your firm have for the coming months and years?

With the institutionalization of the financial services and hedge fund industry, we have pursued discussions with potential strategic partners with critical mass and distribution capabilities to help us broadly deliver our expertise to institutional and individual investors. The right partnership will enable us to help investors on a larger scale with their critical investment needs: • Strategies generating opportunistic returns with high liquidity • Expertise in assist in helping manage interest rate exposure.

We are highly confident our investment approach, employing our unique short-term horizon, will offer investors the flexibility in adjusting their portfolio and interest rate exposure to the ever-changing economic environment. As 2014 demonstrated, proper timing in the re-positioning a portfolio for an eventual rate rise is critical in being able to fully take advantage of interest rate movements. Our investment approach, which is based on researching over 50 years of interest rate movements, has served us well for over 11 years. We expect it will continue to benefit our investors going forward, as we seek to assist them with future market challenges. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best for Short Term Derivatives & FX Spots Trading Opportunities – UK

36 Fact File

Company: Sequoia Capital Fund Management LLP Email: douglas.garistina@ sequoiacapfm.com Website: www.sequoiacapfm.com Address: Ground Floor Lincoln House, 137-143 Hammersmith Road, London W14 0QL UK Phone: +44 203 588 4770

Best for Short Term Derivatives & FX Spots Trading Opportunities – UK

Sequoia Capital Fund Management LLP Sequoia Capital Fund Management LLP pursues a short-term systematic approach to trade a diversified portfolio of G10 currencies striving to achieve consistent, superior, risk-adjusted returns, says Douglas Garistina, CEO

Sequoia Capital Fund Management LLP (SCFM) was established in 2011 as an alternative investment management company specialising in investing via quantitative strategies, which are the result of several years’ research and development in the algorithmic trading space.

“At SCFM we aim to produce genuine, quantitative, absolute returns strategies which can be run systematically,” says Douglas Garistina, CEO. “Our focus is on shorter-term opportunities in liquid markets as this time-frame is where genuine Alpha opportunities exist and can be exploited. With this focus, we find we are able to deliver highly diversifying returns streams to our investors’ portfolios. By having a clear focus and a unique product offering, we stand-out from the crowd in what has become a highly competitive and mature industry.

“We are extremely excited by the recent improvements we have seen in our market environment and the diverging economic paths of the G10 countries as this bodes well for opportunities that our models are designed to exploit.”

SCFM’s team is its greatest strength, says Garistina. “Each person on our quant team contributes their unique background, knowledge and experience into a rigorous and collaborative R&D process. Additionally, our operations team and our developers have built an institutional-quality infrastructure for servicing our clients and working seamlessly with our service providers. The strength of our teams gives us the strong foundation upon which our business will grow.”

SCFM is a research-driven firm with a commitment to constant improvement in all areas of its business, Garistina says. “We have a very strong and diverse team bringing many outside-of-industry ideas and techniques to our strategy development process. This leads to strategy profiles that cannot be found elsewhere and that offer genuine diversification. With our short-term strategy focus, we recognise that we will not be a part of every investor’s portfolio but will be an important component of a select group of investors. This enables us to work more closely with each of our investors to ensure an alignment of expectations between us and through offering flexibility in how our investors can access and utilise our strategies.”

“We consistently receive a few pieces of positive feedback from our investors, which may have been instrumental in earning us this award; 1) they tell us how they appreciate the level of transparency that we maintain with them; 2) what we are offering is truly unique and; 3) our research efforts and the quality of our operations and infrastructure are very impressive for a firm of our size.” www.acquisition-intl.com

As 2014 comes to a close and we move into 2015, the generally difficult environment that the CTA and FX spaces have faced over the past several years has led to all managers in this space to be tarred with the same brush to a certain degree, says Garistina. “As well, we have seen some major FX funds shut down over the past year or so. This has created a challenging asset-raising environment. We have been very fortunate that our strong performance in 2012 and the first half of 2013 differentiated us from our peers, enabling us to on-board some blue-chip investors during this period. With our models recently getting back on form, we are optimistic that our offering will continue to attract high-quality investors wanting to diversify with a short-term systematic FX Alpha strategy.”

The UK is an ideal place to operate a business such as SCFM, says Garistina. “London contains the global headquarters and operations for most of the large financial institutions that we work with and the network of industry expertise in London is second to none. Equally, the UK regulatory structure is both strong and clear without being overly burdensome, although pan-European regulations have recently added complexity and have the potential to dull the shine of London as the best place to operate in our industry.

Garistina says the firm is grateful to be named ‘Best for Short Term Derivatives & FX Spots Trading Opportunities – UK’ in the Hedge Fund Awards. “Our entire team of quants, developers and ops have devoted enormous efforts over several years to creating high-performance models, systems and infrastructure so that we can deliver a first-class experience to our investors. Recognition such as this means so much to the team for all of their hard work.

“Awards such as these offer an unparalleled opportunity for smaller emerging managers like us to gain recognition in the global arena for the unique and compelling strategies we are offering. Importantly, it also provides the broader investor community with an up-to-date shortlist of stand-out strategies and firms which warrant a closer look.

As for the future, SCFM plans, in the near-term, to broaden its investor base beyond the hedge funds, pensions and family offices we currently work with to better utilise the capacity of our FX strategy, says Garistina. “We then look forward to working with our investors towards rolling out some exciting new strategies that have been in the pipeline for some time so that we can offer a broader selection of our unique brand of strategies.” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Financial Valuation & Advisory Services - Asia Pacific

37 Fact File

Company: Censere Group Web: www.censere.com

Best Financial Valuation & Advisory Services - Asia Pacific

Censere Group Censere Group offers a unique mix of skills and services to clients via its network of offices throughout Asia Pacific, combining the experience and skills of its partners and staff with the highly specialised industry knowledge available through its affiliate network, says Brett Shadbolt, Owner Censere was founded in 2002 and has expanded rapidly across Asia Pacific.

Our focus is assisting clients to assess and successfully complete cross-border M&A transactions. We operate seamlessly across our dedicated network of 13 offices and combine our valuation, forensics, research and advisory skills to provide a unique range of services. From pre-transaction services such as feasibility studies, business or technical due diligence, asset/deal valuation, industry research, and financial instrument structuring, to post transaction services related to financial reporting, Censere has the experience and the in-house technical expertise to offer a full spectrum of advisory services.

Our clients include SME’s, multi-national corporations, banks, insurance companies, investment funds, financial advisers, audit firms and legal advisers - in fact, anyone who requires quality, independent advice. Some of our recent clients include Macquarie Capital, Alpharma, Advanced Micro Devices, Bulgari, China Everbright, China Molybdenum, China Resources, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, Genting Berhad, Heineken Asia Pacific, Hitachi Elevator, HK & Shanghai Hotels, JP Morgan Chase, L Capital, Maxis Communications, Mitsubishi Motors, Oriental Fortune Capital, Singapore Airlines, SMRT and Volkswagen.

Breaking new ground in Asia We currently have 13 offices across the region and are continuously expanding our coverage. In North Asia we have Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo. In South East Asia we have Bangkok, KL, Jakarta and Singapore. In Oceania we have offices in Sydney and Auckland and in South Asia we currently have an office in the Maldives.

We expect to see strength across the whole of SEA for the foreseeable future, and expect India to start presenting good opportunities in a year or so. This mirrors our growth to date and expected growth, with expansion in India planned for 2015 and other SEA markets such as Vietnam and Philippines being considered.

IP Financing is a new area gaining ground in certain parts of Asia, including Malaysia and Singapore. As the business landscape has been changing for the past two decades and has changed a lot in the past five to seven years where traditional brick and mortar businesses are being replaced by online, virtual businesses that do not have requirement for a lot of tangible assets. Trends like work from home or remotely, outsourcing, etc., also have an impact where a number of businesses can be run from a home or a small office reducing the need for assets such as property, plant and equipment, furniture and fixtures, etc. Censere is actively involved in many IP valuations and expect many future opportunities to arise from this growth area.

The key to our business and the main driver is cross border mergers and acquisitions. We always expected Asia to become a major market for mergers and acquisitions and for transactions to span multiple destinations across Asia.

Our advantage is that we operate as a united network across Asia Pacific with a single ownership structure. We own all our own offices and we do not license out the Censere name. That means we can work seamlessly in any market without having to be concerned which office is engaging with the client or who is going the work. Everyone is focused to ensure the clients objectives come first.

Another important feature is that we can maintain independence while making critical investment decisions for our clients; we do not usually take on principle advisory roles like buy-side or sell-side, therefore we are able to provide impartial financial advice.

Our key strengths Censere’s core skill set revolves around valuation and financial modelling; this enables us to provide objective recommendations and quality advice for clients making major investment decisions. This typically involves mergers & acquisitions and expansion into new markets. Our potential customers are widespread and include corporate enterprises, high net worth individuals and private equity funds. The key to winning the confidence of our customers is to provide quality independent advice.

We typically win new work from referrals from existing customers, investments banks, accounting firms and lawyers who have worked with us previously. Our services include valuations, feasibility studies, fairness opinions, business and technical due diligence and industry research and we are very experienced with business that have or rely on intellectual property. Many of our clients engage us on a regular basis and we have grown as they have extended their businesses into new markets. We have many clients who have been clients for the last 11 years and have been with us from the beginning.

To complement our valuation service offering, Censere has established a forensic group, with the hire of former Big 4 forensic and dispute partners and managers. These new hires have many years of experience helping clients and business partners manage and respond to fraud and integrity risks. We also help our clients reduce fraud and corruption and manage risk through integrity and reputation due diligence, business intelligence, fraud risk assessments and data analytics for fraud and corruption detection. Censere is looking to further grow and invest in this business in 2015 and beyond.

Awards success We are honoured to have been named the Best Financial Valuation & Advisory Services – Asia Pacific. This award reinforces the hard work and growth we have seen in our business over the past 12 years, where we now the leading independent transaction support and strategic advisory group in Asia Pacific, with 13 offices and 120 consultants.

Awards are a means of identifying key players in Asia, which is certainly an emerging region and it is often difficult to know who to turn to. For us personally, it is confirmation that our pan-asian model is working.

At Censere, we believe that Asia is a diverse, fragmented region, but as a region it is gaining confidence and investment potential is substantial. We believe that it is our ability to operate seamlessly across Asia and our attention to quality and independence which is key.

Over the coming months and years, we see continued opportunity to expand into growing investment markets in Asia and extend our core services to new clients, both corporate and institutional. Our stated objective of helping clients to make better investment decisions is evergreen and we do not see a departure from this. n

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

38

Risk/Return Focused Independent Asset Management Boutique - Switzerland

Fact File

Company: Medicis Email: info@sagm.ch Website: www.sagm.ch Address: Rue de Candolle 16, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland Phone: +41 22 322 29 29

Risk/Return Focused Independent Asset Management Boutique - Switzerland

Medicis Alternative Option Founded in 1999, SAGM Médicis is a company specialised in consulting and asset management for private customers , as well as investment fund management. Olivier Armangau, Asset Manager, told us more about the firm and gave us his thoughts on the wider industry Following the long tradition of Swiss finance, our business has its roots in independent asset management for an international clientele. This business has been recently complemented by the addition of fund management activities, with a special focus on optimising the balance of performance risk vs. return. It has become increasingly complicated to work within a business structure such as ours. Under the pretence of investor protection, the industry has experienced profound changes resulting from a barrage of extraordinarily expanded regulation. Within this context it has become increasingly difficult for small businesses to remain viable and preserve their independence. If we fail to recognize the scale and consequences of these changes, our industry risks losing its current diversity and degrading into a small number of giants.

Our fund The Médicis Alternative Option Fund targets an absolute return using a strategy based on Listed EuroStoxx 50 options (most liquid options traded on European exchanges). Due to the fact that the fund strategies are based on plain vanilla out of money options, the fund’s performance is less correlated to market direction and depends essentially of volatility and time value.The fund’s goal is to achieve this return with a low level of annual standard deviation. The use of short dated options, a disciplined approach to profit taking and stop losses and a dynamic position management destined to achieve delta neutrality (i.e. market neutrality) are the main drivers of the lower volatility of our returns. Risk management is the corner stone of our style in order to achieve an optimal risk/reward ratio. The fund does not take directional views, not does it try to arbitrage the terms structure, it simply seeks to optimize its option positions in view of the level of the market (the EuroStoxx 50 index) and the volatility level of the index. The fund it’s usually a seller of volatility (especially after a volatility spike) using various strategies. The short convexity risk related to a short option position is managed by a continuous monitoring and the adjustment of the delta of our portfolio.

The fund has two main components: A systematic component, often using trades with a minimum of two “legs”, where the directional risk is hedged. Only in a very low volatility environment will the fund hold directional exposure, as a result of the low attraction of the short option strategies in such an environment.

An opportunistic component in case of a noticeable drop in the index level.

The increase in volatility which is characteristic of such pull backs, it’s used to sell options. These positions are not “covered” but they are implemented in a manner that does not affect the market exposure (neutral) and the volatility exposure of the portfolio.

The industry today The hedge fund industry is in a delicate period at present, with a record of

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fund closures since 2009 caused by subpar performances numbers. Massive monetary stimuli by central banks have biased valuations, correlations, and above all they have significantly reduced, or made irrelevant the role of valuation fundamentals. Predictably, the Global Macro funds have suffered, while long-shorts funds fair slightly better, both are having difficulties as they lag market performance. In such an environment hedge fund managers have lost their edge, but we are convinced that things will return to normal and that the industry will succeed at bringing back an excellent risk adjusted performance.

Notwithstanding the fact that we have no access to the European markets, Switzerland, and cities such as Geneva and Zurich in particular, continue to be important centres of expertise where all major players in the global financial industry have a presence. This has prompted our authorities to monitor this activity significantly and has left very little room for smaller managers.

This propensity to always be first class with our famous “Swiss finish” could adversely affect the development of fund management. A multitude of actors will have no choice but to consolidate, to move away to more pragmatic jurisdictions, or simply will cease to exist.

Our awards success Being named Risk/Return Focused Independent Asset Management Boutique - Switzerland is a recognition that highlights our philosophy, notably our independence and our approach to performance based on a risk vs. return perspective. In addition we are particularly mindful of the “boutique” concept which emphasizes a spirit of independence and relevance, and offers an alternative to large scale industrial structures.

Receiving Acquisition International’s award is a recognition of work that has been accomplished over a number of years. It is also a showcase that allows us to better communicate about our funds, and more broadly on our approach based on coupling returns and risk. This award will also allow us to strengthen our brand with our investors in a highly competitive market.

One of the key factors to success in managing investment funds is the underlying legal structure. Before even considering a product’s performance and risk-return profile, a fund selector or investor will first vet the legal structure of the product. To date, all of our funds are domiciled in Jersey (UK). Although this already provides a high standard of regulation, particularly for Anglo Saxon investors, the European standard UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities) has become a ‘brand’ of such a strong confidence in the world of collective management that we have decided to take steps to comply with this international standard in order to ensure our future development. At the same time , we are working to expand the range of our funds all the while maintaining the same philosophy of coupling performance to risk, but with differing strategies. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Swiss Alternative Investment Boutique

39 Fact File

Company: Herculis Partners SA Email: info@herculispartners.ch Website: www.herculispartners.ch Address: 30 Rue du 23 Juin, 2900 Porrentruy, Switzerland Phone: +41 32 552 0 227 Fax: +41 32 446 5 018

Best Swiss Alternative Investment Boutique

Herculis Partners SA Herculis Partners provides wealth owners with easy access to unique set of alternative investments like hedge funds, private equity funds, wine and precious stone investments in order to preserve and multiply their capital, says Nikolay Karpenko, Board Member Herculis Partners SA is a Wealth & Investment Boutique which was established in 2009 by group of Russian and Swiss partners for bringing new added value to the wealth owners (HNWIs, family offices, charities and endowments) through responsible business approach in wealth and asset management and investment banking industries taking into account principles of ethics, transparency and performance.

Herculis Partners provides wealth owners with easy access to unique set of alternative investments like hedge fund, private equity fund, wine and precious stone investments in order to preserve and multiply their capital. “Our approach is to make alternative investments accessible, liquid and cost effective as much as possible,” says Nikolay Karpenko, Board Member at Herculis Partners. “On top of that, we invest our own capital at the beginning and only then propose to our clients to join us. We call this approach an alignment of interests.”

The strongest part of Herculis’ business is creating tailor-made reverse convertible structured notes with high coupon and 50% barrier for its proprietary position, says Karpenko. “Our products are completely different from what other players are pushing on the market. The key advantage is that Investors join us in our investments and share with us all risks and rewards. The prospective area of our business development is Sharia-compliant products with elements of social responsible investments.”

Industry trends, along with regulatory environment changes, are bringing challenges for all industry players, says Karpenko. “In these circumstances, Herculis Partners sees its main task in helping the wealth owners to increase wealth through VC & PE Investments and M&A deals, to preserve and multiply wealth through passive and active operations on global securities markets, to protect wealth from states, creditors and raiders and pass it on successors, to distribute wealth on environmental and society needs according to customers altruistic ideals and values.”

Investors are generally fairly cautious about alternative investments, says Karpenko. “But, when you talk to them about precise and concrete subjects, they are ready to be committed and involved. Now investors want to have in their hands real things with intrinsic value as real estate, art works, wine, coins or precious stones.”

Switzerland, due to its mature economy, has a limited number of alternative investment opportunities, says Karpenko. “Nevertheless, we are looking for them not only inside the country but also abroad, namely: in Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Monaco and Dubai.”

Herculis Partners is currently building its own safe vaults with duty-free status in order to keep in custody precious stones, wine and art of works on low profile basis, says Karpenko. “Also, a client can save 8% on custom duty tax payment by placing physical assets under duty-free regime. He can keep this regime as long as he wants. On top of that, he has a custody which meets security and resistance level as a top banking vault.”

And the firm is looking to expand in the coming years, says Karpenko. “Currently Herculis Partners SA has three offices in Switzerland: Porrentruy, Geneva and Zurich. In our strategy is to have a strong presence in Dubai in coming years with focus on investment and business opportunities not only in GCC region but also on the African continent where we see a big potential for private equity investments.” n

Alternative investments is a class of assets which includes hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, commodities, derivatives, property, wine, art, antiques, coins, diamonds, stamps and other non-conventional investment instruments. They’re attractive to investors, says Karpenko, mainly because of their low or negative correlation with standard class of assets like stocks and bonds. “But alternative investments may be relatively illiquid and sometimes it may be difficult to determine their current market value,” he says. “Also, there may be limited data about historical risk and return as well as exist relatively high costs of purchase and sale.”

Today, investors are more familiar with alternative investments than they were 20 years ago, Karpenko says. “Hedge fund and PE & VC fund industries are growing fast and absorbing huge amounts of money. Clients are looking for low volatile instruments but with attractive returns in conditions of low interest rates when all securities markets are overvalued. The allocation of alternative investments in their portfolios is achieving 15-20%. It gives a big opportunity to strengthen relationships with the clients as they are becoming keen on alternative investments.

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Multi strategy Approach to Investing – Mexico

40 Fact File

Company: Intercap Website: www.intercap.com.mx

Best Multi strategy Approach to Investing - Mexico

Intercap Based in Mexico City, Intercap is a hedge fund manager and investment advisor, with a focus on emerging markets, particularly in Latin America. We spoke to Raul Fernandez Diaque from the firm to find out more

Intercap, based in Mexico City, is a hedge fund manager and investment advisor focused on emerging markets, primarily Latin America. The firm has been in business close to 20 years, with its core team still almost completely intact.

“The most essential aspect of our work is defined by trying to find attractive investment opportunities within different markets and asset classes with a suitable risk/ return profile,” says Raul Fernandez Diaque from the firm. “We try to source as many of these setups as we can in order to diversify our risk properly.

“We have a deep focus on capital preservation, and we strongly believe that over the medium and long term, a compounded steady return is much more profitable than trying to hit homeruns in every single instance.”

Intercap uses a combination of traditional methods and new strategies to find undervalued securities and detect opportunities in different markets. This hybrid approach to investing is based on fundamentals, which is mostly the value part of the equation, along with technical tools, which provide the needed aspects for assessing timing and sentiment, says Fernandez Diaque.

“If we had to label our style we would probably fall under the “value “ category, but we try to remain open minded and flexible without compromising discipline and a healthy diversification.

“Over the years we have developed our own models for measuring distinct entry and exit points. Unfortunately we do not have the magic formula, but so far our approach has rendered good results.”

When Intercap enters into a trade, the firm almost always has a medium term approach, says Fernandez Diaque, “since in case our assumptions don’t come into fruition in the short term we can feel comfortable being patient for them to take place. On the other hand, if we see certain things happening which might affect our initial thesis negatively, we do not hesitate to exit a position immediately.”

The firm deals mainly in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and to a lesser extent Venezuela, says Fernandez Diaque. “We try not to discard any country per se, although we try to focus our energy and resources as efficiently as possible.”

Asked what differentiates the firm from its competitors, Fernandez Diaque says while it is difficult to name a single differentiator or advantage, the team’s accumulated experience after navigating many different market environments, not only in emerging markets, but globally, is something of particular value. “This is something that cannot be taught,” he says.

“Another thing that probably distinguishes Intercap is the fact that despite being located in Mexico, we incorporate a global view when assessing opportunities

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within emerging markets,” he continues. “We often find many investors fail to distinguish the forest for the trees, which turns out to be a big disadvantage.”

Over the years, Intercap has seen the hedge fund industry grow and develop in many aspects, Diaque says. “The number of funds has increased as well as money allocated to the asset class, but this has come along with a higher degree of regulation, which has also created a higher entry barrier given the additional costs brought by the new standards.

“At the same time, the world has become much more connected and markets are evidently also more intertwined which has produced a much more challenging environment that requires a deeper understanding of the various forces at work.”

The hedge fund industry is constantly undergoing a creative/destructive process, Diaque says. “Many funds are created each year and many cease to exist for various reasons. This business can be extremely rewarding in many aspects, but at the same time it is not very forgiving, and past success by no means guaranties a rosy future if you rest on your laurels.

“Increased regulation has been one of the biggest developments in this business in recent years. As in many cases there are negatives and positives from this, on one hand it has increased costs and the need for additional resources to comply, but on the other hand there is no question that this change has likely given a stronger foundation for many companies and the industry as a whole. The key obviously is that a proper balance is reached in order to avoid an over regulated business that threatens the core business model of hedge funds.”

It is “a great honour and privilege” to have received the award for Best Multi Strategy Approach to Investing – Mexico, says Diaque. “It definitely means a lot for us, especially since we know that there are many talented managers with tremendous skills in the industry.”

Diaque says he would like to think the award is a recognition of both Intercap’s good investment results over a long period of time and the firm’s efforts to treat its clients and peers with fairness and transparency.

As for the coming months and years, Diaque says Intercap’s immediate plans don’t involve any major changes. “We have already made quite few adaptations in terms of staff and service providers in order to comply and conform to the new regulatory demands as well as the growth in our business.

“It is probably also true that fortunately we started early and have steadily grown to a comfortable size in terms of assets, which allows us to absorb the new demands and challenges.” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Offshore Fixed Income Fund

41 Fact File

Company: FTM Name: Endre Dobozy Email: endre@ftmmtual.com Website: www.ftmmtual.com Presentation: http://youtu.be/-oQ2wSRKdJ0

Best Offshore Fixed Income Fund

FTM FTM is a dynamic investment product that places emphasis on capital preservation first and foremost while targeting returns commensurate with the long term market averages while keeping volatility to a minimum. Endre Dobozy, Founder, tells us more In an investment landscape almost totally devoid of logic, reason and adherence to value, many investors find themselves in an awkward position. Reliance on central bank policy has led to the death of the buy and hold strategy and replaced it almost entirely with buy and hope.

A quick glance around the investment landscape can scare even the most seasoned investor with deflationary forces at play in Europe, the largest money printing exercise in the history of the world under way in Japan and a Chinese shadow banking system with an accounting standard that may possibly rival the best of Enron.

Combining this with weak global growth and emerging markets now responsible for almost half the world’s GDP makes them particularly susceptible to price shocks at a time when it looks like the US dollar will break out of a 29-year downtrend.

On the upside the US has been the bright spot of 2014 but, with a surging energy revival which now accounts for almost a third of the US growth story, you need to wonder what falling energy prices will do. On top of all that, you need to try and account for geopolitical issues and how nations like Russia will react to continued weakness and falling oil prices.

All this makes for a thrilling ride on the investment rollercoaster of 2015 and beyond.

Despite 2014 being relatively tame in comparison to the events described above, many hedge funds have struggled to turn a profit, let alone beat their respective benchmarks. In fact, information compiled from Bloomberg shows that the average hedge fund had returned just 2% in 2014 capping their worst performance since 2009. Furthermore, in the first half of the year, 461 funds closed their doors making it the worst year for fund closures since 2009.

Of course, economic uncertainty and sub-par returns are nothing new. In fact, if you took a snapshot from 1993 to 2013, the average investor, net of fees, has averaged around 2.4% annually. This is, of course, partly due to the economic environment during the period but more so to the interconnectivity of global markets which, today more than ever, resemble a row of closely-placed dominoes where one fall can start a chain reaction that most portfolios won’t be able to weather.

The answer to avoiding a falling market is, of course, to not be invested in them, but trying to time the market is, at best, an exercise in futility. This then brings up the question of where to be invested. Alternative investments such as hedge funds have not fared too well lately and cash in the bank pays little to no interest. In some cases you actually pay for the privilege of holding your money in the bank and, of course, you never know when another Cyprus-style event will occur.

While the names and dates may be different, we have been through issues like this in the past and this is what led to the creation of FTM.

Introducing FTM The Global Financial Crisis that began in 2008 clearly illustrated that investment classes were far more correlated than most investors had suspected till then.

Virtually all asset classes fell together, regardless of size, sector, or geographic location. Both developed and emerging markets alike experienced large declines as did commodities and non-treasury bonds.

Launched in March 2010, FTM is a dynamic investment product that places the emphasis on capital preservation while targeting consistent growth irrespective of market conditions or direction.

With the advent of FTM the problem of market volatility was solved for investors who want to achieve returns similar to those of the long term market averages but without the roller coaster ride generally associated with this type of investment. By combining capital-secured investments with an average of $3 of security for every $1 invested, a new type of fixed income investment was born.

One that was no longer at the mercy of market fluctuations and allowed the adoption of a buy and hold strategy.

FTM works by splitting the portfolio between different investments. First it has anywhere from 75 – 90% of the portfolio held in discounted medical accounts receivables which are secured by an average of$3 worth of receivables against every $1 invested. Then there is a cash component which can fluctuate between 5 and 10% of the portfolio. Together this makes up around 90 – 95% of the portfolio and has absolutely no exposure to market forces. The remainder of the portfolio can be invested in a propriety algorithmic currency trading system.

What are Medical Accounts Receivables?

Consider the following example. There is a car accident and, as a result, one of the drivers will require back surgery. A receivables company will fund the operation now and collect from the insurance company at a specified time later. The receivables company holds a lien on the insurance proceeds in the interim.

This is similar, in principle, to accounts receivable factoring, but with a critical difference. In traditional factoring a company buys a large pool of debt and simply hopes that enough will be paid to ensure a profit. In the case of FTM, the Medical Accounts Receivables Company pick and choose the cases they wish to fund and, on average, 4 out of every 5 cases reviewed are rejected, as investor safety is paramount. It should also be remembered that the ultimate payer is an insurance company, not a patient or hospital.

The Result Since launch in 2010, FTM has generated a 51.62% return net of fees to December 31, 2014 equating to a 9% annualized return since inception. FTM has registered 58 positive month in a row since inception and is up 8.10% in 2014 year-to-date, all without being at the mercy of the market. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

42 Fact File

Tel: +1 847 255 3500 Email: info@woodfieldllc.com Website: www.woodfieldllc.com Address: 3601 Algonquin Road, Suite 900, Rolling Meadows, Illinois 60008 USA Address: 1 North Wacker, Suite 2150, Chicago, Illinois 60606 USA

Best Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

Woodfield Fund Administration Woodfield Fund Administration is a privately held company that provides comprehensive administration services to private investment funds. Andrew Jones, Vice President, Business Development, told us why the firm continues to go from strength to strength Woodfield Fund Administration serves over 100 funds located in the US and around the world, with clients ranging from small start-up funds to managers in excess of US$1bn in assets under management, and representing a diverse mix of strategies and structures.

The firm provides a full suite of services to its clients, including: fund accounting, middle office, investor services, audit and tax management, financial reporting services, and shadow administration.

Woodfield has distinguished itself by offering an extraordinary combination of service and technology to its clients that other administration firms, particularly the largest ones, have difficulty matching, says Andrew Jones, Vice President, Business Development. “Unlike many large admin firms, we only employ degreed accountants in our accounting department and more that 80% of them are CPAs. This is in contrast to many large firms that view the accounting process as largely a function of technology. Although we view technology as important, there is no substitute for having a well-trained and highly competent individual managing the process.

“We are also unique in our organisational structure and how it contrasts with larger firms. Most organisations tend to compartmentalise various functions so that various people are doing the work on a single fund. This is similar to an assembly line in a manufacturing plant and is the most efficient approach if the goal is maximising profits. If the goal is to maximise quality, as it is here at Woodfield, then the best approach is to have an expert accountant managing the entire accounting process from A to Z. This also benefits the client in that they always know exactly who to contact if they have a question or an issue. It also causes people to take more ownership of their work which enhances quality. Finally, it makes the job more rewarding for the accountant which is why we have lower turnover.”

Asked if there is a specific example of its recent work that demonstrates what is special about Woodfield, Jones says that, while the firm has been providing audit draft preparation services for many years, due to recent regulatory announcements audit firms are required more than ever to be removed from the initial drafting of the annual audit for independence purposes. “This has resulted in many funds seeking assistance from Woodfield to prepare their initial draft financials -- including footnote disclosures and financial highlights.”

Hedge funds today The hedge fund space is always evolving, and, says Jones, Woodfield has evolved with it. “Funds are under more pressure than ever before from investors, counterparties and regulators,” he says. “There has been increased demand for transparency, new reporting requirements, FATCA, Form PF and requirements for funds under AIFMD which has resulted in increasing demands on fund administrators. We must be highly adaptable to these

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rapidly developing needs and look for ways to help our clients through this dynamic period.”

The hedge fund industry is growing, but more slowly than it has in the past, says Jones. “Both governments and institutional investors have pushed fund managers to new heights in transparency. Perhaps one challenge the industry will face is the difficulty for smaller fund managers to launch and grow funds.”

Hedge funds are often viewed in a negative light by those outside the industry, which Jones attributes to a poor understanding among the general public. “There is a substantial amount of misinformation regarding private investment funds that is accepted as fact by the general public and in many cases our elected representatives,” he says.

Recognising success Woodfield is honoured to be named Best Hedge Fund Administrator – USA in the Hedge Fund Awards, says Jones. “We work hard to provide our clients with the exceptional service and are gratified that our efforts have been recognised by a leading industry authority.”

Such awards drive home the point that fund administration is not a commoditised product, Jones says. “There are significant differences in the speed, quality, accuracy and comprehensiveness with which administration services are delivered that have a major impact in the service received by fund managers. Awards such as this underscore those very real differences.

He attributes Woodfield’s success in the Awards to the firm’s approach to its work – an approach that results in a much higher level of quality for clients.

“Additionally, Woodfield has a unique internal culture that is focused on quality, responsiveness and customer service. This results in an extraordinary service experience for our clients that is also noticed by other participants in the industry such as auditors, compliance professionals and attorneys. So it’s not a particular project but rather a high level of excellence on an on-going basis that has caused our clients and peers to recognise us.”

Looking to the future, Jones says Woodfield’s plans for the next few years are the same as they have been since the firm’s inception in 2005. “We seek to continually improve the quality of our product, which means continually improving our staff, procedures and technology to meet the ever changing needs of our clients.” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Fund Administration Software: BasisPoint

43 Fact File

E-mail: info@pendosystems.com Web: www.pendosystems.com/ Address: Montclair, NJ, USA Tel: +1 (973) 735 - 5788

Best Fund Administration Software: BasisPoint

Pendo Systems Pendo has spent the last several years investing in the capital markets industry to bring to market the future state of the back office solution

Pendo Systems was formed in 2007 after our collaborative team’s long career with back office record-keeping providers. We believed that the industry needed to reinvent the back office and focused on our industry’s inventory: global position data. We focused on the data from the bottom up providing for the first universal live back-office system globally. We focus on capital markets, in particular fund administrators, asset managers, hedge funds, insurance companies and family offices. As a small company we possess unique competitive advantages: 1) we are nimble 2) we are unencumbered by bureaucracy and legacy processes and 3) as a result we are responsive, flexible and can deliver cost effective solutions to provide our customers with instant global transparency.

Our business is distinguished in many ways, but our passion resulted in providing the industry a new incumbent to focus on empowering and monetizing the most valuable data in the capital markets infrastructure: securities position data. We used the modern day tools available to people and leveraged the thinking for modern day processing. Why can we go on Google (for example), type in a package code and track that package immediately, when an average package is touched nine times in a day? But in our industry, we are lucky to know the global exposure to our position in Google by the next day, and in most cases it’s weeks of aggregation. While watching the industry grow and create silos of position data either by jurisdiction; line of business or client segment, it needed a re-haul. Even Fund Administrators have different platforms for different lines of business. We offer our clients a centralized universe of the most valuable data in the enterprise, position data.

Questions such as: what do I own? What is it worth? And what is my counterparty exposure? Can be answered: Now! Agnostic to line of business, agnostic to jurisdiction. And the distinguishing factor: all of the data is made available to our customer and therefore gives them competitive advantages with their customers. We release the data from being hostage in the back office. Think about it: the position data is the lowest common denominator in the financial eco system, but it’s being held together and processed with legacy systems supported by loads of people and pivot tables. Anything but auditable transparent data.

First and foremost BasisPoint is “live” global position recordkeeping solution.

As a result of this core function; we have the ability to provide data to critical systems for risk/compliance/ regulations in seconds. The universal database is a source of data to all departments and eliminates the reconciliation between systems. Result, our clients “know their customer”. The inherent design allows us to automate core features like cancel and rebooks. The design is such that we store all data by position / tax lot; and maintain unlimited amount of cost basses: GAAP; IFRS; Australian Tax; Canadian GAAP and STAT as a few examples. Just one transaction entry supports as many mirrored accounting bases as required. Such granularity is available all the

time and no purging providing for a complete and constant “look through” The multi-current capabilities are broad providing at all times a minimum of three levels of currency. The flexibility in the design and the multi-entity structure provides the ability to manage multiple lines of business on a single platform – so the global view of assets is across the enterprise independent of the line of business (asset management, insurance, wealth management, etc.). All of this automation also eliminates a great deal of broken trades; as we are not batch, we are able to consistently on demand spot these issues before an overnight process, eliminating a lot of overnight reconciliation. But the big “wow” factor is our data agnostic processing eliminating different databases to be run in different jurisdictions. Each and every portfolio can be on its on date at the lowest level achieving a true global investment book of record (IBOR).

What are the main problems in the global investment accounting system?

How do you address these issues?

To quote Albert Einstein: “if you can’t explain it simply; you don’t understand it well enough.” Try to imagine any modern industry in the Internet age without an effective inventory management system. That order you just placed on Amazon might show up tomorrow – or next month. The flight you booked a month ago might have seats available when you get to the airport – or maybe you’ll have to wait a day or two. Believe it or not, that pretty much describes the state of today’s current back office model. This industry has spent billions on a global financial network, created countless new asset classes and passed a nearly indecipherable web of regulations to manage it all. But even the largest and most sophisticated players do not have an immediate and aggregated view of securities inventory to know in the moment what they own, how much they own, or where the counterparty risk lies. For confirmation, just look at headlines from the “scandal” at MF Global or the J.P. Morgan “London Whale” episode. Or go back to 2008 and AIG – the epicentre of the financial crisis. Virtually every crisis of confidence in our financial markets has one common thread: lack of “position transparency”, which translates to lack of effective inventory management. Jamie Dimon – the CEO of J.P. Morgan – put it best in the wake of the London Whale debacle: “I want to see the positions!”

The course is so clear and simple. But we recognize looking at rebuilding the infrastructure is a tall and risky order. Therefore our first goal is encouraging firms not to continue to compound the problem. At a minimum we hope to shift the paradigm, see firms start on boarding new business to a future state platform and we plan to become the standard. Our data centres are the best in the world and we can offer a non-intrusive way forward. We thank you for this honour. n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Bespoke Solutions in Hedge Funds

44 Fact File Company: Viteos Fund Services Name: David A.A. Ross Email: david.ross@viteos.com Web Address: www.viteos.com/shadow Address: 80 Cottontail Lane, Suite 430, Somerset, NJ 08873 Telephone: +1 732 356 1200 x1220

Best Bespoke Solutions in Hedge Funds

Viteos Viteos is redefining the approach to fund administration, creating a new benchmark as a “next-gen” administrator through the pursuit of excellence, says David A.A. Ross, Global Head of Marketing Investment managers thrive on information. They need to know certain things at certain times, and want it delivered in a certain way. At Viteos, we create the processes, write the code, and connect all the parts to make it happen.

Our clients are often managing complex funds with intricate fee structures, dynamic use of trading and leverage, and diverse underlying assets.

ble-do” to a new forward looking “reporting of information”. While we stand alone at the front in outsourced shadow-accounting after five years offering this service, we also have repositioned our brand as primarily an outsourced shadow-accounting firm. This is our core offering and now view any new fund administration business as non-core and no longer actively pursue it.

Additional complexities can arise from having multiple funds and other legal entities, onshore and offshore interests, plus hundreds or even thousands of clients who invested at various times and under various agreements.

The 39% growth in outsourced shadow-accounting assets supports the strategy. Why is the interest so high? As hedge funds compete for institutional flows, they are seeing the value of moving from being producers of data and towards becoming consumers of information--a competitive edge at attracting investor capital.

None of these challenges are daunting to the team at Viteos. Process engineering begins at the onboarding stage, as we develop a detailed understanding of an investment manager’s needs. This typically includes the chart of accounts that will flow into the trial balance, desired file formats, accounting methodology, pricing policy, and desired frequency for reconciliation and NAV calculations—as often as daily.

With our due diligence complete, we create an effective structure of files and work flow. After a prudent test period, the process goes live—and Viteos is always there to refine and adapt the process as an investment manager’s business evolves.

Clients benefit from a customized solution that is designed by a team that truly understands asset management, and that takes full accountability for their results.

Shadow-accounting Viteos provides a complete range of services to shadow the books and records for which there may be a different administrator contracted by the fund. In such a case, Viteos offers to perform all or some services which are part of fund administration services and also do a compare of reports with the official books and records for the fund as a control check.

The conversation around outsourced shadow-accounting continues its shift with momentum first distinguished from the traditional definition of a “dou-

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The future At the last survey we knew of three other firms who offer outsourced shadow-accounting. Since that time the list of firms has grown to nine and we expect more. HFMWeek has added a shadow-accounting category to their awards. We continue to make improvements to our offering with the addition of each new fund as its special characteristics require customize solutions each time. No two solutions are the same so there is no package pricing, the increase in our AUM is solely due to shadow-accounting assets.

The reporting and timeliness of taking the data of the post-trade life-cycle ecosystem through an institutionalization process are turning data into normalized storage formats that can be sliced, diced and kneaded into intelligent information.

Access is critical for both business intelligence and investment intelligence.

Thirty years ago the standard settlement was T+5, today T+1 is inevitable.

For those savvy state-of-the-art managers with outsourced shadow-accounting firms supporting them, cutting a NAV can be done daily and in some cases trade reconciliations can be updated three to four times during the day. At some point in the future the T+ time frames will be compressed to as close as zero as possible driven by agility, a primary need of the modern hedge fund. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Fund of Hedge Funds - Finland

45 Fact File

Name: Pia Söderblom Email: pia.soderblom@pohjola.com Telephone: +358 10 252 2485 Name: Jussi Kärävä Email: jussi.karava@pohjola.com Telephone: +358 10 252 4376 Web Address: www.pohjola. com/assetmanagement Address: Eteläesplanadi 12, Helsinki, FI-00013 Pohjola, Finland

Best Fund of Hedge Funds - Finland

R2 Crystal Fund Helsinki-based OP Wealth Management’s R2 Crystal Fund invests in 10-15 different hedge funds across a wide range of strategies. Jussi Kärävä, Head of Fund Selection, told us more about its ongoing success OP Financial Group is Finland’s largest financial services group. It provides its customers with a diversified range of banking, investment and insurance services. R2 Crystal Fund is managed by OP Wealth Management which is one of the Group’s three business segments. R2 Crystal Fund is a fund of hedge funds with net assets of approximately EUR160m and cumulative returns since inception in January 2006 of 89% (7.30% p.a.) and annualised volatility of 5.90%.

“The Fund’s investment objective is to seek consistent high absolute returns with low correlation to traditional asset classes and a lower level of risk than a diversified equity portfolio, as measured by the volatility of returns,” says Jussi Kärävä, Head of Fund Selection. “Typically the fund’s assets are invested in 10-15 different hedge funds across a wide range of strategies. The fund may employ borrowing, on average 25% and 50% of its net asset value, to achieve its investment objective.”

R2 Crystal Fund’s long-term commitment and experience in hedge fund investing and fund selection give it a competitive edge, he says. “Together with our continuously improved investment and operational processes, significant infrastructure investments and access to company-wide pool of resources support our position as the leading hedge fund of funds manager in Finland.

“In terms of the R2 Crystal Fund, our approach of running a fairly concentrated portfolio of globally leading blue-chip hedge fund names, many of them nowadays closed for new investors, is a unique offering that would be difficult to replicate by any of our competitors. Our investors also greatly value the fact, that we have a significant internal investment in the fund.

“Our strengths lie especially in our portfolio selection, strategic allocation and sourcing capabilities based on our long experience and long-standing relationships in the industry,” he says.

The next 12 months look bright, he says. “2015 will be a good year for the hedge fund industry, with diverging global economics, political uncertainties and increasing volatility creating better investment opportunities as compared to 2014. We believe increased investor interest towards hedge fund investing will continue and we expect to see significant net inflows during the course of the year.

“We think most significant changes in the industry over recent years have been the enhancements in transparency, controls and infrastructure, helping to create better credibility especially towards institutional investors. But this evolution remains a work in progress, with inefficiencies and areas for improvement yet to be addressed.”

Recognising success The R2 Crystal Fund has been named Best Fund of Hedge Funds – Finland in the Hedge Fund Awards. “We are naturally very pleased to see our capabilities acknowledged at this level,” says Pia Söderblom, Portfolio Manager. “We are proud and honoured for this important recognition, and feel obliged to continue to deliver superior performance for our investors across market cycles.

“We think our long-term commitment to continuous improvement of our investment processes, operational capabilities and risk management and the resulting ability to continuously generate above average risk-adjusted returns are what distinguish us from many of our competitors. Evidently this has been noted by our peers and clients.

“For us, this award is a valuable recognition of our clients’ and peers’ support and our ability to deliver above expectations. We are naturally very pleased to see our capabilities acknowledged on this level.”

Changing perceptions

The Fund, which is registered in Ireland, invests mainly in Britain and America.

“Our investable universe in our own geographical region is remote and most of the funds in our portfolio are based in the UK or the US,” says Kärävä.

Challenges and opportunities These are challenging times for the asset management industry, as it is not easy to generate returns in the current low-growth, low-rate economy, says Kärävä. “At the same time, we feel this is creating opportunities for our hedge funds business with its better flexibility and ability to provide attractive risk and return characteristics and serve as a useful complement to investors’ current asset allocation plans. Indeed, we continue to see increased interest from our customers towards the R2 Crystal Fund and hedge fund investing in general.”

The world of hedge funds is often viewed as a secretive one, but that perception is gradually changing, Söderblom says. “We definitely feel that the way hedge fund managers and the industry in general are seen by the general public, has changed for the better during the last couple of years. Increased transparency and regulatory oversight have worked to decrease the shadowy reputation previously associated with the industry by many, making the hedge fund industry stronger and more attractive to investors today.”

As for the future, OP Wealth Management plans to continue to grow its hedge funds business, says Söderblom. “We see recent changes in the industry welcome and creating new opportunities for us in the future. In accordance with growing investor demand, we plan to further increase the size and depth of our hedge funds business in the coming months and years.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Most Innovative Hedge Fund - Bermuda

46 Fact File

Address: Centaur Asset Management Trinity Hall, 43 Cedar Avenue, Hamilton HM12, Bermuda Tel: +1 441 296 2211 Fax: +1 441 296 2212 Email: info@centaurasset.com Web: www.centaurasset.com

Most Innovative Hedge Fund - Bermuda

Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I The Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I is Centaur Asset Management’s Bermuda-domiciled, open-ended mutual fund investing in legal claims and disputes. Nicolas Angio, Group CFO, Centaur Asset Management, gives us an overview of the fund Centaur Asset Management is a subsidiary of Centaur Holdings Ltd, a global investment holding company with interests and investments ranging from asset management, wealth management, private equity, venture capital, mining and natural resources and agricultural investments.

Centaur Asset Management is the ‘boutique’ asset management and investment advisory division of Centaur, providing investment solutions for individuals, advisors, fund sub-advisory clients and institutions. Our clients are a mix of professional investors, HNW individuals and institutions on the asset management side of the business.

our way to distinguish ourselves as the product itself is distinct enough to do this.

The Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I (PLF1) is a Bermuda-domiciled, open-ended mutual fund which makes investments in legal claims and disputes using a variety of structures, such as purchases of disputes, loans, contract based funding arrangements, and other bespoke financial funding which may include direct and indirect investment structures. PLF1 was established in November 2012 so has a little over two years track record and has achieved a return for investors of over 23% since inception.

Success in the Hedge Fund Awards We are truly honoured to be recognised for this award, as the Investment Advisor of the fund. For us, an award for innovation is the best award category we could have won as Centaur is at the forefront of innovation when it comes to structuring investment products and solutions As several of our peers, service providers and clients will know, the structuring of PLF1 consisted of a culmination of 12 months research, negotiation, structuring and some good old fashioned sweat and tears to bring to market a product that is a highly technical investment strategy but also available to investors from a low minimum investment of $10,000. We had always strived to win some sort of recognition for PLF1 but we feel that this category describes perfectly what we set out to achieve… innovation. n

Our clients and services We have a relatively small number of clients compared to some of our competitors which means we can still spend time getting to know our clients on a personal basis and can focus directly on our clients’ needs.

We have had constant requests during 2014 for a fixed income/debt type product and have hopefully satisfied this demand with the recent launch of the Centaur Natural Resources Bond which has a three-year term and a 12% annual coupon paid monthly.

Centaur Asset Management has recently supported Centaur Group Finance (CGF), a wholly owned subsidiary of Centaur which provides intergroup financing for Centaur projects and investments, with the structuring, issuance and promotion of a USD denominated fixed coupon bond. The Centaur Natural Resources Bond launched in December and is the first of a number of fixed coupon bonds planned by CGF. The team at Centaur Asset Management quickly identified the best structure and jurisdiction for the bonds to be listed and managed the process from start to finish.

Working in the UAE and GCC markets We and our placement agents have both a blessing and a curse marketing a litigation fund from the Middle East region. The blessing is we have no competition whatsoever and most investors have never come across the asset class (i.e litigation). The curse is we have no competition whatsoever and most investors have never come across the asset class (i.e litigation)! PLF1 can offer investors a secure, uncorrelated asset class with a two-year proven track record and we don’t really need to go out of www.acquisition-intl.com

There is a huge amount of capital and liquidity in the UAE and GCC markets and the constant feeling and reassurance that people in the region are ready to do transactions and make money. For us, this access to a diversified client base via local placement agents is the main reason we have focused our marketing plans on the region and recently agreed to new larger office accommodation for our back office for 2015.

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Legal Financing Hedge Fund of the Year – Bermuda

47 Fact File

Address: Centaur Asset Management Trinity Hall, 43 Cedar Avenue, Hamilton HM12, Bermuda Tel: +1 441 296 2211 Fax: +1 441 296 2212 Email: info@centaurasset.com Web: www.centaurasset.com

Legal Financing Hedge Fund of the Year – Bermuda

Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I The Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I is an open-ended alternative investment fund run by Centaur Asset Management that makes investments in legal claims and disputes. Nicolas Angio, Group CFO, Centaur Asset Management, tells us how the firm is leading the way in this relatively new sector Centaur Asset Management’s Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I (PLF1) is a Bermuda domiciled, open ended mutual fund which makes investments in legal claims and disputes using a variety of structures, such as, purchases of disputes, loans, contract based funding arrangements, and other bespoke financial funding which may include direct and indirect investment structures as approved by Centaur Asset Management. PLF1 was established in November 2012 so has a little over two years track record and has achieved a return for investors of over 23% since inception.

The legal financing or litigation funding market is a relatively new sector, which has grown to a substantial size in the past four or five years, says Nicolas Angio, Group CFO, Centaur Asset Management. “At a macro level, investors’ monies are used to finance legal claims or disputes either through a court, tribunal or arbitration process and in exchange the funder receives either a fixed return or a percentage of the winnings of the legal claim or dispute. The asset class is a true hedge to other asset classes as there is no correlation between the legal claims and disputes we fund and what is happening in the forex markets or commodities markets or property sector and so on.

“There are also various ways we can structure the funding packages along with insurance and hedging packages so that we can either reduce the investors risk and produce a moderate return with little risk or produce a higher return with more exposure to risk. With this ability we can create multiple products for different client investment profiles with the same underlying asset class.”

The legal financing industry is a fascinating sector to be involved in at present – and the sector is still in its infancy compared to other sectors, says Angio. “There is tremendous opportunity in the sector to generate substantial returns for investors either through expanding our existing fund AUM or acquiring other funders operating in the market. It is doubtful if litigation funding will ever become a mainstream investment product but we believe an investor’s portfolio should be well balanced and could benefit from having some exposure to the sector.”

The idea being that investors could come into and out of the fund as required and also the funds AUM would grow over time with its track record to allow us to fund a larger volume of legal claims and disputes.”

In being named Legal Financing Hedge Fund of the Year – Bermuda, Angio says the firm is proud to have received recognition for what is usually a niche and often overlooked asset class, and welcomes the publicity for both the Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I and the sector in general.

“Our local promoters have been in the Middle East region promoting PLF1 for almost two years and hopefully our peers and clients have voted because they have seen that we have proven our investment strategy and more importantly, proven the potential returns available from the litigation-funding sector,” he says. “Our peers are generally impressed with the fund’s investment strategy and we have had a host of joint venture and white label opportunities presented to us including the opportunity to structure a Shariah-compliant litigation fund with a major UAE based financial institution.”

The main challenge Centaur Asset Management has had in 2014 has been in accessing sufficient capital to expand the fund’s AUM and fund the volume of legal claims and disputes being offered on an on-going basis, Angio says. “We currently have the resources and infrastructure to invest considerably more monies into the sector and are looking forward to doing this in 2015.”

Looking to the future, Angio says Centaur is planning on using the success of PLF1 to launch a closed ended litigation fund in 2015 which would be both larger in size of AUM and listed on AIM in the UK. “Although we have demonstrated it is possible to achieve an open-ended litigation funding strategy, the sector is more suited to having the knowledge and security that capital is committed for a longer period of time.

We are also planning on accessing funds through Shariah-compliant investment products which may or may not be focused on the litigation funding sector as we believe this is a fascinating and growing sector and one we are keen to get involved in.” n

Centaur is the only asset manager with a presence in the Middle East region that manages a litigation fund – and so generally the firm doesn’t struggle to distinguish itself, Angio says. “Having said this, we were reluctant to go to market originally with a product that was too similar to our competitors based elsewhere such as the UK so decided to launch a product that was a little more appealing to investors. We did this by making PLF1 an open-ended investment fund with monthly subscriptions and redemptions as opposed to a closed-ended investment fund.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best Fund Manager - Luxembourg & Best European Long-Term Growth Fund

Fact File

Name: Jose Garcia, CEO Email: info@cmclux.com Address: 9, Rue Sainte Zithe 1st Floor, L-2763 Luxembourg Tel: +352 268 4 53 59 Fax: +352 268 4 53 76 Web: www.cmclux.com

Best Fund Manager - Luxembourg & Best European Long-Term Growth Fund Luxembourg Life Fund FCP SIF

Carlisle Management Company SCA Carlisle Management Company SCA, in Luxembourg, has been named both Best Fund Manager – Luxembourg and Best European LongTerm Growth Fund, for the Luxembourg Life Fund FCP SIF, in the Hedge Fund Awards. We spoke to senior figures at Carlisle to find out more about the firm, the fund and its strategy for success For many years, Carlisle Management Company SCA has diligently strived to provide a wide variety of clients, with access to insurance-based investment products by offering intelligent alternative fund management solutions designed to work with a wide array of institutions, corporations, public funds and high-net-worth individuals.

Specializing in both open-ended investment funds and related private equity fund transactions, Carlisle considers itself to be a holistic investment and fund manager, assuming a wide range of tasks over the entire life cycle of the investment. “We are constantly monitoring economic conditions, market and sector developments as well as regulatory changes,” explains Jose Garcia, Chief Executive of Carlisle. With a rapidly growing asset base, Carlisle and its core team represent over 80 years of financial management collectively.

“While many financial institutions try to provide disparate services, we believe having a tireless focus is the right strategy,” asserts Mr. Garcia, “Carlisle has developed, initiated, distributed and managed yield-oriented and tax-optimized investments specifically for institutional investors and financial intermediaries in the Life Settlements sector. We constantly think about our clients and how we can better serve and respond to their ever-changing needs.”

Carlisle has grown rapidly to represent a widely diversified investor base, ranging from multi-billion dollar institutions to the most respected private banks and investment management firms in the investment community today.

The company is headquartered in Luxembourg. Carlisle Management chose Luxembourg due to its stringent regulatory environment and outstanding reputation for alternative asset management and investment fund firms.

“Luxembourg represents the highest quality levels of participation for European fund managers.” states Carlisle’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Tim Mol. “Between the strict regulatory environment and the level of sophistication throughout the various tiers of service providers, we knew this was the place for us to build a sound business with an optimal framework for growth.”

Carlisle utilizes mark-to-market valuation systems and independent service providers paired with tax-compliant, regulated investment structures to offer fully transparent investment products to its knowledgeable and discerning investor base. The company’s long standing relationships within its niche sectors, such as life settlements, have allowed Carlisle Management to excel among its peers in product acquisition and portfolio management.

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“Nobody knows the life settlement market quite like our management team,” maintains Mr. Garcia. “As our funds continue to expand, we are creating even more efficient strategies to bring life settlements to market. These strategies include supporting legislative and regulatory proposals favorable to the asset’s expansion while strengthening the rights of owners and buyers. As the largest aging population in United States history grows, consumers realize this will be a mutually beneficial opportunity for decades to come. US seniors are expected to control US$800bn of life insurance by 2030, with US$160bn believed to be eligible for life settlements.”

Indeed, Carlisle Management Company sees the future of this industry as very promising for their investors and various investment structures. The company has shown a formidable level of growth and performance over the past few years and feels confident this trend will continue into 2015 and beyond. Mr. Garcia adds, “This award serves as validation for the commitment and phenomenal efforts our team has demonstrated in getting Carlisle to this point and further strengthens our resolve to push forward. We couldn’t be more pleased to receive such an esteemed award. Here in Luxembourg we are surrounded by top tier companies so we feel truly honored to be recognized for our efforts and dedication in remaining at the forefront.”

The Luxembourg Life Fund FCP SIF – A unique approach to investment management Nestled amid the ancient castle walls and soaring financial buildings of Luxembourg, the only remaining Grand Duchy in Europe, The Luxembourg Life Fund FCP SIF makes its home. Offering a multitude of alternative asset structures, investment funds and portfolio managers; The Luxembourg Life Fund rises above the competition through a unique approach to investment management as well as its basis in a distinctive, emerging asset class known as life settlements.

“A life settlement is the transfer of ownership and beneficiary rights of an unwanted or unneeded life insurance policy on a senior insured in exchange for a cash settlement. The process is based on the United States Life Insurance marketplace,” explains the fund manager, Mr. Jose Garcia. “The Life Insurance Industry in the US is a tremendous market. For centuries this industry has been developing actuarial data and valuation processes that deal with mortality and life insurance based products. This data and processes are now being used to value mortality in life settlement products hence the industry is built on the experience and data of the Life Insurance industry, which provides a robust foundation for this asset class.”

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

The Life Settlement industry has grown at a phenomenal rate over the last decade, having attracted the attention from independent financial advisors to the top firms on Wall Street, with high profile institutional interest growing exponentially in just the past few years alone. “We are seeing an extraordinary amount of interest from amongst the largest financial institutions as they begin to see the benefits of integrating life settlements as an alternative asset class,” Mr. Garcia affirms. “As these large players in the market begin to utilize life settlements as an investment strategy, the market becomes even more sophisticated and well-established.”

The Luxembourg Life Fund: Long Term Growth Fund FCP SIF is an investment fund centered on the acquisition, trading and management of a portfolio consisting of U.S. based life insurance policies. These policies generate investment returns based on mortality and life settlement events.

Life settlements are known for minimal correlation to traditional financial markets (fixed income and equities) as well as changes in fiscal and monetary policy relative to global economies. “Truly sustainable long term growth is generated from acquiring the appropriate asset and applying management principles enforcing strengths such as consistency, low volatility and tangible value,” Mr. Garcia explains. “The Luxembourg Life Fund serves as a vehicle that investors are comfortable with in the medium to long term, regardless of circumstances occurring in other areas of global finance and the macroeconomic environment.”

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Best Fund Manager - Luxembourg & Best European Long-Term Growth Fund

A Luxembourg-based fonds commun de placement – fonds d’investissement spécialisé, the Luxembourg Life Fund consists of a diversified portfolio of hundreds of life settlements issued by insurance companies with an A average rating. “By maintaining a portfolio containing numerous individual policies, we mitigate risks associated with lack of diversification or concentration,” states Carlisle’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Victor Heggelman. The Fund employs detailed actuarial and financial analysis tools ensuring that assets meet a rigorous series of sensitivity and stress tests, including additional variables of actuarial profiles. The Luxembourg Life Fund FCP SIF: Long Term Growth Fund is a leading regulated open-end investment fund, driven by innovation and an investment philosophy which keeps it a step ahead of constantly evolving investment markets.

Carlisle Management is proud of the success of the Luxembourg Life Fund, attributing its achievements and this prestigious award to the forward-thinking management strategy of the Carlisle team and a dedication to investor education and ongoing communication. “To build a superior and genuinely ‘long-term’ growth fund, one has to have the foresight to look into the future and proactively map out the best course of action,” attests Mr. Garcia. “By staying ahead of developments within the market and properly communicating your strategies and intentions to your investors, a fund can allow itself the utmost chance to grow and prosper in the future.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Business Development Agency - Canada

50 Fact File

Name: JP Robicheau Email: jprobicheau@nsbi.ca Web: yournextlocation.ca Address: World Trade and Convention Centre, 1800 Argyle St., Halifax NS B3J 3E4 Canada Telephone: +1 902 424 7926

Best Business Development Agency - Canada

Nova Scotia Business Inc. The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is a great place to do business, and Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI), in Halifax, exists to help companies make the most of all the opportunities the province has to offer. J P Robicheau, Director, Financial Services and Nearshore Solutions at NSBI, told us more

Located on Canada’s beautiful east coast, Nova Scotia continues to gain global attention through its ongoing success in attracting top-tier hedge fund administrators, insurance firms, and banking institutions.

With a strategic geographic location and time zone, cost savings, competitive incentives, and access to a talented, educated workforce, Nova Scotia’s advantages continue to drive value for international businesses like Citco Fund Services, Mitsubishi UFJ Fund Services, and Marsh Captive Solutions. Companies continue to choose Nova Scotia as their strategic nearshore location to service global internal and external clients.

Through the efforts of Nova Scotia Business Inc. the province’s private-sector-led business development agency, Nova Scotia has recently welcomed another two new international firms – CNS Solutions (BDO Cayman Ltd.) and San Francisco-based Conifer Fund Services.

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“What especially differentiates us in the eyes of our clients is our approach to facilitating long-term partnerships between industry, academia, and government.” said Mr. Robicheau. “Our job is to understand the client’s needs when selecting a location. We understand that time is money when it comes to making critical decisions and we respond with real-time information that matters most to their needs.”

In 2012, KPMG recognized Halifax, the province’s capital city, as the fastest growing hedge fund administration centre in Canada.

And according to fDi intelligence, Financial Times Ltd., Nova Scotia was the best-performing region in North America in attracting inward investment in 2012. Nova Scotia attracted more FDI projects per capita than any other state or province, with three of the four largest job-creating FDI projects in Canada going to Nova Scotia. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Performing Long /Short Fund (3 years) & Best Asian Start-Up Fund

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Email: info@kriyacapital.com Location: Hong Kong Tel: +852-39831238 www.kriyacapital.com

Best Performing Long /Short Fund (3 years) & Best Asian Start-Up Fund

Kriya Capital We spoke to Han Ching Choong, Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager at Kriya Capital, to get the inside story on the firm’s successful Kriya China Fund – winner of two awards at this year’s Hedge Fund Awards

The Kriya China Fund, which has been named Best Performing Long /Short Fund (3 years) and Best Asian Start-Up Fund in the Hedge Fund Awards, looks for multiyear landscape shifts in China, and the winners and losers that are most leveraged to those changes.

“Historically, such changes have created anomalies that persist for a period of time, typically years, and at the right price and under the right conditions, these can create abnormal returns,” says Han Ching Choong, Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager at Kriya Capital. “We believe that the most sustainable returns are generated by a portfolio of such positions. For example, the effect of a shift in China’s economic growth leadership away from ‘bricks and mortar’ towards higher quality, more sustainable drivers and the trend of capital being no longer free – the impact of these are significant and lasting, across many different industries from commodities to retail, affecting corporate and consumer behaviour overtime.

“Based on historical and continued dissection of the success and loss biases of the investment strategy, the Fund is concentrated in large-cap and ‘value’ names, where long exposures typically have a demonstrated history of pricing power under the right circumstances and the reverse is true for short exposures,” she continues. “The proprietary ‘Dashboard’ model that grew from this process ensures there is a book of research that substantiates every position and that a core but dynamic matrix of criteria have to be satisfied before the position is initiated.

This ensures that the investments are as asymmetric as possible in terms of their payoffs, where the downside risk is calibrated appropriately. Not surprisingly, very few positions ‘tick enough boxes’, as a result of which the portfolio is concentrated, with generally no more than 20 positions. The Fund aims for a meaningful bottom-up hit-rate and to-date, winners and losers have been in China and non-China markets, in different industries. We do not look for or invest based on market direction.”

Kriya Capital places a lot of importance on automating key processes. What are the benefits of doing this? “‘Kriya’ in Sanskrit means following a path of discipline and deep exploration towards achieving perfect mental clarity and high-quality action,” explains Han Ching. “This is the basis for our investment process.

we are grounded by our process and investing experience, but are on our toes for changes that may be necessary.”

Asked about current industry trends, Han Ching says that, in terms of investing, there is currently a relative lack of sustainable trends, macro and micro, compared to the past.

“In terms of business, absolute return funds still carry a stigma from 2008 and institutions that used to invest in smaller funds have largely changed or disappeared,” she says. “The investing institution as a whole seems to have migrated more towards a ‘self-protection’ mode, at least as much as helping clients to generate returns. In my experience, committees generally make decisions by defaulting to consensus and that sort of output is not necessarily correlated with optimal investments for their clients, even if it does protect the firm against a potentially irate customer and vigilant regulator. At the end of the day, people want sustainable returns on their savings and that is what we try to offer as that is also what we try to do for ourselves.”

The regulatory standards for the investing industry in Hong Kong are high by global standards, and the regulators are vigilant, says Han Ching. “Investors should take more, not less, comfort from having their assets managed with the eye of the HK SFC on the manager. Hong Kong is getting more attractive by the day as a location for investing the way we do – as Chinese companies increasingly value investor relations, corporate access in Hong Kong has improved. While global companies are also increasingly valuing the potential investor base in China and access to them has also improved in Hong Kong.”

Looking to the future, Han Ching says Kriya’s continuing success may see it grow over the coming year. “As investor interest is growing (both from institutions, family offices and high-net-worth individuals taking a more proactive approach to managing their wealth), we may need to expand the team in business development.

As Hong Kong is a great place to manage money, we are also seeing interest in launching other funds.” n

“Asset prices, especially listed assets, are volatile and in the short-term, may not reflect any commensurate change in fundamental trends. With today’s multichannel modes of communication, it’s easy to get distracted by and react to headlines, losing focus on critical investment considerations such as what drives long-term returns. The discipline that an automated process instils helps to keep the investing brain (and action) on the ‘optimal’ path. But, critical as it is, this is only one part of the investment process and it is important to ensure that the process overall has an adequate degree of dynamism, given that change overtime is a certainty. So

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

US Fund of Hedge Funds - Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund

52 Fact File

Company: Steben & Company, Inc. Web Address: www.steben.com Address: 9711 Washingtonian Blvd, Gaithersburg MD 20878 Telephone: +1 240 631 7600

US Fund of Hedge Funds - Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund

Steben & Company Since 1989, Steben & Company has specialized in bringing alternative investments to sophisticated investors. John Dolfin, Chief Investment Officer, told us more about the firm and the continuing success of the Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund Steben and Company specialises in multi-manager alternative investment funds. Founded in 1989, the firm focused initially on managed futures funds, later applying that expertise to hedge fund strategies. “Steben’s greatest strength is manager selection,” says John Dolfin, Chief Investment Officer.

“We have deep experience in conducting due diligence and analysis of the trading strategies used by both hedge funds and managed futures trading advisors. Our flagship managed futures fund has operated continuously for over 25 years, making it one of the longest running managed futures funds available on the market today.”

“Adding an investment to non-correlated funds can help lower overall portfolio risk. Alternative investment strategies that are not consistently long biased in traditional markets can present very attractive opportunities. This includes certain hedge fund strategies and managed futures funds.

One of the biggest challenges financial advisors face is that there are far more types of alternative strategies to evaluate compared to traditional investments, Dolfin says. “Most advisors simply do not have the time or expertise to review and assess these strategies and then stay on top of changes over time.

“This is the core of Steben’s business and is what we have been doing for financial advisors for over a quarter century. Because of our long tenure and singular focus in this area, we are able to find, evaluate and monitor strategies for advisors so they can focus on their clients and practice.”

Dolfin says the market has seen significant growth in the number of mutual funds that employ alternative investment strategies in recent years. “While there is a lot of excitement around these ‘liquid alts’, they provide both risks and opportunities,” he says. “Mutual fund vehicles can provide non-accredited investors access to the diversification of alternative investment strategies with the convenience of daily liquidity, but we feel many hedge fund strategies don’t fit into a mutual fund structure effectively.

Steben’s business is built on three pillars, says Dolfin.

“First is our commitment to manager research and a high quality due diligence process. Since markets and managers change over time and trading systems decay, we feel keeping our Funds refreshed with the best managers possible is critical.

“Second is our focus on education and communication. Alternative investments are structured differently than traditional investments and behave differently in various market environments. Consistent communication and education – in particular during challenging times – is paramount.

“Finally, our overarching philosophy is to build funds that we would want to invest in ourselves. We believe that if we put investors first, then our products and business will succeed in the long run.”

In 2015, investors are facing serious challenges in deciding where to allocate their capital, Dolfin says. “Equity markets are richly valued after an incredible bull run that started almost six years ago and the Fed’s quantitative easing policy has ended, leaving Government bond yields and interest rates near historic lows.

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“We launched Steben Select Fund in 2013 to make these strategies available to a broader range of investors and financial advisors. Carefully selected hedge funds can be excellent diversifiers. The hedge funds in the Steben Select Fund have been specifically chosen to have low beta and low correlation to traditional asset classes.”

“A mutual fund’s daily liquidity requirement, constraint on leverage, and restrictions on performance fee payments may create a negative selection bias in manager quality. The end result, we feel, is that some of these mutual funds end up without the performance potential of the same strategies deployed in a traditional hedge fund structure.”

Steben has been named US Fund of Hedge Funds, for the Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund. Asked about the benefits of investing in funds of hedge funds, as opposed to individual hedge funds directly, Dolfin says one of the key differentiators is access. “We feel that many accredited investors still don’t have access to quality hedge funds. Some are closed to new investors and others have such high minimums that to build a portfolio of such funds yourself would be prohibitive. For example – to gain direct access to the 8 hedge funds that are currently part of Steben Select Fund, an investor would need US$20m. A fund of funds structure allows investors to receive professional manager selection and diversification into multiple hedge funds for typically a much lower minimum.

“We have always felt that the most important factor for success in hedge fund investing is manager selection – and we have over 25 years of experience in doing just that.”

The Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund is a good example of the approach Steben takes to developing solutions for its clients, Dolfin says.

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

“Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund is an SEC-registered fund of hedge funds that is available to accredited investors and has a minimum investment of $25,000. We launched the fund in August 2013, and we are fortunate to have enjoyed strong performance to date. We focus on hedge funds from around the world that specialise in 4 key strategies including: low beta equity long/short, quantitative equity market neutral, global macro and fixed income relative value.

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US Fund of Hedge Funds - Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund

“Our approach tends to contrast with many other fund of funds, which seem to have invested in more long-biased and more illiquid strategies in recent years. This may have helped improve their performance, but could leave them exposed to a reversal in the markets.

“We also focus on hedge funds that have historically had very low correlation to each other, which can help further reduce the volatility of the fund and make it a great diversifier.” n

“These strategies tend to be more liquid, which allows managers to reposition themselves more quickly in response to market conditions. They also don’t have a persistent long bias, which means that they have the potential to generate positive returns even in a bearish environment for traditional asset classes.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Hedge Fund Marketer - Asia/Australasia

54 Fact File Name: Anthony McNaughten (Director/CEO) Email: anthony@scs-ltd.net Website: www.scs-ltd.net Address: 207 Beach Road, Campbells Bay, Auckland 0630 New Zealand Phone: NZ +64 (09) 410 1168 Phone: HK +852 3166 5945 Phone: UK +44(0)20 7070 5350

Best Hedge Fund Marketer - Asia/Australasia

Strategic Capital Services Ltd Strategic Capital Services Ltd (“SCS”) is a specialist alternative investments firm providing hedge fund managers with value added access to a substantial global network of investors within the high net worth and institutional investor communities Founder of Strategic Capital Services, Ltd, Anthony McNaughten, has been marketing single strategy hedge funds since 2001 and focuses on marketing equity, event driven and macro managers to investors across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.

Having previously received Australian Placement Agent of the Year Awards for both 2013 and 2014 Anthony is delighted that Strategic Capital Services Limited has again been recognised in 2015 with the Best Hedge Fund Marketer Asia/Australasia award. SCS is constantly striving to improve the service it provides to its hedge fund managers and investors alike and it is gratifying to have those efforts recognised.

2014 has seen SCS expand its business outside marketing/capital raising for hedge funds. SCS now also works with high growth technology companies in New Zealand to assist them with sourcing venture funding. Current projects include assisting a world leader in wireless power with a Series D round for $25-30m.

A great innovation culture is being fostered in New Zealand with support for early stage and growth companies coming from active angel networks, business accelerators and government backed enterprises including Callaghan Innovation. Seasoned technology investors such as Peter Thiel have recognised the innovation culture and have been actively investing in New Zealand companies such as Xero and Vend.

SCS is excited to be working in this market and expects to be able to introduce its international investors to some very interesting investment opportunities over the coming months.

On the hedge fund front SCS is currently looking to add a good event driven manager, a macro or CTA manager and an Asian focused equity or multi strategy manager. Interested managers should forward their marketing presentation, latest investor report and due diligence questionnaire to CEO Anthony McNaughten via email anthony@scs-ltd.net In representing managers it is important to target investors efficiently and effectively and SCS finds its use of state of the art technology for CRM, emailing and website management and tracking assists them greatly. SCS provides potential investors with a central investor portal through which they can easily access all relevant information required for assessing managers and combines this with regular direct contact

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with investors to ensure SCS keeps its managers front and centre with potential investors and enhances their asset raising potential.

For 2015 and beyond Strategic Capital Services will continue to focus on working with a small number of high quality managers that generate attractive long term returns while effectively managing risk. SCS works with experienced teams with complementary skills, strong investor alignment and institutional quality infrastructure. By outsourcing capital raising to SCS, managers get to focus on what they do best, profitably manage money. The result is substantial asset growth and more efficient use of managers’ time. n

“

A great innovation culture is being fostered in New Zealand with support for early stage and growth companies coming from active angel networks, business accelerators and government backed enterprises including Callaghan Innovation.

”

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best Hedge Fund Marketer -Asia/Australasia

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

56

Best for Currency Management Services & Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK

Fact File Michael Petley - Chief Investment Officer Stephen Jen - Head of Global Macro Research Andrew Broadhurst - Head of Institutional Currency Services Bansi Jashapara - Director, Research & Advisory Address: 100 Brompton Road, London SW3 1ER Tel: +44 (0)20 7399 4600 Email: enquiries@ecugroup.com Web: www.ecugroup.com

Best for Currency Management Services & Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK

The ECU Group plc Founded in 1988, The ECU Group plc is one of the UK’s leading global macro advisory and currency management firms

We are proud to have been named both “Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK” and “Best for Currency Management Services”. These accolades are testament to our long term performance and the calibre, dedication and professionalism of our investment team and their supporting staff.

The ECU Group plc’s (ECU) investment team is led by Michael Petley (ECU’s founder and CIO), Stephen Jen (ECU’s Head of Global Macro Research), Fatih Yilmaz (ECU’s Head of Quantitative Research) and Neil Staines (ECU’s Head of Trading). They are ably supported by the breadth and depth of ECU’s Global Macro Research and Advisory Team which includes Professor Charles Goodhart, CBE, (Economic & Central Bank Policy Adviser) George Magnus (Senior Economic Adviser), Neil MacKinnon (Global Macro Strategy Adviser), Kit Juckes (Senior FX & Fixed Income Adviser), Robin Griffiths (Chief Technical Strategist) and Simon Hunt (Commodity Adviser).

For 25 years, our commitment and passion to deliver superior performance has enabled the company to navigate clients through many differing economic cycles, both positive and negative, providing them with continuity and reassurance in an ever changing investment world.

In today’s economic environment the need for a professional, all-encompassing investment strategy is more prevalent than ever. We believe that our global macro “big picture” investment philosophy, methodology and process are central to us providing all our clients with a structurally sound and well balanced global investment roadmap in order to optimise investment returns on a fully risk and currency adjusted basis. Our entire investment approach is based upon an ever adjusting balance of key considerations, in line with a changing financial and economic landscape.

It is with these building blocks that we have evolved from focussing purely on currency risk management mandates to becoming a multi-faceted research and advisory firm, creating modern investment solutions to suit prevailing market challenges.

Whilst we draw on a full range of investment principles and methodologies, we maintain, as distinct from many, an overriding discretionary control over our global macro and currency management programmes.

We believe that the progressive, hands on engagement of our investment process by high calibre and fully accountable investment professionals,

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subject to appropriate risk management protocols, is preferable to a number of rigid or systematic processes which have become increasingly susceptible to swift over-replication and market exploitation.

On balance, the increasing potential for major unforeseen events in the world today points us to a preference for experience, underpinned by a deep understanding of markets, over automation. At heart, we are very much a “people business” driven by a collective will to perform, something which is reflected in whom we deal with and the systems we deploy.

With today’s significant global economic, political and social challenges, the importance of credible knowledge and experience should not be underestimated. After all, the financial landscape has changed markedly over recent years. Central banks have been engaging in ever more unconventional and untested policy tools. Policy short-termism has become a global disease.

Bold and dramatic policy measures (be they excessive quantitative easing or currency intervention) have created a false, fractious and unbalanced marketplace. Whilst the benefits of many of these measures are front-loaded, the costs will, no doubt, be back-loaded. The central banker’s role seems to have changed, radically. Traditionally tasked with setting the rules, they now seem to be playing the game at the same time.

In steering through this new financial and economic world order, one requires not just an understanding of the world macro-economic backdrop, but a recognition and capturing of the key driving forces (be they financial, economic, political or social) and turning points.

At ECU, we are driven by high calibre research inputs. In determining our global macro strategy, we draw upon the breadth and experience of our Global Macro Team, members of which contribute their considerable experience, expertise and independent views from each of their own specialist focal points (be they monetary policy, economics, technical analysis, international politics, market intelligence or trading and execution) to assist us in developing a balanced and informed high level investment roadmap. Individual members of the committee are highly regarded in the investment industry and are advisers to a number of the world’s largest fund managers, sovereign wealth funds, central banks and governments.

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

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Best for Currency Management Services & Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK

The Global Macro Team’s high level process helps ECU to formulate its “big picture” global investment roadmap from which all the company’s products and services derive their individual bearings. At ECU, we have drawn together both the people and the products to work with our clients, in partnership, to help steer them through a very different economic and political world order.

omies and financial markets, especially currencies. The resultant opportunity for profit and loss over coming years is likely to be considerable.

It is our profound belief that global investors face growing investment challenges brought on by a marked increase in market volatility going forward. Accordingly, a competent and effective currency risk management strategy is more important now than ever before.

To preserve one’s wealth over time, consideration needs to be given to the best long-term currency strategy. The global economy and financial markets have undergone dramatic changes over recent years. Actions and reactions have culminated in the single largest financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

After a quarter of a century of refinement and the evolution of technological systems, we have been able to develop some of the most versatile global macro and multi-currency products and services ever witnessed in the financial arena, giving international trading companies, investors and borrowers alike the opportunity of using the world’s largest financial market to their distinct advantage. n

At the same time, longer term structural changes (e.g. globalisation, technological advancements, demographics and the geopolitical balance of power) are taking place which will exert persistent pressures on econ-

The ECU Group plc is authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Top Performing UCITS Fund

58

Fact File

Name: David Robinson Email: davidrobinson@prodigycapital.net Web Address: www.prodigycapital.net Address: Suite 3A, 17-20 Ironmonger Lane, London EC2V 8EP Telephone: +44 20 7495 2219

Top Performing UCITS Fund

Prodigy Asia & Emerging Markets Fund We caught up with David Robinson, Managing Principal and Portfolio Manager at Prodigy Capital Partners, to hear how the Prodigy Asia & Emerging Markets Fund is generating superior returns by investing in business opportunities in the developing world

The Prodigy Asia & Emerging Markets Fund, managed by London-based fund management boutique, Prodigy Capital Partners, is an emerging markets focused stock opportunities fund.

predictions about the future which are inherently uncertain and inaccurate. As Warren Buffett once said, those who debate the merits of growth versus value do not understand investment.

Within the fund’s universe are several companies that are based in developed markets, but whose business activities are concentrated on the developing world. “The stock selection process uses a value approach, first determining the intrinsic value of the business in worst and best case scenarios, and then assessing the cash generating ability of the business,” says David Robinson, Managing Principal and Portfolio Manager at Prodigy Capital Partners.

“We have also learned that the work of analysing companies is long and often tedious. It’s not the glamorous business people outside the industry believe it to be. Rather it is about the consistent and honest application of a few core precepts – and lots of detailed work on the notes to accounts, the background and past behaviour of management and the deep trends affecting the industries in which they operate. We are, above all, conscious of our own fallibility and the complexity of markets’ dynamics.”

“Our portfolio is primarily comprised of companies which have strong and sustainable positions in the markets in which they operate,” he says. “We typically seek to invest in companies which generate free cash flow yields of 5%-10% with dividend yields exceeding 4%, and which trade below book value adjusted for goodwill and other accounting distortions. We also do detailed due diligence on management and, where appropriate majority shareholders to ensure that they are honest and apply the highest standards of governance to minority shareholders. The investment approach is very long-term, with holding periods of years.

Minimising trading friction and investing only in high conviction positions has proved highly effective in generating superior returns.”

The Prodigy Asia & Emerging Markets Fund has been named Top Performing UCITS Fund in the Hedge Fund Awards. Asked why he thinks the fund has been successful in the Awards, Robinson says, “Truthfully, we are flattered, but it may relate to the integrity and consistency of our process. It has not always been easy but our renewed commitment to a rigorous, value-orientated stock selection process has worked well. We have also tried to ensure we keep our investors well informed and to ensure our communications are the best of breed.”

The fund can invest in any stock listed in the emerging markets, or whose underlying business is emerging markets-focused, Robinson says. “We tend to be driven by bottom up stock selection. However, a significant portion of the portfolio is invested in Hong Kong- and London-listed companies which have significant exposure to China. We have several stocks listed in developed markets, especially Japan, the UK and the United States, that are focused on the business opportunities in the developing world – for example Corning Glass, which dominates the global market for high specification glass, and whose largest source of revenue are the manufacturers of smartphones in China and elsewhere in Asia.”

The principals of Prodigy Capital Partners have investment research experience that goes back to the 1980s, and this is invaluable for avoiding pitfalls and enhancing judgement, says Robinson. “We have also learned to eschew some of the more beguiling of the investment techniques which falsely promise to enhance investment returns. Good example of approaches we have rejected are technical analysis which appeals to some innate, value destructive human biases including oversimplification of the immense complexity of market behaviour, and the popular ‘growth’ investment style which suffers from its emphasis on www.acquisition-intl.com

Looking to the future, Robinson says Prodigy will continue to develop its research capabilities and will also ensure that its platform business (the Independent UCITS Platform, which has been named Best European UCITS Platform in the Hedge Fund Awards) attracts high quality managers and develops new, value added capabilities – for example in marketing.

“We see a growing tendency for higher regulatory standards in the EU,” he says. “The key challenge is to ensure these challenges do not add to costs or divert managers’ attention away from their investment work.

A platform approach can help to do this by creating economies of scale and efficiency by pooling resources required to meet regulatory requirements. This is especially the case for smaller managers.” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best European UCITS Platform

59

Fact File

Name: Hugh Hunter Email: hugh@independentucits.com Web Address: www.independentucits.com Address: Suite 3A, 17-20 Ironmonger Lane, London EC2V 8EP Telephone: +44 20 7495 9605

Best European UCITS Platform

The Independent UCITS Platform The Independent UCITS Platform provides flexibility, freedom and independence to specialist managers and entrepreneurs when they establish their own UCITS funds. Hugh Hunter, the platform’s founder, told us more

The Independent UCITS Platform is a Luxembourg-based fund infrastructure created to address the needs of specialist managers and entrepreneurs who wish to retain flexibility, freedom and independence when they establish their own UCITS funds.

in the EU,” he says. “Uncertainty over the true impact which AIFMD will have on fund passporting and distribution, as well as the obligations now being placed on depositaries and investment managers, has focused attention on the relative simplicity of UCITS.

“The business model of Independent UCITS is simple: we aim to provide a simple and cost-effective way for fund managers to create a fund to address the vitally important UCITS investor base,” says Hugh Hunter, Founder of The Independent UCITS Platform. “We have created a UCITS-compliant platform which provides the infrastructure and support which enables managers to launch a fund with the minimum of time, expense and administrative overhead.

“Although UCITS is primarily aimed at the retail investor market institutions are increasingly investing in UCITS funds because of the transparency of the rules and the degree of investor protection provided by the regulations. This increased demand for UCITS has meant that managers of offshore funds are realising that they need to look at this market to offset the stagnation and decline in interest in their offshore vehicles.”

“Our clients are asset managers with investment strategies ranging from traditional long-only equity, through long/short hedge-funds to more complex macro-driven and CTA strategies. The factor they have in common is the desire to create a regulated fund which allows them to approach the broadest range of investors around the world.”

Hunter says the team is honoured and extremely proud to have been named as Best European UCITS Platform in the Hedge Fund Awards. He says he owes this success to the fact that Independent UCITS provides fund managers with everything they require to launch, manage and grow their fund, without creating an unnecessary distraction or diluting their own brand.

By offering a platform which is independent of the service providers, including investment banks, asset managers and administrators, The Independent UCITS Platform allows managers full flexibility and control of the branding, distribution and portfolio management of their funds. “Through our platform, managers gain the benefit of using best-of-breed service providers which may not otherwise be accessible to the managers,” says Hunter.

“This is extremely important for boutique managers who cherish their identity and individuality. The creation of new funds managed by boutique managers specialising in particular strategies provides a much-needed additional choice of opportunities beyond those provided by the bulge-bracket investment houses. These managers can be more nimble and flexible in their portfolio management process and this is borne out in the statistics which shows that new, smaller funds consistently outperform the larger more established ones. This, therefore, provides investors with additional tools to achieve their return objectives.”

“The cost structure of the funds on the platform are very competitive and fully transparent, and managers receive their full entitlement to management and performance fees. Operating costs for a fund, including the formation expenses, are kept to a minimum and we provide intensive support to the managers during the fund creation process, and beyond.

“Our view on fund distribution differs from many other platforms; we believe that managers should be in control of their own marketing strategy and the selection of their marketing and distribution partners. We provide managers with impartial, expert advice on distribution and, where appropriate, introductions to our marketing partners so they can identify who they wish to work with. If the chemistry between a manager and the distributor is not right, the relationship is most unlikely to work. This approach allows managers to select the right distribution partners for their needs.”

Now is a challenging, but very rewarding, time for those working in investments, says Hunter. “The regulatory changes in recent years, and most specifically the introduction of AIFMD, have raised awareness among investment managers and investors about the different regulatory regimes now in place

In the coming months and years, Hunter says The Independent UCITS Platform is set to grow, bringing new funds to the market and helping these, and its existing funds, to attract investors and raise assets under management.

“We also plan to expand our range of vehicles to provide the same opportunities for managers wishing to operate under different regulatory frameworks,” he says. “We will, however, maintain our focus on independence, service and value in all our lines of business.

“Further changes to the regulatory framework over the coming years, which are inevitable, will provide both challenges and opportunities to find ways to address the needs of investors – ultimately comprising the world’s population – by creating investment products which will allow them to achieve financial security in the face of declining state retirement support, and to fulfil their investment objectives.” n

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Absolute Return Program: Custom Alpha Bond Investment Program - Minnesota

Compass Strategic Investments Fact File Name: Rob Harrigan, Sit Investment Associates Address: 3300 IDS Center, Minneapolis, MN 55402 Email: rbh@sitinvest.com Phone +1-612-359-2583 Name: Todd Horsager, Compass Strategic Investments Address: 2500 County Road 42 West #101, Minneapolis, MN 55337 USA Email: Todd.Horsager@compass-si.com Phone +1 952 808 6915

60 Compass Strategic Investments and Sit Investment Associates jointly operate absolute return, enhanced index and rising rate programs for investors for onshore and offshore investors. Todd Horsager, CFO, Compass Strategic Investments, told us more about the two firms’ Custom Alpha Bond Investment Program and how it generates consistent results for clients.

Compass Strategic Investments is a CTA focusing on futures/ options. Compass and Sit Investment Associates – a 33-yearold asset manager with $14bn in fixed-income and equity investment programs – jointly operate absolute return, enhanced index and rising rate programs for investors for onshore and offshore investors.

Absolute return bond funds, says Todd Horsager, CFO at Compass, offer to investors superior risk-adjusted returns compared to appropriate benchmarks, and avoid excessive return volatility to generate consistent results over an economic cycle.

“In addition, credit risk is reduced due to quality investment grade security investments,” he says.

“Our strategy is to seek superior risk-adjusted returns compared to appropriate benchmarks and avoid excessive return volatility to generate consistent results,” he says.

“We are also able to port the alpha generated from the bond program to other equity indexes such as the S&P 500 and asset replications to add alpha generated by the bond program to the index or asset being replicated.”

On being named Best Absolute Return Program: Custom Alpha Bond Investment Program – Minnesota, Horsager says, “We are honoured to receive this award by our peers and hedge fund industry investors.

“A key driver [in winning the award] is our investors have enjoyed value-added performance in excess of 9.5% per year over the 3 month LIBOR benchmark with a standard deviation average around 4% during the 6.5 years since inception.”

LoPresti Law Group, P.C. is a leading corporate and securities law firm providing comprehensive legal solutions to clients around the globe.

Best Alternative Investment Management Law Firm

LoPresti Law Group Fact File

Address: 45 Broadway, Suite 610, New York, NY 10006 USA Tel: +1 212 732 4029 Fax: +1 646 607 1998 Web: www.tlcorplaw.com

LoPresti Law Group, P.C. (LLG) has distinguished itself by integrating legal expertise, practical business experience and a unique understanding of the financial markets into its approach to the practice of law. This distinctive combination of skills and experience enables LLG to provide practical, results-oriented, business-focused solutions to its clients’ complex and diverse legal needs.

Marc LoPresti is the Founder of LoPresti Law Group, PC. He is also co-founder of BattleFin Group, LLC and BattleFin Asset Management, LLC, and is a recognized authority on alternative investments. LoPresti Law Group, P.C. was awarded the 2014 International Hedge Fund Awards “Securities Law Firm of the Year” and most recently the 2015 International Hedge Fund Awards “Best Alternative Investment Management Law Firm”. Marc has structured and launched numerous alternative asset management ventures during his 17+ years of practice as a securities attorney in New York.

Marc appears regularly as a guest host/panellist on CNBC’s “Closing Bell”, “Squawk Box” and other network shows as well as other financial news networks including Bloomberg, Fox and international financial news networks. Marc obtained his practical experience in financial markets during his time at Lehman Brothers, during which he worked on the floors of the NYSE and AMEX and eventually working under the director of Lehman’s institutional sales desk.

Marc also has a highly diversified family office consulting practice, providing advice to ultra-high net worth families with total assets in excess of $10billion. He graduated from New York Law School in 1997.

Marc serves on the Board of Advisors of BlackRidge Technology Holdings, Inc., a cutting edge cyber-security company, SAS Capital Advisors, Ltd., an emerging hedge fund manager investment platform, and an airline. Marc also serves on the Membership Committee of the Manhattan Yacht Club. n

www.acquisition-intl.com

Asked about the current business environment, Horsager says US Federal Reserve and other central bank rate management strategies mean the fixed-income investment environment continues to generate interest rate and duration risk management challenges.

The bond program currently enjoys a yield advantage over Euro-denominated fixed income in many EMEA countries, says Horsager. “Thus, moving investments in fixed-income to a US Dollar bonds for US companies treasury investments and other Europe based investors may present interesting yield advantages and foreign exchange risk benefits.”

Over the next 12 months, the two firms will seek to expand their investor base with investors to move cash from money market or short term programs, Euro denominated investments with nominal yields to cash reserve investment strategies like our bond program, Horsager says.

“A recent European Central Bank development pledging at least 1.1 trillion Euros in an asset-purchase program creates an interesting opportunity for investors to port the alpha generated from the bond program to EMEA equity indexes like the German DAX, French CAC 40, United Kingdom FTSE 100, Pan Europe Euro Stoxx index and other asset replications.

The investor objective may be to create a structural enhancement to the investment return by porting the alpha from the bond program to be added to the equity index returns. ” n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Singapore Hedge Fund & Best Family Office Advisory Firm - Singapore

Athenaeum Limited

Fact File

Web: www.azathenaeum.com

61 Established Singapore investment management company, Athenaeum Limited, aims to build and preserve wealth in a risk-adjusted manner. Madeleine Lee, CFA, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, tells us more.

Athenaeum Limited is an established Singapore investment management company that has been advising endowments, family offices, foundations and high-net-worth individuals since 1999.

The firm manages and advises Asian focused funds as well as discretionary portfolios.

The Athenaeum Asian Equities Fund, one of the firm’s two equities funds, is an active equity fund with a long biased approach. It is a high conviction, bottom up portfolio of 20-25 stock names with a thematic approach to stock screening.

“Our objective is to build and preserve wealth in a risk-adjusted manner,” says Madeleine Lee, CFA, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer. “Beating the market index is one thing, but we believe an absolute return is a good deal better for your pocket.”

benchmark returns via ETFs to absolute returns via the different hedge fund products offered.”

The Asian hedge fund industry has experienced significant growth in the last ten years, she says, with a tripling in the number of funds from 259 to 768 between 2002 and 2013, while assets under management increased seven fold in the same period.

“The Asia-focused hedge funds have traditionally had a shorter history than that of their North American peers,” she continues.

“The industry comprises relatively younger funds and surviving beyond the 5-year mark tends to be a challenge for a larger proportion of such Asian-focused funds.

The key challenge facing the industry is growing the asset size under management, says Lee. “It is also one of the key reasons for the closure of funds. The Asian hedge fund industry is populated by small funds with only a few large firms managing assets above US$500m.” n

The firm has two key strengths, says Lee, the first being its joint venture partnership with the Azimut Group in Italy, which allows it to develop an internal sales structure that can service institutional and high net worth individual investors in Asia. “Second is the strength and experience of the Asian investment team. The team has unparalleled Asian experience with more than 80 years of combined investment management experience in the region.” Currently, Athenaeum is in the process of broadening its investment products to its various clients.

“Together with our team’s 80 years of combined investment management experience in Asia, and backed by Azimut Group, we provide clients with a unique range of exclusive offerings from both Asia and Europe,” she says.

The hedge fund industry is constantly evolving, says Lee. “The industry has gone through various changes over the course of time, from active management via relative benchmark returns, to

Best for Asian Fixed Income Bonds

Stratton Street Renminbi Bond Fund Fact File

Address: Stratton Street Capital LLP 200 Aldersgate Street, London EC1A 4HD Web: www.strattonstreet.com

The Stratton Street Renminbi Bond Fund was the first ever offshore renminbi Bond Fund, launched in November 2007. The firm told us more about the fund and how it is enabling investors to gain exposure to the dynamic growth of the Chinese economy Stratton Street are hugely honoured to be named the Best Asian Fixed Income Bond Fund for our ‘Renminbi Bond Fund’. We pride ourselves on providing innovative and forward thinking strategies aimed at capturing growth potential within credit markets (focussed mainly within Emerging Markets).The Fund reached its 7 year anniversary in November 2014 and we are extremely pleased to be the leading fund in this space.

The Stratton Street Renminbi Bond Fund (“RBF”) was the first ever offshore renminbi Bond Fund, launched in November 2007. The strategy is designed to provide a relatively high income while also enabling investors to gain exposure to the dynamic growth of the Chinese economy through bonds and currency investments. The Fund has an excellent seven year track record including positive returns during the financial collapse of 2008.

The RmB remains undervalued, and Stratton Street believes it will continue to strengthen as China opens up further to international investment, and the renminbi becomes a reserve currency over the longer term. China, and Asia more broadly, are becoming a dominant force in the global economy.

The asset management industry today faces many headwinds; be it from either a regulatory or investment perspective. Years of debt accumulation from many of the largest developed economies of the world have heightened risks across the globe – the days of vast liquidity and easy money are behind us. Investors expect managers to be able to successfully navigate these markets, avoiding the pitfalls that led to the largest financial crisis in a generation. In order to do so, managers need to ‘think outside the box’ and look at opportunities beyond the traditional bond investment space. We believe there are a number of very attractive opportunities across both Asia and the Middle East, where many of the wealthiest nations reside.

As an investment manager, Stratton is fully aware of our social responsibilities. That is why we partnered with the World Food Programme (WFP) to offer investors both social and financial returns on capital.

Under the Feed the Future initiative, Stratton Street donates to WFP management fees generated from investments into its Renminbi Bond Fund. Stratton Street regards this donation as an investment in Asia’s future – the children of Asia.

Launched in 2010, the Feed the Future initiative has already generated sufficient income, on an annual basis, to feed over 5,000 children every day whilst in school – that is over 1,000,000 nutritious meals! n

Our business is solely dedicated to providing innovative investment solutions for professional clients within the bond space. Our approach can be described as contrarian as we tend to veer away from indexation (we believe benchmark construction within bond markets is highly inefficient). Today’s investors are still searching for income opportunities; however many ‘developed’ countries’ real yields are extremely low or negative. Our process enables us to seek out undervalued opportunities (again focussed on the investment grade space), offering a relatively high income and returns. We have a number of proprietary tools that enables us to filter out expensive looking credits and focus our analysis purely on those opportunities that offer value.

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Systematic Hedge Fund - France

Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund

Fact File

Company: John Locke Investments Name: Alex Dramu Email: alex.dramu@jl-investments.com Address: 38 av Franklin Roosevelt, 77210, Avon Telephone: +33 1 64 70 40 34

62 The Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund, which has been named Best Systematic Hedge Fund – France in the Hedge Fund Awards, adopts a systematic approach to investing in global futures markets. Multiple trend detection techniques are employed by the fund, which is run by John Locke Investments, a Paris-based commodity trading advisor, over multiple time horizons, to a diverse basket of futures markets. Risk is equalised across all contracts through the use of real time volatility measures. A dynamic risk management tool also analyses risk factors such as rising correlations, reversal risk and sideway risk at the portfolio level. The average holding period of the fund is approximately two weeks. The fund provides for daily liquidity.

“We believe that the general psychology of the markets is reflected into price behaviours that repeat themselves over time; they create trends that, in certain markets, persist over time, and that can be captured with the prudent use of robust quantitative analysis technologies,” says Alex Dramu, Senior Vice President. “The Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund aims to capture these trends – bullish as well as bearish ones – through an advanced statistical analysis of historical prices.

“The fund now has 15 years of consistent track record and has traded through bullish markets, several financial crises, wars and market shocks of all sorts. All told, world equities are flat over the period, while the fund has almost tripled initial capital. I think that speaks for its interest in the long run.”

to “adapt” the strategy in various ways has been very strong over the past few years. “As CTAs, including ourselves have underperformed over the past few years, some peopled started to voice concerns about their ability to deliver in the new, post-crisis environment. We have seen competitors shift their strategies dramatically, from trend following to more equity-driven strategies under this pressure. We did not give in to this temptation and 2014 performance shows we were ultimately right.”

Dramu says that, based on what he sees within his firm, the development of UCITS hedge funds has led to a certain democratisation of hedge funds. “The investor base is today much more diverse and quite different than in the past. I hope this will lead to a better understanding of hedge fund managers for what they truly are – genuine entrepreneurs whose reason of being is to manage your money better than passive asset managers!” n

John Locke Investments’ strong focus on research, as well as its commitment to staying on top of the latest technological developments, is critical to the firm’s success, says Dramu. “We have a strong and highly qualified research team of researchers and IT developers, which bring together financial markets experience and strong backgrounds in a variety of fields including physics, statistics, financial mathematics and trading. This, combined with an extremely powerful proprietary research and execution platform are the reasons of our success.”

Asked what it is like to be a business working in the hedge fund industry at the present time, Dramu says the pressure

Odyssey Green Planet Fund is an alternative investment vehicle registered as a Professional Investor Fund in the jurisdiction of Malta.

Best Socially Responsible Investment Vehicle

Odyssey Green Planet Fund Fact File

Company: Odyssey Analytic SA Name: Alexandros Tselentis Email: info@odysseyanalytic.com Web: www.odysseyanalytic.ch Address: WTC, Via Lugano 13, 6982 Agno, Switzerland Tel: +41-91 610 2970

www.acquisition-intl.com

The Odyssey Green Planet Fund’s primary objective is to give investors access to the long term growth prospects of the clean technology sector, whilst controlling the risks and volatility associated with growth industries via a long/short equity vehicle that invests in publicly traded securities, says Alexandros Tselentis, President at Odyssey Analytic SA, which advises the fund. “We firmly believe that clean technologies are enabling technologies that have a positive impact on the wider economy. Their use is driven by global demographic megatrends both in terms of population increases and the movement of these populations from rural to urban centres. This demographic phenomenon means that demand for energy and clean water will increase over the coming decades, and clean technologies will enable this transformation to take place.

“However, it is not enough to offer a good risk/reward profile or an interesting investment. The fund also has a clearly defined Socially Responsible Investment mandate and in this respect we apply stringent criteria of a higher standard than some of the largest public institutions globally.”

Tselentis says the firm’s product clearly adds value to existing SRI portfolios by being innovative and taking a fresh look at investing in this manner. “This can be seen by our outperformance of the theme’s passive indexes.”

Asked whether fund managers should be doing more to help improve society, Tselentis says that, first and foremost, managers have a responsibility first to their investors. “However, managers and investors do not live in a vacuum but within society, and responsible and transparent deployment of capital in an accountable manner whilst returning equal or better results than non-SRI investments is a win-win. There is no one uniform solution for achieving this, however. One of the most challenging aspects as manager is understanding the different value systems of our investors. “Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is inevitably a

longer process subject to much more variation and customisation, as managers must first understand the investor’s values in order to be able to build a suitable portfolio.

“Odyssey Analytic offers a unique quantitative approach in the SRI investment arena, a sector which is dominated by purely qualitatively-focused managers, says Tselentis. “We thus offer SRI investors a unique alpha stream to enhance and stabilise their portfolios. In absolute terms we offer long/short equity investors a unique and uncorrelated product compared to our peers, so this is not just a product for SRI portfolios. To quantify this, our fund offers 30% better performance than the theme’s passive index product with half the volatility and risk over the past year.”

Hedge fund managers have traditionally been viewed, by people outside the industry, in a less than favourable light. This, says Tselentis, has changed little in recent years. “If perceptions have changed in recent years it has not been for the better. Popular perceptions of hedge fund managers reflect how the hedge fund industry as a whole is perceived. At best, this can be described as ambivalence – at worst, hostility. This is not a good outlook going forward. I believe this is an unfortunate result of people outside the industry having little direct exposure to hedge funds in general beyond their coverage in the media, often for all the wrong reasons (fraud, insider-trading, and manipulation). Such reports become a background noise which taints even the positive aspects of the industry such as SRI and other success stories.”

Regional challenges facing the firm in the near term are mostly regulatory compliance burdens, Tselentis says. “Northern Europe, where there is a strong and growing tend towards SRI, is obviously an opportunity for investment advisory boutiques.

“It is important that in the broader context of the hedge fund industry that innovation is recognised to be alive and well, and that investor demands are being met and exceeded,” he adds.

And looking to the future, beyond growing Odyssey Green Planet, the firm plans to expand its fund franchise by focusing on other SRI themes, specifically healthcare, says Tselentis. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

63 The mission of Paradigm Consulting Services, LLC (PCS) is to provide insightful, unbiased advice to our clients, and to be thought of as an extension of their investment teams.

Best for Fund-of-Funds Due Diligence

Paradigm Consulting Services, LLC Fact File

Paradigm has been at the forefront of the hedge fund industry for over a decade. Amy B. Hirsch, CEO, was a founding partner of Paradigm LDC (Cayman), a hedge fund advisory firm formed in 1994. In 1996, Ms. Hirsch restructured the firm as Paradigm Consulting Services (PCS), a Delaware LLC. The firm is located in Clifton, NJ, in close proximity to New York City, Connecticut, and Boston, where the majority of US hedge funds are located.

PCS is a fee-based, alternative investment consultant that derives all of its revenue from its clients.

The firm incorporates diverse team experience in asset allocation, manager/industry research, trading, portfolio structuring, risk management, and operations. This, coupled with our extensive network of industry professionals as well as our proprietary software, enables us to analyze the extensive universe of hedge funds and to efficiently model portfolios.

executives each have over 20 years experience in alternative investments. Our team is trained to identify the specific risks in hedge funds and managed futures, and possesses the skills necessary to be successful: asset allocation, manager/industry research, trading, portfolio structuring, risk management, and operations.

We are highly efficient and can assimilate large quantities of information very quickly by utilizing our extensive industry network and proprietary technology.

Our due diligence process is comprehensive and unrelenting.

We start with due diligence and never cease. Our clients’ money is invested with managers who may implement dynamic trading strategies. In this regard, we believe that the due diligence process never ends. Our job is to understand the managers as people (e.g., their motivations, interests, and abilities). Therefore, we spend a tremendous amount of time with the managers and encourage them to call on us for any assistance we can provide. Our manager relationships are our second most valued asset -- our first is our clients.

Why Paradigm People make money, markets don’t.

Name: Ms. Amy B. Hirsch, CEO Address: Paradigm Consulting Services, LLC 855 Valley Road, Suite 210, Clifton, NJ 07013 USA Phone: +1 (973) 614 8393 Fax: +1 (973) 614 8977 Email: ahirsch@pcshedge.com

In reality, by investing in a particular fund, one actually invests in the manager running that fund. With that in mind, investor focus should reach beyond the market to the people driving investment decisions.

We work with each client to continuously assess risk tolerance and performance objectives as they relate to the client’s total portfolio.

Our results speak for themselves. n

Through our extensive manager relationships, we are allowed unparalleled insight into the hedge funds themselves, and are able to see beyond the numbers to understand manager backgrounds and personalities, styles, office dynamics, and back-office procedures.

Proper due diligence and advisory work in alternatives requires a different skill set than traditional consultancy. Our senior

FIDAUDIT GMBH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft with its headquarters in Berlin and branch office all over Germany is a cross-sectoral association of public accountants, tax advisers and lawyers. We consider it our task to render available to you comprehensive consultation in an evermore complex economic field.

FIDAUDIT has established international consultation competence through its memberships in cross-border networks. Thus, the firm makes allowance for the world-wide development of markets. FIDAUDIT is an Independent Member of Enterprise Worldwide (www.EnterpriseWorldwide.org) and the German Near and Middle East Association, Berlin (www.numov.de).

Paderborner Straße 2 - 10709 Berlin Tel.: +49 (0) 30 235078-0 Fax: +49 (0) 30 235078-90 E-Mail: vonHoyningen@t-online.de

www.fidaudit.de

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Frontier Markets Hedge Fund – BVI

Balkan Emerging Frontiers Fund

Fact File

Company: Balkan Emerging Frontiers Fund (BEF Fund) Email: investment.manager@ bef-fund.com Web: www.bef-fund.com Telephone: +41 22 518 02 39

64 Balkan Emerging Frontiers Fund is a regulated fund focused on the stock markets of the Western Balkans (countries of former Yugoslavia). The Fund’ management team believes that the Fund’s investment region has the largest stock prices growth potential in the world.

There is tremendous short-term growth potential in Western Balkans capital markets, as some of the regional stock exchange indices are lagging behind the most in whole world. They have not improved much since decrease; some of them are still at only around 10% of 2007’s highs. These indices have huge growth potential to catch up with global ones – you can for instance take a look at what happened in Baltic’s, when money came back. From autumn 2013 (when almost no one believed in that, as everyone was talking about bailout) even Slovenian index SBI TOP has raised significantly (several blue chip stocks even in the range of +300% to +600%).

In mid- to long-term perspective, it is essential that EU integration will bring further growth of BEF fund investment region. European funds and foreign capital will stimulate infrastructure investments and general economic growth, while EU legislation harmonization will improve legal certainty and institutional framework for businesses and investments. These will contribute to significantly higher values of companies and higher market quotations of securities.

King Muir Fund Advisors, LLC Fact File

Company: King Muir Fund Advisors LLC Name: Kenneth Rosenbach Web: www.king-muir.com Address: 150 North Michigan Avenue #1250, Chicago, IL 60601, United States Telephone: +1 312-624-9244

www.acquisition-intl.com

Fund’s objective is to provide investors with a net return series that over multiple years exceeds that of the major developed, emerging, frontier & local indices.

The management team of the BEF Fund is very honoured to be among the winners of the Hedge Fund Awards – among the winners of these immensely popular global awards. Given that competition is stiff and selectors’ vetting process is very rigorous and that each year they receive thousands of nominations from industry experts, clients and peers and spend months gathering votes, painstakingly researching all nominees and collating all relevant information so that they can fairly and accurately determine worthy winners. n

That altogether means that we are very close to a moment, when even indices of countries south of Slovenia will start recovering and they have the largest growth potential, and where the vast majority of BEF Fund’s portfolio is invested.

BEF Fund provided its investors with almost 100% net return in past 53 months, since the start of its investing. BEF started investing in August 2010, and it is therefore now already in its sixth (6th) calendar year of publishing independently verified & audited track record. BEF Fund is a fully regulated fund focused on the stock markets of the Western Balkans (countries of former Yugoslavia), which have huge potential.

King Muir Fund Advisors LLC is an investment advisory firm located in Chicago, IL. King Muir’s KGR Series of Funds offers investors unique exposure to global markets through closed-end funds (CEFs).

Top Emerging Market Fund: KGR LLC, KGR Series II

Regional stock markets are uncorrelated with global markets. They are still very inefficient and there are plenty of investment opportunities available. The Fund’s Investment Manager has 19 years of valuable experience in investing and managing investments in the region, almost from the start of the privatization process. They have excellent contacts in the region, and so they are capable to access and evaluate information quickly in order to exploit investment opportunities by active management.

King Muir creates significant alpha over their benchmarks through their time-tested, systematic investment strategy. King Muir believes that the closed-end fund structure offers investors the opportunity to acquire professionally managed, diversified portfolios at significant discounts to their underlying net asset value.

King Muir’s emerging markets fund, KGR Series II, is a long/short fund that invests in emerging markets. Its primary objective is to outperform the MSCI Emerging Market Index. The fund has outperformed the iShares Emerging Market ETF (EEM) by 19.44% annually since KGR Series II’s inception.

Not only has King Muir provided this type of outperformance investing in emerging markets, but their KGR Series of Funds were designed to outperform various other global benchmarks as well. In particular, their flagship fund, KGR Series I, has a 10 year audited track record and has outperformed the MSCI ACWI Index by 11.62% annually.

diversification hedge funds can add to their portfolios.

We also asked King Muir’s Chief Investment Officer, Frank Lassandrello, for his thoughts on current opportunities that he is seeing in the market. “China and India have the most potential for new investment,” says Lassandrello. “Although economic growth has slowed recently, the long term secular trend remains intact. Both countries have an enormously expanding middle class as well as a move by their respective governments toward more market-based pro-growth economic reform.”

Chief Operating Officer, Patrick Meyer, left us with a parting comment on winning the award: “We are deeply honored to receive this award, as it recognizes our commitment to providing clients with ‘best-in-class’ investment solutions. This is a validation of our hard work. We don’t go out looking for awards, and we are a pretty humble bunch of people with a deep passion for what we do. Our team has dedicated significant time over the last ten years to refine our strategy and award our investors with some kick ass returns, so we are thrilled to receive the accolade.” n

As the company progresses further into 2015, Ken Rosenbach, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of King Muir Fund Advisors, believes the biggest challenge they face is reintroducing hedge funds to investors. “The perception of Hedge Fund managers from people outside the industry has changed from invisible to negative, especially in the U.S where the political environment and inability to market publicly has allowed the media to vilify the industry” says Rosenbach.

“The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups) Act has given us the ability to advertise. We see this as an opportunity to educate people about hedge funds and have hired Fund Edge Consulting Limited to assist us”. Rosenbach is excited about the JOBS Act and believes it will help the industry correct misperceptions. He believes that as investors continue to research hedge funds on databases like BarclayHedge, they will see how much alpha and

King Muir Fund Advisors’ headquarters in Chicago

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Opportunistic Hedge Fund - Canada

Donville Kent Asset Management Fact File

Company: Donville Kent Asset Management Name: Jordan Zinberg Email: jordan@donvillekent.com Web Address: donvillekent.com

65 Toronto-based Donville Kent Asset Management Inc’s DKAM Capital Ideas Fund LP invests long and short in a concentrated group of Canadian-listed public companies. Jordan Zinberg, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager, told us about the fund’s strategy.

Donville Kent Asset Management Inc. (DKAM) is a highly specialised asset management firm that manages investments on behalf of individual investors as well as select institutions.

Through the application of a focused investment strategy, DKAM searches for companies that possess high levels of return on equity, reasonable valuations and positive share price momentum.

One of the firm’s funds, the DKAM Capital Ideas Fund LP, invests long and short in a concentrated group of Canadian-listed public companies. “We are agnostic to market cap, and invests across all sectors,” says Jordan Zinberg, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager. “We search for companies that possess high levels of return on equity, reasonable valuations and positive share price momentum. Portfolio companies typically have a track record of achieving high returns on equity, and are capable of generating high returns on equity for many years without the addition of significant amounts of equity capital, other than that which is being generated internally. These companies are run by strong management teams that have a significant ownership stake in the business.”

The DKAM Capital Ideas Fund LP has been named Best Opportunistic Hedge Fund – Canada in this year’s Hedge Fund Awards.

“The entire team at Donville Kent is extremely proud of this achievement,” says Zinberg, “and we continue to apply our disciplined investment process in the quest for superior returns for our investors.”

There is a common perception, says Zinberg, that hedge fund managers employ highly complicated strategies and trade frequently. “I’m not sure that this perception has changed much in recent years. However, in Canada, the hedge fund industry is highly regulated, and as a result has been able to avoid some of the problems that have occurred with hedge funds in other countries.

In our case, our investment approach is relatively simple and we tend to hold positions for many years. Several of our current top holdings have been in the portfolio since inception.”

Canada’s hedge fund industry is on the rise, says Zinberg, although he notes that the larger firms are enjoying the most success. “Based on the data I have seen, the hedge fund industry in Canada is growing in terms of industry AUM, however the number of firms has declined over the past five years. As I would suspect is consistent with other markets, it is the largest funds that are attracting the majority of the assets. When you combine that trend with the increased costs of compliance, it is becoming more and more difficult for smaller firms to survive.”

Nevertheless, there are several unique circumstances that make Canada a great place to be an active manager, says Zinberg. “In our view, equity markets can either be efficient, semi-efficient or inefficient. Canadian equity markets are semi-efficient and thus once you move beyond the resource names and the largest companies in the country, there exists a group of superb companies that are relatively underfollowed by the investment community. We have found there to be some significant dislocations in valuation within this group that you would not find if these companies were listed in a highly efficient market like the US.” n

“We believe we have been recognised for our ability to produce not only attractive absolute returns, but very good risk-adjusted returns as well. We are quite proud of the fact that we have been able to outperform the Canadian equity markets (as measured by the S&P/TSX Composite Total Return Index) every year since the fund inception (1 October 2008).”

Paul J. Isaac, CEO and Founder of Arbiter Partners, tells us about the firm’s tried-and-tested approach to investing.

Best Long-Short Hedge Fund (3 Years)

Arbiter Partners

Arbiter Partners is a New York-based value long/short fund. The strongest part of the firm, says Paul J. Isaac, CEO and Founder, is “a diversified investor base that is largely tax sensitive which has a consistent time horizon with their investment approach.”

Isaac says it was “a pleasant surprise” to be named Best Long-Short Hedge Fund (3 Years) in the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards. Such awards give firms somewhat better visibility, he says.

We find the current artificiality of the interest rate environment perplexing in its effects on the equity market” As 2014 comes to a close and we move into 2015, Isaac says long/ short structures need to justify themselves in the face of a general bull market, greater institutional participation and less favourable tax treatment on individual investors.

Fact File

Hedge fund managers have traditionally been seen by people outside the industry as possessing a certain aura. This, says Isaac, is changing. “There has been a distinct tiering of the mystique,” he says, “with only some of the larger investors maintaining their mystique.”

As for the coming year, Isaac says Arbiter has few specific plans, other than to stick to its proven formula. “We’ll keep plugging away at our basic approach,” he says. n

Name: Paul J. Isaac Email: pisaac@arbiterpartners.net Web Address: www.arbiterpartners.net Address: 11 East 44th Street, Suite 700, New York, NY 10017 Telephone: +1 212 650 4670

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Value Oriented Investment Management Firm - India

Redart Capital

Fact File

Address: Khatau Building, 44 S. B. Singh Road, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001. India Email: anuj@redartcapital.com Web: www.redartcapital.com

Best for Due Diligence - UK

TenIntelligence

Fact File

Address: London Office 100 St Paul’s Churchyard, London, EC4M 8BU Email: info@tenintel.com

66 Redart is a fundamental value oriented investment management firm that looks to bring together the various aspects of Fundamental, Technical and market information analysis to generate long and short investment ideas. Anuj Didwania, Fund Manager, told us how the firm is excelling in the tricky Indian market.

At Redart, we are a very focused firm in as much as we stick to what we feel we have a competence in. Value investing requires the patience to wait for the right opportunity, and the stomach to swing big when it presents itself. In India alternatives are relatively new and so we feel like we are among the pioneers in this space at the current time. The laws and tax implications are still evolving around alternatives so one has to be careful of how one grows and expands.

We feel there are two things that investors need to consider above all else: 1) How long has the fund manager/ firm managed risk in the respective market i.e. years of experience? And 2) What percentage of his assets are in the fund – i.e. does he eat his own cooking? If the firm/ manager clears these two hurdles – then obviously comes the returns and the risk of the fund and its performance.

We have been investing in India by taking risk positions for 14 years now – that is more than two complete business cycles. 90% of the fund manager’s liquid net worth is in the fund.

In India, the regulators and the Government want to open the financial markets slowly – which is understandable.

Looking at the experience of open markets like the US over 2007-08 – it’s hard to argue against being cautious.

Greed is good – but not always. So for the time being, growing a hedge fund in India will be a slow and laborious process. We look forward to this – as we see ourselves investing for the next 50 years in India – and are happy to grow slowly with the market. n

We have contained risk (i.e. negative drawdowns) to a minimum and delivered returns well in excess of the benchmark Indices. The ability to sit out bad markets and participate in good ones – is not an easy task in volatile emerging markets like India. We feel we have demonstrated this ability well and this is what differentiates us.

TenIntelligence is a specialist provider of corporate due diligence, fraud and brand protection investigation services with offices in London and Dubai. We spoke to their founder and CEO, Neil Miller, about the expertise and services TenIntelligence offer specifically in the financial services industry.

Having spent a very successful fifteen years in the investigative due diligence industry, TenIntelligence was my brainchild with the overarching aim to provide a new standard of due diligence to clients.

We work hard to provide our clients with a new standard of due diligence and to be their specialist provider of choice.

In regards to due diligence, we furnish private clients and corporate investors with relevant background intelligence to enable them to make sound investment decisions, whilst knowing their compliance and regulatory fears are protected. We examine background, character, experience, financial history and reputation of individual hedge fund managers, private equity entities, asset management firms and the securities they are investing in. We identify the hidden risks by reporting on adverse elements before a prospective deal, engagement or transaction is completed, helping clients to avoid potentially costly mistakes. We also offer our clients corporate fraud investigations, digital forensics, surveillance and brand protection services.

Our analysis of new territories, emerging markets, beneficial owners, counterparty risks, Enhanced Due Diligence and ongoing monitoring also contributes to our clients receiving a new standard of due diligence.

What separates us from our competitors is that we have operatives on the ground, collecting information and delivering insight to clients first hand. With our offices and operatives in Dubai, UAE, we also have a leading edge in

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A growing market Hedge funds are only about two years old in India - i.e. funds that are domiciled in India. Hedge funds domiciled overseas that focus on India have been around for over 10 years – but India based funds are relatively new. This is a slowly growing space as Indian institutions do not yet invest in hedge funds. The only investors are HNIs. This limits the growth potential. Also there is tax ambiguity on some aspects – which if clarified – would greatly add confidence to HNIs to invest more into this space. The biggest challenge is gaining investor confidence over time. In the last cycle – most investors got burned badly and now no one wants to take any risk on a new strategy/product. I guess over time when funds deliver (hopefully!) returns to investors – hedge funds will really become an asset class of some size.

providing information from the Gulf Region. Not many of our competitors are able to compete with this outstanding information reach and insight.

Having such a wealth of experience is very beneficial for the challenges the financial industry face in the UK. The regulatory landscape is complex. Not only is the financial industry still adapting to the aftermath of the financial crisis, but is has also had to contend with a new regulatory regime brought about by the Financial Services Act 2012.

There is an increased focus on risk management with substantial responsibility and accountability placed on senior management. However, we think these regulatory changes and requirements are embraced more and more in recognition of it being vital to the reputation of the industry. We suspect compliance and enforcement will increase in the foreseeable future.

Business is about taking risks, but by mitigating risk will determine which businesses become successful and those that do not. Regulation is necessary, as it will help safeguard the industry’s reputation and protect companies from adverse risk and regulatory breaches.

We manage a variety of different due diligence projects simultaneously on a regular basis. Reacting to clients’ needs and their timelines is one of the key strengths of TenIntelligence. These projects usually run in different parts of the world, with language and cultural barriers that our clients may not be aware of. Providing consistent advice and information on a timely basis is what makes TenIntelligence distinctive. n

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Award for Excellence in Alternative Strategy Funds - South Africa

Edge Capital

Fact File

Name: Mike Kirsten Email: edgeclientservices@edge.co.za Web: www.edge.co.za Address: Edge House, 3 Heuwelkruin Close, Durbanville, 7550, Cape Town, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 21 976 1012 Fax: +27 (0) 21 976 1096

Best Outperforming Event-Driven Hedge Fund - Australia

JBS Investments International Advantage Fund Fact File

Name: John Sampson Email: admin@jbsim.com Web: www.jbsinvestments.com Address: JBS Investments, Level 8, Westfield Towers, 100 William Street, Sydney, NSW 2011 Australia Tel: +61 2 8035 0036

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The perfect synergy: Edge combines world-class partnerships, a wealth of expertise and the like-minded pursuit of excellence to create a unique investment team that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Managing Director, Mike Kirsten explains more…

Edge is leading South Africa’s alternative investment industry through: ● Co-operation: We leverage our internal intellectual capital through partnerships with leaders in segmented disciplines to provide truly innovative, flexible and unique financial solutions. ● Innovation: First-to-market with innovative products, Edge offers a fresh approach to the challenges that face the investment arena in South Africa. ● Creation: We create innovative financial solutions by constantly adapting our products to the evolving investment environment – always keeping in mind that the preservation of wealth is as important as its creation.

Edge seeks to partner and invest with managers who exhibit the following traits: • FSB registered as a hedge fund manager • Skill-based investment strategies (high alpha) • Strategies which are not dependent on market direction (low beta) • A proven track record • A sophisticated investment approach (employs all tools of modern finance) • Boutique teams • An alignment of interest (managers invest alongside their clients) With an understanding of the behavioural characteristics of the various alternative investment styles, we utilise several investment approaches to create a stable, low-risk, robust absolute return vehicle. n

● Diversification: Through an association with our international partners, we are able to provide our clients with access to a broader range of international opportunities in alternative assets and emerging markets.

We don’t believe that the entire complement of intellectual capital or expertise can exist within any one organisation. In pursuit of our investment goals, Edge selects independent managers who have the skills and ability to provide the building blocks for viable, sustainable and world-class investment solutions.

JBS Investments is a leading investment management firm that invests in a wide range of companies and financial instruments within both the major industrialised nations and a number of emerging markets. The firm has deep roots in event-driven value investing, diverse investment capabilities and an impressive track record. Chief Investment Officer, John Sampson tells us more…

The central focus of our firm is the pursuit of attractive investment opportunities. Such opportunities form the basis of our funds and other related investment vehicles, which we manage on behalf of our clients. The firm’s investment activities are value-driven and based on disciplined fundamental analysis and research.

The firm seeks to maximise our investors’ capital by investing in mispriced securities where we can ascertain the reason for the market’s mispricing. The firm relies on its own forensic research ability to both source new opportunities and to articulate the investment case for a given position. The firm looks for companies that are out of favor, have unjustifiably cheap valuations, are not well covered by sell-side research analysts or otherwise overlooked by the market.

The flexibility of having access to various international markets allows us to invest where we see the best value opportunities on a risk-adjusted basis. Most of our investments have historically been made in a variety of international stock markets.

As investors with a global focus, we think long-term, pursue the highest standards of excellence, and align our interests with those of our investment partners by putting our own capital behind our ideas.

opportunities to emerge and prepared to be patient as our investment thesis plays out over time.

We are entrepreneurial – our investment team consider themselves business analysts first and foremost, and each investment is viewed as a purchase of a business. This approach requires our investment team to gain in-depth firsthand knowledge of the companies they invest in. Independent thought is encouraged and all our investment research is performed in-house. We align our own interests with those of our investors by maintaining the vast majority of our net wealth in our funds.

A key competitive advantage of the firm is the expertise it has developed investing in companies or countries that are in transition and are misunderstood as a result. This may be due to either a corporate event (such as a recapitalisation, restructure, merger, divestment or bankruptcy), complexity, appearance of conflict of interest issues, accounting that does not reflect the underlying economics of the business or a wider event of some kind (be it industry, environmental, economic or currency-related). The heightened uncertainty involved in such situations often leaves investors reluctant to act due to the lack of the usual easy to follow investment metrics.

About the Fund Launched in 2011, the JBS Investments International Advantage Fund is a leading investment fund focused on event driven value oriented opportunities in global markets.

The investment objective of the Fund is to achieve superior investment returns over the long term. n

The firm’s culture emphasizes creativity and flexible thinking in our search for unique investment insights. It is a performance driven culture where the focus is on managing our investors’ capital to achieve above average returns with limited downside risk. We are disciplined in waiting for appropriate

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Asset Management Software

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SS&C GlobeOp is a leading fund administrator providing the world’s most comprehensive array of financial technology products and services under a public, independent, single platform.

SS&C GlobeOp’s expertise in business process outsourcing supports complete lifecycle capabilities, available on a standalone basis to hedge funds, fund of funds, private equity funds, family wealth offices, and managed accounts.

Our dedicated regulatory solutions group combines expertise and technology to provide our clients with the infrastructure and support they require to stay compliant. By outsourcing to SS&C GlobeOp, clients can reduce their technology investment and operational risks, leaving them more time to focus on asset generation and portfolio management.

SS&C GlobeOp Address: Corporate Headquarters 80 Lamberton Road Windsor, CT 06095 USA Email: solution@sscinc.com Web: www.sscglobeop.com

Best Full-Service Fund Services Provider - Malta

Valletta Fund Services is positioned as Malta’s leading fund administrator and as at September 2014 provided its fund administration services to 131 alternative funds as well as retail UCITS funds representing US$3.4bn worth of assets.

Business Profile Valletta Fund Services (VFS) was incorporated in 2006 as a fully owned subsidiary of Bank of Valletta plc (BOV), Malta’s largest banking group. VFS is positioned as Malta’s leading fund administrator and as at September 2014 provided its fund administration services to 131 alternative funds as well as retail UCITS funds, representing US$3.4bn worth of assets. VFS provides its services to funds based in Malta, the Cayman Islands, Channel Islands and the BVI where clients include asset management organisations based in 14 EU and Non-EU countries.

Corporate Profile VFS provides a comprehensive suite of fund administration services to include fund accounting and valuation, shareholder registry, company secretarial and various reporting services, all supported by sophisticated IT platforms. In view of the changing regulatory landscape, VFS keeps its clients continuously abreast of the key changes brought about by new regulations such as FATCA, EMIR and AIFMD. For clients seeking to set up funds in Malta, VFS also provides a Turnkey Fund Formation Service which is a fast and efficient fund set-up service, particularly suitable and cost-effective for asset managers due to its all-encompassing nature. In fact, in providing this service, VFS assumes the re-

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sponsibility of the preparation of all the necessary application documents for the registration and licensing of the fund.

As a fully owned subsidiary of BOV, VFS is also able to offer a suite of complementary services such as FX, banking, brokerage, custody services and hedging arrangements.

Valletta Fund Services Limited Address: TG Complex, Suite 2, Level 3, Triq il-Birrerija, l-Imriehel Birkirkara BKR 3000 - Malta.

Phone: +356 2275 5599

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Personal Award: Best Portfolio Manager - Sweden

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Merrant, founded in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, is a Nordic investment management firm, specialised in market neutral fund of funds solutions for institutional and high net worth investors. Rolf Hagekrans, Co-Founder, tells us more Merrant is independent and owned by its management and founders. Swedbank Management Company S.A. Luxemburg act as the fund management company and the administrator.

Merrant Name: Rolf Hagekrans Address: Grev Turegatan 35, SE-114 38 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 (0)8 779 5070 direct +46-8-410 820 50 Mobile: +46-(0)70-66 77 421 Fax: +46-(0)8-644 5080 Email: rolf.hagekrans@merrant.se Web: www.merrant.se

The purpose of our investment strategy is to generate positive returns throughout the economic cycle while preserving capital and maintaining low to negative correlation to major equity and bonds indexes. This is achieved by composing market neutral portfolios of underlying hedge funds strategies that are “true” market neutral, mutually uncorrelated and uncorrelated to major equity and bonds markets.

Merrant’s market-neutral fund-of-funds strategy offers inherent low downside risk, high consistency and positive skewing of the returns. We only invest in highly liquid, repeatable and valid strategies that have proven track record in volatile and changing markets conditions.

Merrant´s success has been recognized in the industry and acknowledged by numerous awards for excellence and expertise in the field.

Best Single Sector CTA

Doherty Advisors, LLC is a New York based money manager founded in 2003 and specializing in trading options and futures in liquid exchange markets The goal of Doherty Advisors, LLC is to provide investors with attractive and consistent risk-adjusted absolute returns.

Our six person team has over 100 years of options trading experience, managing US$369m.

Doherty Advisors, LLC Address: 400 Madison Avenue, Suite 6A New York, NY 10017 Tel: +1 646 216 2310 Fax: +1 212 213 9170

We offer three S&P based programs: • Relative Value (RV) - an absolute return market-neutral strategy • Grey Swan - an equity tail risk hedge • Relative Value Plus (RVP) - a hybrid of the above two, which makes it a protection and return strategy.

Since 1988, Mr. Robert Doherty focused on generating low risk, consistent returns by pursuing relative value opportunities in options trading.

Doherty Advisors attained 16% annualized returns with a Sharpe ratio above 1.00 over the 11 year track record.

The flagship Relative Value options strategy trades the slope of volatility skews.

The strategy is short-term, agnostic to market direction, with minimal market exposure.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Absolute Return Hedge Fund Manager – Australia

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Avenir Capital is an investment firm specializing in fundamental, value oriented, and special situation investments in global equity markets. We spoke to Christine Jurzenski, Investment Analyst at Avenir, on how their private equity background emphasizes bottom up research, long-term absolute returns, and an intense focus on minimizing downside risk.

At Avenir Capital, our process involves 4 major steps.

The first step is to invest in special situations and quality companies undergoing change. By doing this we can buy at a 50% discount to a growing intrinsic value. Our second step is to worry about the downside, and exercise discipline in avoiding investment ideas that involve unquantifiable risks or unacceptably high risk of permanent capital loss. For the third step, we focus on absolute, not relative, returns and do not focus on index hugging in any way. This allows our best ideas to drive performance in a relatively concentrated manner. And finally our 4th step is to invest with a longer time horizon than many investors. This allows us to benefit from opportunities that others miss due to lack of patience or discipline.

delivers at least a 6% annual return to our investors. In other words, if we don’t make at least 6% annually (which we see as a nominal cash interest rate) for our investors, we do not get paid anything.

Another aspect of Avenir that works in our favour is our location. We are based in Sydney, Australia, which, given Australia’s international heritage and global outlook, allows us to be comfortable when hunting out the best bargains globally.

Avenir Capital Name: Christine Jurzenski Email: enquiries@avenircapital.com.au Web: www.avenircapital.com.au Address: Level 11, 2 Bulletin Place, Sydney NSW 2000 Australia Phone: +61 2 8031 7742

As well as this process, a principle we strongly believe in is that an investment manager’s interests should be firmly aligned with their clients. Unfortunately, this is an all too infrequent occurrence in todays institutionalized investment market. We’re a company that likes to see our investors more as partners. To ensure alignment, we have the vast bulk of our own investable assets invested in the fund alongside our investors. We also have a fee structure that promotes alignment. The company charges a fixed annual management fee of zero and only earn a performance fee when the fund

Best Long/Short US Equity Value Fund (10 year)

The team at Grand Slam Asset Management is made up of entrepreneurs and business executives who have taken their management know-how and combined it with a strict value investing style to generate market beating returns Grand Slam Asset Management LLC (named for our founder’s four children) is the investment manager of a US small cap value hedge fund with a successful 13+ year track record. Our team is made up of entrepreneurs and business executives who have taken their management know-how and combined it with a strict value investing style to generate market beating returns. The portfolio management team began working together in 1996 when, prior to opening Grand Slam, they built a small cap operating business from $8MM to $250MM in revenues. Prior to that our founder and CIO, Mitchell Sacks, worked on Wall Street as a broker, commercial banker and investment banker and his Co-PM, Erik Volfing, was a commercial lender to the entertainment and media industries. We utilize our knowledge of how to operate a business as well as traditional Wall Street experience to invest the fund.

Our unique style and background allow us to identify equity investment opportunities that other managers miss. We run a concentrated portfolio of about 22 names focused on investments that we believe can at least double in value over a two year period. Once we identify an investment opportunity, we perform extensive due diligence. This includes visiting the Company’s operating sites, meeting with middle management, attending trade shows and conventions and talking to customers and competitors. We believe this allows Grand Slam to recognize a turn in a business’ fortunes before it is evident in its reported performance.

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Grand Slam Asset Management Name: Mitchell Sacks Tel: +1 201 346 4336 Email: mitch@gslamcap.com Web: www.gslamcap.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Hedge Fund CRM Software - USA

Dynamo™ Hedge Fund Edition from Netage Solutions is a CRM suite configured to grow alongside hedge funds’ investment strategy and operational structure.

Netage Solutions’ Dynamo™ Hedge Fund Edition is an industry-specific, Cloud-based CRM solution that empowers hedge fund managers worldwide to optimize their investor relations workflow and efficiently address evolving compliance requirements. The collective feedback of Netage’s 300 clients, and seventeen years of experience dedicated to the alternative assets industry, have contributed to Dynamo’s™ highly configurable, readily scalable, and feature-rich hedge fund software solution.

Dynamo™

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The Dynamo™ CRM answers investors’ demands for greater transparency by simplifying relationship and reporting management. Dynamo’s™ fluid integration with Microsoft Office® enables users to compile investor data, correspondence, and activity records into a comprehensive investor profile.

This profile, which is built to align with the firm’s terminology and operational priorities, also contains transactional data, subscription documents, and terms. Users can utilize these profiles in tandem with Dynamo’s™ Advanced Search features to build strategic mailing lists, deliver compelling communications, and maximize return on marketing efforts.

Dynamo™ has addressed the increasingly complex regulatory environment for hedge funds through dedicated modules for managing growing compliance mandates. The dynamic reporting engine generates compelling reporting for compliance, marketing, investment research management, and investor communications.

Offering several new client-driven updates a year, Netage’s Dynamo™ software platform supports the evolving technical operational requirements of some of the world’s largest hedge fund managers.

Netage Solutions Corporate Headquarters: Netage Solutions, Inc. 480 Pleasant Street, Suite B200 Watertown, MA 02472 USA Tel: +1 617 393 0000 Web: www.netagesolutions.com

Dynamo™ boasts capable investment research management functionality for enabling fund managers to automatically gather prospective investment research and intelligently store data. Qualitative and quantitative information can be reviewed through a systematic peer review process, or accessed on demand.

Best for Global Tactical Asset Allocation

With offices in Brisbane and London servicing institutional clients around the world, Tactical Global Management (TGM) is a speciality manager in the areas of global tactical asset allocation/global macro, currency, rebalancing overlay management, and socially responsible impact investing.

TGM has a long history of providing tailored investment solutions to its clients. TGM is totally independent and as such has no trading relationship with any affiliate, and always works in the best interests of the client.

At TGM we are committed to excellence in all aspects of our business. Integrity is critical and we act honestly in the best interests of our clients, working in partnership with them to achieve their investment objectives.

Tactical Global Management Web: www.tgm-global.com

TGM is a leader in the application of global economic and financial market modelling to alpha generation. Using this approach we have successfully been generating alpha for over 17 years by exploiting miss-pricings in global equity, bond, and currency markets.

We also offer a range of beta management services including rebalancing and currency overlays and balance sheet management services. The objective of these is to assist clients in managing the risk of their underlying assets and associated cash flows relative to their strategic benchmark.

Clients also benefit from the return premium generated by a disciplined rebalancing overlay program.

TGM is also actively involved in the area of socially responsible impact investing, using its global reach to bring to the Australian and New Zealand market a number of funds that generate attractive risk adjusted returns as well as support humanitarian and environmental projects.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best for Insurance Linked Investments Portfolio Investment - UK

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Established in 2008, Leadenhall is a joint venture between an international Lloyd’s of London underwriter of insurance and reinsurance, the Amlin Group, and a highly experienced management team. Amlin, headquartered in the UK, is a major London market participant with a presence at Lloyd’s of London and offices in key reinsurance hubs such as Bermuda, Zurich and Singapore.

Leadenhall Capital Partners Address: St Helen’s, 1 Undershaft, London EC3A 8ND Tel: +44 (0)20 7746 1690 Web: www.leadenhallcp.com

Leadenhall Capital Partners offers dedicated funds and managed accounts which give institutional investors access to both life and non-life insurance linked investments; through its non-life strategies Leadenhall offers its investors access to pure reinsurance risk through investments which have exposure to property losses from extreme natural catastrophes (major hurricanes and earthquakes) and other insurable risks (e.g. marine risk). Its life strategies provide investors with the opportunity to access returns from the life insurance linked asset class, which mostly focus on mortality and morbidity risks.

Investors benefit from the attractive returns of the sector, whilst diversifying their risks from the traditional capital markets. Many instruments, such as cat bonds and private placements of collateralised reinsurance, are used to transfer insurance linked risk to the capital markets; Leadenhall uses all of them to ensure liquidity, profitability, diversification and growth.

Leadenhall’s team has significant insurance capital markets experience gained at Swiss Re, Aon Benfield Securities & Guy Carpenter, with John Wells, the Chairman, and Luca Albertini, the CEO/CIO having a combined experience of over 55 years in the industry.

Best for Insurance Linked Securities - Bermuda

AlphaCat Managers, Ltd. (“AlphaCat”) manages strategic relationships that leverage the Validus Group’s underwriting and investment expertise and earns management, performance and underwriting fees.

as a “commodity pool operator” with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a member of the National Futures Association and a signatory to the standards published by the Hedge Fund Standards Board.

AlphaCat, formed in 2008, is a core element within the Validus Group’s strategic initiative to expand into capital market activities by participating in the market for Insurance Linked Securities (“ILS”). ILS are financial instruments whose fundamental value is determined by insurance losses caused by natural catastrophes such as major earthquakes and hurricanes. As the returns on ILS are primarily driven by natural catastrophes, when carefully structured, they are generally uncorrelated with the overall financial markets, making ILS an attractive asset class for capital market investors.

AlphaCat Managers, Ltd. Address: 29 Richmond Road Pembroke HM 08 Bermuda Tel: +441 278 9000 Email: investor.relations@acmanagers.com Web: www.acmanagers.com

AlphaCat helps investors take advantage of this uncorrelated asset class through various funds and sidecars, currently accessing the market via AlphaCat Reinsurance Ltd., a Bermuda provider of fully collateralized property catastrophe reinsurance and retrocession capacity and AlphaCat Master Fund, a Bermuda investment fund investing in reinsurance related capital markets transactions. AlphaCat invests in private reinsurance transactions, as well as catastrophe bonds, a common type of ILS issued by insurance and reinsurance companies. AlphaCat leverages the Validus Group’s extensive business sourcing, underwriting, research and analytic capabilities to construct ILS portfolios subject to prudent risk constraints.

AlphaCat is a Bermuda licensed insurance manager and is registered as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. AlphaCat is also registered

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Alternative UCITS Global Macro Fund BB Global Macro

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Bellevue Asset Management is an independent and highly specialized asset management boutique focused on managing equity vehicles for specific sectors and regions as well as institutional assets.

Bellevue Asset Management is a 100% subsidiary of the Bellevue Group which is an independent financial services company listed at the SIX Swiss Stock Exchange. Bellevue Group specializes in brokerage, investment banking and asset management.

Name: Magnus Nilssen Bellevue Asset Management AG Address: Seestrasse 16, Postfach CH-8700 Küsnacht/Zürich Switzerland Tel: +41 44 267 67 91 Email: mni@bellevue.ch

Originally, focused on managing investment companies, Bellevue Asset Management has transformed into a true asset manager with a full range of products (investment funds, mandates, investment companies, and private equity) providing highly distinctive equity strategies with a core focus on healthcare, New Markets and Entrepreneur and UCITS compliant alternative investments. These Luxembourg Funds are distributed to a full range of clients within key markets in Europe; Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Lucio Soso has managed to BB Global Macro fund since the fund was launched in March 2010, and utilizes a proprietary global macro screening engine to support him to express his market view and to define the most successful top down strategies. Risk is an integrated part within the entire investment process. By targeting an explicit risk level on a daily basis the risk profile is maintained over time. The portfolio is mainly invested in liquid assets, the Fund also offers daily liquidity.

Lucio’s objective is to generate consistent absolute returns across the economic cycle with a Sharpe ratio >1.

Best Alternative Investment Analysis Firm - Canada

BULLWEALTH offers individuals and families, not-for-profit organisations and institutions an approach to investment planning and implementation.

We are an independently owned investment advisory and consulting firm offering solutions to high net worth families, not-for-profit organizations and institutional investors.

Our founding principles are: • • •

BULLWEALTH

• •

To offer clear, independent advice; To be aligned with your best interests; To diligently research, select and continuously monitor third party investment managers and solutions; To construct optimized portfolio asset allocations; To act with the highest standards of professionalism.

Clear, independent advice and true alignment with our client’s best interests are what make us different.

BULLWEALTH is compensated only by our clients. We receive no other commissions or fees from any other organization. We do not own, in whole or in part, any of the underlying investment managers we recommend. Our profitability is not altered by offering one solution over another. As a result, we are completely aligned with your best interests and have no reason, real or perceived, to provide anything other than clear, independent advice. This alignment allows us to provide:

Transparency BULLWEALTH provides full consolidated performance reporting on your portfolio and its underlying investment managers, and fully discloses all compensation we receive.

Sophisticated Asset Allocation and Risk Mitigation BULLWEALTH embraces institutional methodologies to construct low risk, non-correlated portfolio asset allocation to increase expected return without increasing risk, or conversely, to maintain expected return while lowering risk.

BULLWEALTH Address: 4100 Yonge Street, Suite 612, Toronto, ON M2P 2B5 Canada Tel: +1 416 223 2053 Fax: +1 416 223 7940 Email: bwmg@bullwealth.com Web: www.bullwealth.com

Objective Investment Research & Independent Selection BULLWEALTH diligently researches, selects and continuously monitors investment managers who outperform over the long term and manage their downside risk.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Specialist Credit Asset Manager of the Year - UK

Serone Capital Management

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Serone Capital Management is a credit hedge fund that received its full FCA authorisation in 2010.

Serone Capital Management Web: www.seronecapital.com

The three senior partners of the firm; Neil Servis (CEO), Adrian King (COO) and Serj Walia (CIO) each have over twenty years of experience within the credit markets from both the buy and sell side, and were active participants in the evolution of the credit markets over that time. The motivations for setting the firm up were and continue to be; to take advantage of stress or relative value within the credit markets, generate alpha by trading in complex, illiquid and less competitive/efficient situations, benefit from bank deleveraging due to capital shortfalls and new regulations, leverage long standing relationships within the market place to source/exit positions at competitive prices and apply a trading overlay to fundamental credit analysis.

The Key Opportunities Fund is our only product. It blends a stable portfolio of securitised credit that can withstand and perform in a stressed environment, with an upside bucket.

Thus far this has been achieved through a portfolio of legacy CLOs, with select participation in primary deals which constitutes around 65% of our holdings. Our upside portion aims to generate multiple sources of alpha arising from; prepayments, refinancing, re-ratings, calls, “story bonds� etc. The remaining allocation is made to other securitised instruments where our expertise allows us to find opportunities. Geographically the fund focuses on core Europe, and selectively trades the US if we see relative-value (currently 70% Europe versus 30% US split).

The fund will pass its three year anniversary in March 2015 and has over US$150m in AUM.

Top 10 Performing Fund Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund

The Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund, managed by FINANZ KONZEPT AG, invests worldwide and without restriction in government, corporate and convertible bonds as well as in short-term securities and certified derivatives.

The Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund is aimed at a maximum total return. The fund invests worldwide and without restriction in government, corporate and convertible bonds, as well as in short-term securities and certified derivatives. The fund can use up to 200% of borrowed leverage capital and therefore significantly increases the revenue from capital employed.

Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 70% of its overall net assets in corporate bonds and government issuers. In principle, the fund strives to invest in securities, which are significantly undervalued. Undervalued bonds benefit from the recovery of the quality of the debtor and therefore, offer a reasonable diversification to conventional bond portfolios. The foreign exchange risk is managed flexibly.

At FINANZ KONZEPT AG, we concentrate all of our efforts on meeting your personal expectations and we guarantee that we will provide you with outstanding service as regards security, discretion and exclusivity. Our aspiration is to find the best solutions for you, and our name stands for nothing less than that. Our small but efficient team performs its tasks with passion to offer you superior results based on mutual trust, discretion and common goals. FINANZ KONZEPT AG was founded in the Principality of Liechtenstein in 2001.

The office in the heart of Zurich, Switzerland was added in 2004.

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In 2010 the headquarters were relocated to Zurich. FINANZ KONZEPT AG is authorized as an asset manager in Switzerland and is controlled and regulated by the supervision of securities. FINANZ KONZEPT AG has been a member of the Swiss Financial Analysts Association since 2006.

FINANZ KONZEPT AG Address: FINANZ KONZEPT AG Schulhausstrasse 42, 8002 Zurich, Switzerland Tel: +41 44 204 34 64 Fax: +41 44 204 34 60 Email: info@finanz-konzept.ch Web: www.finanz-konzept.ch

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Event-Driven Hedge Fund Manager of the Year

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Venor Capital Management LP, in New York, invests in value and event-driven opportunities across the corporate capital structure with a focus on stressed and distressed corporate situations in the US and Western Europe.

Venor Capital Management LP Address: Times Square Tower, 7 Times Square, Suite 4303, New York, New York 10036 USA Web: www.venorcapital.com

Venor Capital Management LP was founded in 2005 by Jeffrey Bersh and Michael Wartell, who together have over 40 years of experience investing across the corporate capital structure, integrating portfolio management, research and trading through various market cycles.

The firm is a mature, established business with a stable institutional asset base. Venor maintains a flexible approach to portfolio construction in order to take advantage of the most attractive risk/reward profile regardless of the underlying market environment. Venor invests in value and event-driven opportunities across corporate capital structures.

All else being equal, the Firm’s preference is to invest higher in the capital structure – such as in corporate bonds, bank loans, and other fixed-income securities; however, Venor will opportunistically invest in equities if the Firm believes the asymmetry justifies the additional risk.

Venor primarily invests in stressed or distressed corporate situations in the U.S. and Western Europe, and seeks to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns through a combination of process-driven, bottom-up security research and disciplined trading and risk management procedures.

Best US Hedge Fund Accountancy Firm

Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP serves privately-held businesses and high net worth individuals with a wide range of traditional and non-traditional advisory services For decades, Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP has been recognized as a top-tier Accounting firm nationwide. With a diverse staff of nearly 350 professionals, Anchin provides a wide range of services, including accounting and auditing; tax planning and compliance; tax credits and incentives; management and succession planning; litigation support, forensic accounting, valuation services; and merger and acquisition services.

Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP Address: 1375 Broadway New York, NY 10018 USA Tel: +1 212 840 3456 Web: www.anchin.com

Anchin’s Financial Services Practice has assembled a team of seasoned experts to cater to the needs of the financial services industry, providing assurance and audit, tax, financial reporting, back office administration and business advisory services. We take a broad view of your business and work with management to design strategically oriented solutions, combining traditional tax and accounting services with information technology, operational analysis, and risk management to enhance value at the enterprise level.

For decades, we have created customized services to serve our financial industry clientele, ranging from small, entrepreneurial startups to established funds. We work with over 350 investment partnerships, hedge funds, funds-of-funds, family offices, private equity funds, off-shore funds, master-feeder structures, broker/dealers, mutual funds, investment advisers, commodity advisers, securities specialists, and traders.

We are proactive planners who address concerns on the horizon before they become issues, enabling our clients to better concentrate on investment performance.

www.acquisition-intl.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Quantitative Firm Operating Liquid Alternatives - USA

Corporate Profile

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Quantitative Equity Strategies, LLC is a global provider of investment consulting services.

that offer investors diversification and performance in today’s challenging economic environment.”

Based in based in Colorado, USA and Männedorf, Switzerland, Quantitative Equity Strategies, LLC (QES) offers a suite of rules-based, liquid alternative indices with daily liquidity and transparency. These include the underlying strategies for the Aspen Managed Futures Strategy Fund (MFBTX); the Source Nomura Modelled Private Equity Returns Index UCITS ETF (PERI.LN); and the Direxion Synthetic Convertible Strategy Fund (DXCBX). A fund based on the QES Credit Long/Short Index is expected to launch in early 2015. The firm also offers consulting services on traditional equity and fixed income mandates.

Quantitative Equity Strategies, LLC Address: 8822 Ridgeline Boulevard, Suite 220 Highlands Ranch, CO 80129 USA Tel: +1 303 471 0244 Web: www.qesinvest.com

QES was founded in 2002 by Ben Warwick as a platform for implementing his quantitative investment strategies. He earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina, a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Florida, and additional undergraduate degrees in physics and chemistry.

Mr. Warwick is the author of several books on investing, including Searching for Alpha: The Quest for Exceptional Investment Performance (Wiley, 2000). The firm maintains offices in Denver and Zurich.

QES is pleased to win the award from Acquisition International. “We believe that a low-cost, indexed approach is an efficient way to capture the returns of many alternative strategies. Our products are designed to give both institutions and high net worth individuals access to non-traditional returns with daily liquidity. We are thrilled to see the further acceptance of liquid alternatives in the investment community. QES is committed to developing intelligently-designed products

Best Research Driven Investment Strategy Australia

LHC Capital is a specialist investment management company combining a fundamental, research driven investment strategy and a strong capability in risk management with a clear aim of producing absolute returns that are uncorrelated to general market conditions.

LHC Capital is a fundamental research driven specialist equity fund manager, established in May 2011, with two key core principals central to how it manages money – capital preservation and high conviction investing.

LHC seeks to identify a small number of investment opportunities where it believes it has a strong view that the underlying cash earnings of a company are significantly different to the view of other market participants, on a three to five year time horizon. LHC also heavily evaluates the quality of the business, capability of management and their economic incentivasation, industry structure and pricing power before making and sizing any investments.

The portfolio is built on a bottom up / opportunity driven basis, and the fund notionally targets eight-to-ten long positions and around ten-to-twelve short positions. As research driven high conviction investors, the Fund is naturally highly concentrated. There are only a small number of truly outstanding opportunities in our investible universe. We work tirelessly to unearth, evaluate and reassess these opportunities and further understand the companies that we own. Our portfolio construction reflects this, with our top five positions accounting for c.60% of Fund assets.

Capital preservation is always at the forefront of our mind.

Returns are ultimately driven by risk. We are fastidious in un-

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derstanding and selecting the risks that we choose to expose our capital to when we enter into long or short positions.

LHC Capital Address: Level 22, 1 Alfred St, Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia Tel: +61 2 8031 7707 Web: www.lhccapital.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Overall China Hedge Fund

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The Orchid China Master Fund is an open ended long biased China equity fund.

Since inception, the Orchid China Master Fund launched by Orchid Asia Group has generated consistent returns over the last 6 years outperforming the Index on a consistent basis.

The Fund generated net returns of +40% in 2013, +19.7% in 2012, and +130% since fund inception in 2008. With assets of approximately US$300m the investors consists of mainly US and European family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

The Orchid Asia Group is an alternative investment firm specializes in private equity in China over the last 20 years since the founding in 1993. The group has US$3bn of assets under management across six private equity funds and one long biased China hedge fund. Clients that have invested in Orchid Asia consist of over 200+ institutional investors worldwide.

Orchid Asia Group Management, Limited The Center, Suite 6211, 62nd Floor.

99 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong Tel: +[852] 2115-8810 Contact: Trevor Chan email: tchan@orchidasia.com Web: www.orchidasia.com

Best in Fixed Income Asset Manager - USA

Princeton Advisory Group, Inc. is a leading independent fixed income asset manager with experience in High Yield, Bank Loans and Structured Products.

Princeton Advisory Group, Inc. was founded by Munish Sood, CFA in 2002 to provide customized alternative investment solutions with high-level service and transparency. Princeton Advisory Group, Inc. (PAG) is SEC registered since inception in October 2002 and is a registered Minority Business Enterprise (MBE). Currently managing discretionary assets in excess of US$1bn with an investment philosophy & process based on Bottom-Up fundamentals and Top-Down technical analysis.

We believe our dynamic approach to credit research, risk control, and generation of alpha along with our active management and experience will ensure our strategies continue to outperform that of our peers.

Princeton Advisory Group, Inc. Address: 4422 Route 27, Building C, Unit 1, Box 89, Kingston, NJ 08528-0089 USA Tel: +1 609 514 9200 Fax: +1 609 514 0330 Email: pag@princetonadvisory.com Web: www.princetonadvisory.com

Our Senior Credit Investment Team has been working together since 2005 and our experience over multiple business cycles with our actively managed process allowed us to successfully navigate through the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

We expect volatility to increase in Credit creating opportunity for patient investors; we focus on creating investment solutions based on changing market dynamics, the impact on future portfolio liquidity and credit spreads due to expected changes in regulation. With strong performance across Total Return Credit and Distressed Strategies, we offer Customized Managed Accounts, Bank Loan Long Only (Leveraged & Unleveraged), Multi Asset Class Accounts, Stable Income Hedge Fund with 4+ year track record (on/off shore), Credit Opportunity Hedge Fund with 2+ year track record, Floating Rate Retail Fund (ranked top 5 in its asset class in 2013 by Morningstar), as well as TRS and CLO strategies.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Asia CTA Strategy

Progressive Global Investment Advisor

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Progressive Global Investment Advisor (PGIA) satisfies investors’ demand and provides investment opportunities with high transparency, how liquidity, low expense and optimal risk/ return profile.

Progressive Global Investment Advisor (PGIA) was founded in 2003 and registered in Cayman Islands. Dedicating to introduce a variety of alternative investments to broad investors, PGIA satisfies investors’ demand and provides investment opportunities with high transparency, how liquidity, low expense and optimal risk/return profile.

Corporate Profile

a portfolio of best quality investment tools that anticipate and satisfy people’s demand and needs.

Progressive Global Investment Advisor Email: pam-service@pam-universal.com Tel: +852 2259 9197 Fax: +852 3104 9211 Address:：Suite 2802, Lippo Centre Tower 2, 89 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong Web: www.pam-universal.com

PGIA launched its first segregated portfolio – PAM Managed Futures Segregated Portfolio in 2004, and has been trading ever since and accumulating 10 years of track record. Other strategies such as systematic multi-strategy and global macro funds joined later, and received good response in Asia-Pacific region. Stable capital accumulation and diversification are something essential for modern investment. Targeting on the aspect of risk/reward of underlying assets, PAM funds deliver outstanding Sharpe and Sortino ratio, in terms of risk-adjusted measurements.

Ongoing research in markets and products guarantees us to sustain during the bullish and the bearish markets.

Recognized by industry’s leading awards, including Lipper Best offshore CTA fund and a 5-star rating from MorningStar, PGIA knows its mission in the industry. Since the day the company is established, the management team constructed by a group of industry expertise has been endeavoring to search, select, and monitor a broad range of hedge fund products with varying investment philosophies and strategies.

For the next 10 years, PGIA will persist in bringing investors

Best Diversified Credit Hedge Fund - USA

Sancus Capital Select Master Fund

Sancus is a long/short credit fund that focuses on exploiting inefficiencies globally.

The Sancus Capital Select Master Fund has a 5-year track record, with over 10% annualized returns since inception, a Sharpe ratio of approximately 1.5 and Sortino ratio of approximately 3.5. The Fund has low correlation with HY and IG Indices, mutual funds, ETFs, S&P and HRX. The Fund’s investment style combines a focus on fundamental HY and arbitrage trading with macro credit products such as CLOs, credit indices, tranches and options.

Sancus capitalizes on dislocations across the inefficient and siloed credit market. Although deeply rooted in relative value idea generation, Sancus often implements directional trades to achieve higher returns and a lower leverage profile. Additionally, Sancus seeks pockets of value created by regulatory and macro changes, such as Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule and shrinking global banking balance sheets. Sancus was founded in 2009 by Sancus’ CIO, Olga Chernova. She previously served as Head of Credit at JPMorgan Proprietary Trading, Head of Structured Credit at Dillon Read, and Head of US Correlation Trading at Goldman Sachs. She became involved with credit derivatives at their nascence and made large contributions to the creation of CDX Indices and tranche markets. She has been awarded numerous distinctions, including Tomorrow’s Titans by The Hedge Fund Journal.

Sancus employs a seasoned, high-pedigree team, with a core of ex-Goldman Sachs colleagues. Each member of the investment team has over 15 years of credit trading experience. Sancus recently won HFM’s Best Specialist Award and HedgePo’s Investors Choice Hedge Fund Award for best

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Emerging Global Credit Fund. In 2013, Sancus ranked No.1 out of 120 funds by BarclayHedge in the Credit Long/Short category with 34.50% return.

Sancus is well positioned for the current credit cycle. The Fund minimizes exposure to interest rates largely through the use of credit derivatives and floating-rate, loan-based products.

Sancus Capital Address: 1325 Ave. of the Americas, 28th Floor, NY, NY 10019 Tel: (212) 277-8255 Fax: (646) 217-3710 Email: info@sancuscap.com Web: www.sancuscap.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Arbitrage Multi Strategy Hedge Fund France

Corporate Profile

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Founded in 2005, Syquant Capital is an independent asset manager accredited by the French regulator AMF. Syquant Capital is an independent and entrepreneurial asset manager founded in 2005 and based in Paris, France. The firm focuses on “absolute performance” and offers its investment style through the Helium Opportunities and the Helium Performance funds. AUM total US$ 725million across the different funds which focus on equity arbitrage strategies: merger arbitrage, Event Driven and some complementary quantitative long / short strategies. Strict risk management and a strong attention to maximum draw down are part of the firm’s DNA. 85% of the investor base are institutional investors (incl. Family Offices).

Syquant Capital Address: 160 Boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France Tel: +331 42 56 56 20 Web: www.syquant-capital.fr

The Helium Opportunities fund offers a strategy mix of different equity arbitrage strategies to achieve a high Sharpe ratio (historically >2.8) and within a very low volatility range of 1% to 2.5%.

The Helium Performance fund offers a different strategy mix to offer a Sharpe ratio > 1.5 with an average volatility of 4%.

All funds are UCITS regulated funds and have consistently achieved their risk adjusted return targets.

Nine investment professionals (including 5 senior portfolio managers with over 15 years professional experience each) have a specific strategy focus and the CIO (Henri Jeantet) and the Co-CIO (Xavier Morin) share the responsibility of weighting the different strategies and the leverage in the different Helium funds.

Best Macro Hedge Fund Canada

AIP Asset Management

AIP Asset Management (“AIP”) is an entrepreneurial, investment fund and portfolio management firm focused on generating superior risk adjusted returns for institutional clients, hedge funds, family offices and high net worth individuals and was nominated for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2014 by Ernst and Young.

AIP’s Global Macro Fund seeks to provide capital preservation and stable income by focusing on tactical asset allocation across global markets, asset classes and financial instruments with no orientation bias.

Global Macro, as a strategy, is a unique diversifier compared to other alternative and traditional asset classes since correlations decline during recessionary periods.

The correlation of most other asset classes actually increase during recessionary times, reducing your downside protection when you need it most.

AIP’s Global Macro Fund expects to continue its track record of success and will seek to generate superior risk-adjusted returns with lower volatility and low correlation to any other asset class.

AIP Asset Management Address: 77 King Street West, Suite 4140 Toronto, Ontario M5K 1E7, Canada Tel: +1 416 601 0808 Email: info@aipassetmanagement.com Web: www.aipassetmanagement.com

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best in Futures & Options Trading - USA

Bayou City Capital, L.P. is a limited partnership based in Houston, Texas, that trades in S&P 500 Index futures and futures options.

The Fund was started in 2000 to explore an option-selling strategy utilized with natural gas storage facilities. Founded with friends and family assets, the strategy was originally tested over various asset classes, including natural gas, crude oil, and equity markets. In 2004, the Fund began to trade solely in the S&P 500 futures market, and the S&P 500 Option Overwriting Strategy was formed.

The Strategy operates on two premises. First, the overall directional trend of the United States equity market drifts positive over the long-term. Second, options on the S&P 500 are overvalued over time as the future volatility the options’ prices imply is an overestimate, on average, of the market volatility that actually occurs. Essentially, Bayou City Capital sells options on S&P 500 futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a fashion that yields positive exposure to the market’s appreciation and the passage of time.

The Fund focuses on options that expire in the shortterm, within 90 days or less. The Strategy is designed to outperform the S&P 500 over time; after an 11 year track record, the Fund has generated a 21% annualized return.

Investments for limited partnership interests in the Fund are available to Accredited Investors, and the Fund offers monthly liquidity, advantageous tax treatment for gains on futures, and a competitive fee structure. Please visit www. bayoucitycapital.com for more details.

Best European Prime Brokerage

Global Prime is a global provider of prime brokerage and trading services to hedge funds, asset managers, family offices and professional traders Doing the job just gets us onto the playing field. Winning requires aiming a lot higher.

Global Prime Partners

We don’t just tick boxes.We don’t simply provide services. We provide a bespoke response in a template world.

Our services are what you would expect from your Prime Broker and include: trade execution; clearance; settlement; custody; margin financing; stock lending and web based reporting.

But how we deliver these services is what differentiates GPP – with high touch client response. flexibility and a heavy focus on the needs of start-up and emerging managers.

Global Prime Partners Address: 4th Floor 7 Old Park Lane W1K 1QR London Tel: + 44 (0) 207 399 9450 Web: www.globalprimepartners.com

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Corporate Profile

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Bayou City Capital Name: Will Monroe Email: info@bayoucitycapital.com Web: www.bayoucitycapital.com Address: 10000 Memorial Drive- Suite 330 Houston, TX 77024 USA Phone: +1 713-520-0993 Fax: +1 713-526-2363

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Due Diligence Platform for Fund of Funds - USA

Corporate Profile

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Ledgex Systems is transforming the way fund of funds, endowments, pensions and family offices manage their portfolios, make investment decisions and meet investor demands.

movements, meetings and client interactions in a centralized system that brings organization to the investor relationship management (IRM) process.

The powerful Ledgex platform is an integrated technology suite that streamlines front and middle office functions of investment management firms. The Ledgex Platform was designed and built to provide multi-fund managers the ability to systematically manage their portfolios, perform complex analytics and provide robust reporting, both internal and external to the firm. Recent enhancements to its flagship platform include manager due diligence and multi-currency support. The comprehensive suite features four modules:

Ledgex Systems Web: www.ledgex.com Tel: +1 877 700 1921

• Ledgex Portfolio Manager, a comprehensive portfolio management system that allows managers to easily manage complex portfolio structures and look through these portfolios for exposure, performance and manager concentration.

• Ledgex Liquidity, an advanced liquidity modeling utility and reporting engine that, given certain conditions, generates all available options for accessing assets by processing each tranche and their respective trade characteristics with a manager’s liquidity terms.

• Ledgex Research, a customizable module that combines CRM, document management and research management capabilities within a single system that removes silos and puts manager research in context with the entire portfolio management strategy.

• Ledgex Investor Relations, a highly configurable tool designed specifically for managing communications, capital

Best Technical Analysis for Futures Market – UK

FuturesTechs was established in 2000 by Clive Lambert to provide daily Independent Technical Analysis to the professional trading community in the UK and Europe.

• Brent Crude, WTI, GasOil, Natural Gas, Carbon Emissions, Gold and Silver Futures • Comprehensive coverage of the FX Markets.

Today their Analysts provide daily commentary across the asset classes to a variety of clients, ranging from Prop Traders to Brokers to Hedge Funds.

In 2014 FuturesTechs collaborated with CME Group to provide their FX Analysis to CME Europe customers.

Clive is an active member of the UK Society of Technical Analysts, speaking regularly for their annual Diploma Course.

He is in demand for his lively and interesting training seminars, particularly on Market Profile and Candlestick Charting; the two main methodologies employed for the Analysis. He is the author of “Candlestick Charts”, published by Harriman House in 2009.

FuturesTechs Name: Clive Lambert Web: www.futurestechs.co.uk Email: info@futurestechs.co.uk Address: The Business Centre, 193-195 Leigh Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 1JE Phone: +44 (1702) 482110

This latest Award comes on the back of being named Independent Research House of the Year at the 2014 Technical Analyst Awards.

You are invited to have a Free Trial of the service at www.

FuturesTechs.co.uk Markets covered: • Bund, Bobl, Schatz, Euribor, Short Sterling, Long Gilt, T-Notes, Eurodollar Futures • DAX, FTSE, Eurostoxx, S&P 500, Dow Jones and NASDAQ Futures

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best in Equity Market Neutral - Saemor Capital Europe Alpha Fund

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Corporate Profile

Saemor Capital is a specialist in quantitative investment management, focused on absolute return generation.

● Risk management is key. The right market neutral strategy enhances total portfolio diversification

Saemor Capital is a specialist in quantitative investment management and was founded in 2008 with the backing of insurance company AEGON. We manage the Saemor Europe Alpha Fund, a market-neutral fund investing in European equities. In addition to the AI Award, the fund also won three awards in 2012 (Hedgeweek, HFMWeek and Hedge Fund Review).

The Fund is highly diversified, typically holds approximately 250 positions and is primarily invested in liquid equities in developed Europe. The fund does not invest in high-risk derivatives or speculative penny stocks. The Fund has zero correlation to equity markets and to market neutral peers.

With approximately US$630m (EUR550) under management, we are the second largest hedge fund manager in The Netherlands. Both the manager and the fund are AIFMD-regulated and passported into the main countries in Europe.

Saemor Capital Name: Erwin de Kleijn / Mary Kahng Email: erwindekleijn@saemor.com / marykahng@saemor.com Website: www.saemor.com Tel: +31707568070 Country: The Netherlands

The Saemor Europe Alpha Fund uses quantitative strategies for stock selection and portfolio construction.

Our philosophy can be summarised as follows: ● Stocks that are cheap, show good profitability and growth, are trending up and beat earnings estimates, outperform their counterparts ● Quantitative stock rating processes are preferred as they are objective and limit behavioural biases ● The financial environment is always changing, so adaptability is essential ● Qualitative overlays improve the results of quantitative models

Best for Hedge Fund Valuations

VRC | Valuation Research provides asset managers with expert valuation of illiquid and Level 3 assets.

VRC | Valuation Research is in one business only – meeting your valuation needs.

Our sole mission is to help you obtain independent and objective opinions of value, and meet your fiduciary and financial and tax reporting needs.

As a leading provider of valuation services, VRC specializes in the valuation of alternative and illiquid assets, and complex securities valuation, for many large hedge funds, banks, BDCs, private equity firms, and mezzanine debt funds.

Our client list includes many of the world’s largest hedge funds, credit funds, and asset managers.

VRC also provides valuation support to public and private non-financial companies. Services include M&A support, inclusive of intangible asset valuation, and business entity valuation and tax restructuring support.

Our 40-year history, and our active participation and leadership with industry standard setting and research, hones this pedigree and maintains our leading edge.

We are: • Objective. As an independent firm, and a “pure play” in valuation, our professionals focus on objective and independent studies.

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• Aligned with your interests. As valuation is our only business, we are incented to get it right – and make sure your needs are met.

• Service oriented. Our professional staff is among the best in the industry, providing highly efficient service.

VRC | Valuation Research has eight US offices, and operates globally as Valuation Research Group.

Valuation Research Group has offices in London, and throughout Europe, China, South America and Australia.

Valuation Research Corporation Name: Raymond Weisner Email: rweisner@valuationresearch.com Website: www.valuationresearch.com Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=21058430

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Soft Commodities Hedge Fund – Australia

The ethos of Merricks Capital is to provide absolute returns by making investment only in areas where they have an informational edge driven by fundamental research and analysis.

Despite being founded in 2007, it only took one year for our company to deliver consistent returns. Since 2008, both of our core strategies - long/short equity and soft commodities - have had positive returns in all years and under all market conditions.

Merricks Capital

Corporate Profile

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This continued success can be attributed to our investment strategy. We focus on relative value investment opportunities along the food supply chain, favouring long commodities/ geographies that Merricks believes are in scarce supply, and shorting commodities/geographies which Merricks believes are in excess supply.

It’s a strategy that seeks to take advantage of situations where specific supply and demand imbalances create both long and short opportunities in agricultural commodity markets.

Another essential aspect of our approach is that it is fundamentally bottom up. The long/short market neutral with strict country and industry exposure limits allows investors to get exposure to the best/worst large companies in Asia, without taking on the Asian market exposure.

Merricks Capital Pty Limited Name: Sasha-Lee Smith Email: enquiries@merrickscapital.com Address: ABN 45 126 528 005 AFSL 319477 SEC Number 801-72326 Level 13, 644 Chapel Street South Yarra, Victoria 3141 Australia Tel: +61 3 8319 8111 Fax: +61 3 8319 8110

This environment allows investors to gain exposure to soft commodities such as grains, oilseeds, vegetable oils, dairy, cotton and sugar.

These soft commodities are something the Merricks team have had a long history in, which is why we can bring these years of specialised knowledge and experience to managing the fund. Our Capital Long Short Equity Fund focuses on investments in the 400 largest and most liquid industrial, materials, energy and food companies in the developed markets of Asia. The fund is primarily used in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong.

Best Alternative Asset Manager - China

Adamas Asset Management

Adamas Asset Management (HK) Limited is an award winning investment group that provides structured funding for growth enterprises in Greater China and developed markets across Asia.

was “closely pipped” into second place as the runner-up to global giant KKR in the Private Debt Investor magazine’s Asia Lender of the Year in 2013, coming in ahead of third-placed Oaktree.

With Assets Under Management of approximately US$610 million, Adamas manages US$, RMB and JPY funds for institutional investors, family offices and shareholders of Adamas Finance Asia Ltd, a company listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (ADAM.LN).

Currently, the Adamas Japan Opportunity Fund (“JOF”) is nominated as a contender for the 2014 InvestHedge Awards: Asia Strategies – Five Year Category. JOF took first place in the ACQ5 Global Awards 2014 Asia Fund of Funds category, and was Winner of the 2013 International Hedge Fund Award: Japanese Multi Strategy Asset Manager of the Year.

The Group’s award winning investment teams comprise over 40 professionals based in Hong Kong and Shanghai. They combine significant Chinese and Asian investment experience with extensive global capital market exposure, deep industry knowledge and unique relationships with leading State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s), entrepreneurs, institutional investors and government bodies.

Over the past four years, the Adamas teams have established a track record that has consistently delivered Gross Internal Rates of Return in the high twenties and more. The Group’s investment philosophy is underpinned by a strong focus on growth companies run by seasoned entrepreneurs who are prepared to provide robust collateral, cooperation on robust due diligence, and managerial or board participation, and who do not want to dilute their own equity positions.

Against that backdrop, Adamas aspires to become recognised as the go-to house for structured private sector funding in Asia. The group is proud that Adamas Asset Management was recognised as Asia – Alternative Asset Management Firm of The Year in the ACQ5 Global Awards 2014, and

Adamas’s Fund I was also recognized as the 2013 Best Asia Mezzanine Fund of the Year by Acquisition International Magazine in conjunction with Preqin, a leading source of data and intelligence for the alternative asset industry. That award is based on votes from Preqin, Acquisition International Magazine subscribers and the global hedge fund and private equity communities. In addition, Fund I was the only Asia fund among 11,000 funds to be ranked in 2013 as Category “A” by Skyrank, the most comprehensive hedge fund rating system in the industry.

Adamas Asset Management Name: Aurora Chiang Email: info@adamasam.com Web: www.adamasam.com Address: 1801-03, 18F, Tai Yau Building, 181 Johnston Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong Telephone: +852­3793 6200 Fax: +852­2117 1410

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Hedge Fund Law Firm - New York, USA

Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP

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Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP provides legal services for hedge funds, ranging from formation and registration to investor due diligence and compliance testing.

2. Registration services for investment advisers, broker-dealers, commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisers;

Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP (“FSL”) is a full-service investment management law firm in New York City, comprised of partners with a unique combination of buy-side expertise and top investment management law firm experience. FSL’s affiliate, Orical LLC, is an award-winning regulatory and compliance consulting firm. FSL’s goal is to distinguish itself from traditional law firms by providing exceptionally responsive, cost-effective, expert legal services.

3. Compliance testing, mock audit and risk assessment; and 4. Investor due diligence.

Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP Phone: +1 (212) 257 5790 Email: info@orical.org

FSL offers best-in-class legal services to investment advisers, private funds, commodity traders and broker-dealers globally.

Our clients are provided with the industry and regulatory knowledge of a major law firm along with the dedication, attention and responsiveness equal to that of an in-house compliance and legal staff. We strive to provide the best available service in a cost-effective manner so that each client considers FSL to be a valued partner to its business.

FSL provides legal services for hedge funds, ranging from formation and registration to investor due diligence and compliance testing. FSL partners have formed and provided counsel to hundreds of U.S. and non-U.S. hedge funds, funds of funds, private equity funds, commodity pools and separate account managers.

FSL specializes in four distinct practice areas: 1. Fund formation, seeding arrangement and managed account services;

Best Regulatory and Compliance Consulting Firm - New York, USA

Orical LLC

Orical and its affiliate, Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP, strive to provide best-in-class, responsive assistance with the operational, legal, and compliance matters affecting investment advisers, commodity traders and broker-dealers daily.

Orical LLC (“Orical”) is an award-winning regulatory and compliance firm based in New York City serving the global investment management community. Its affiliate, Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP (“FSL”), is a full-service investment management law firm. Orical and FSL strive to provide best-in-class, responsive assistance with the operational, legal, and compliance matters affecting investment advisers, commodity traders and broker-dealers daily.

Our team of investment management attorneys and compliance professionals have a unique combination of in-house and large law firm industry experience, which enables us to provide compliance and operational support that is business savvy and practical. We provide day-to-day assistance to expand the bandwidth and expertise of your existing legal and compliance personnel.

Orical develops and administers compliance programs that represent the industry’s best practices at a fraction of the cost of bring commensurate expertise in-house. Orical’s clients receive: 1. Full-service, hands-on compliance program administration; 2. Cutting-edge compliance software solutions;

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3. Expert allocation, valuation, best execution, insider trading, code of ethics, marketing and compliance training consultations; and 4. A dedicated and exceptionally responsive team of legal and compliance professionals.

Orical’s services are designed to be cost-effective, with near zero start-up costs and flat monthly fee arrangements available.

Orical LLC Phone: +1 (212) 257 5790 Email: info@orical.org

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best in Global Boutique Fund Administration

Corporate Profile

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Private Equity Administrators (PEA) is a privately owned European fund administration house specialising in boutique administration to alternative investment funds. With operational offices in Guernsey, Sweden and Denmark, and representation in the UK, PEA’s geographic reach covers onshore and offshore pan-European funds.

PEA are redefining the administration model by utilising a wealth of commercial industry experience to support the specialist needs of some of Europe’s most respected private equity, real estate and infrastructure investment houses.

Leading with a suite of flexible reporting and decision making tools PEA offers comprehensive accounting, valuation, compliance, investor management, reporting and depositary services to a variety of closed-ended investment schemes.

Private Equity Administrators Company: Private Equity Administrators (PEA) Name: James Orrick, Managing Director Email: jo@peadm.com Web: www.peadm.com Address: P.O. Box 669 Sarnia House, Le Truchot, St Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 3SR Channel Islands Tel: +44 1481 730988 Private Equity Administrators Limited is regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission.

Fundamental to their success is a culture and expertise in building robust operating models around high quality companies. The team comprise of highly driven individuals specialising in the investment process, the commercial application of regulation and a high quality focus on individual investor communications and the management of their due diligence. The board of PEA are represented by ex-asset managers and regulatory professionals who understand their clients’ needs for accessibility, continuity and consistently outstanding service delivery.

While people are at our heart, PEA’s operations are run from an innovative proprietary platform. Live investment and accounting data, all fund communications and full historical investor and portfolio due diligence is accessed by our clients, their investors and auditors through our own PEA Portal irrespective of time zone.

Award for Innovation in Socially Responsible Investments

Odyssey Analytic

Odyssey Analytic is a Swiss independent asset management firm founded in 2010. We spoke to them about their focus on Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) in both the private and public equity markets.

As a firm, we research and develop SRI portfolios in the long/ short equity space for institutional clients. We work with registered funds as well as family offices, and pensions for whom we can offer tailored managed account solutions. Our research and advice focuses on quantitative valuation techniques which we apply systematically. As for strategies, they are always implemented with our client’s ethics in mind. At the moment, we are advising on Odyssey Green Planet Fund.

As well as this expertise, Odyssey Analytic is also active in the private equity space. We focus on Ocean Thermal Energy Technologies and their application as a source of cooling, electricity generation and sustainable food production for coastal communities. For this process, we actively source projects for the technology companies that we work with as well as advising them on how to grow their actual businesses. Looking towards the future, we will be bringing a country focused fund applying these technologies to market in Q2 2015.

Odyssey Analytic Name: Alex Tselentis Email: info@odysseyanalytic.com Address: World Trade Center, Via Lugano 13,6982 Agno, Switzerland Telephone: +41 91 610 2970

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Equity Market Neutral Hedge Fund France

Corporate Profile

86

Rivoli Fund Management offer a range of alternative investment products using state-of-the-art quantitative trading and investment strategies. We spoke to Partner Laurent Hirsch who believes that financial markets offer a lot of inefficiencies, and his approach is to systematically identify and trade these opportunities.

Rivoli Fund Management Name: Laurent Hirsch Email: lhirsch@rivolifund.com Address: 32 rue de Monceau 75008 Paris, France Phone: +33 1 56 88 24 44 Fax: +33 1 56 88 24 41

Since we were founded in 1996, RFM has been totally owned by its management. We believe this ensures a long term commitment of the company’s development.

We are an asset management company registered with the CFTC and the NFA as a Commodity Trading Advisor, as well as with the French authorities (AMF) as an asset management firm. Working with associations such as these entails being strongly research oriented, which we have highly skilled and experienced researchers. Our trading strategies are implemented in our market neutral fund, Rivoli Equity Fund and diversified CTA programs.

In terms of services, we manage a range of products through a systematic process based on sophisticated statistical and mathematical models. What separates us from our competitors is our large and diversified range of trading strategies. These attributes enable our programs and funds to provide all weather investment solutions which can benefit from both trends and range trading markets.

Best Investment Administration Services Channel Islands

Lumiere Fund Services Ltd

Lumiere Fund Services Ltd (previously Fund Corporation) is a regulated administrator based in Guernsey that has carved out a niche in providing bespoke and tailored solutions which address their clients’ specific and wide-ranging needs.

Set up by professionally qualified individuals looking to provide partnered solutions for clients, the firm has a successful history of working with a range of clients who may seek traditional fund administration services across a wide range of fund types and those who are looking for business partners whose focus is on helping achieve their clients’ successes over the long term. As a result, Lumiere has a number of joint venture arrangements that go beyond those of a pure service provider.

As an example, for one of our clients we established a regulated investment manager and regulated fund, investing into emerging markets and have developed such a strong relationship that the group is now seeking to headquarter its corporate structure and trading business in Guernsey with us.

That said, not all clients want that much input and for those we provide full service outsourced administration for open-ended funds and closed-ended in a range of asset types. These include hedge funds, private equity, real estate, funds of funds, equities, fixed interest and more esoteric assets.

Our core administration offering covers assistance with the regulatory approval process, including fund launch and on an on-going basis company secretarial services,

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accounting, treasury, the provision of directors and bespoke investor reporting for fund managers, open-ended and closed-ended funds and related holding companies and special purpose vehicles.

Lumiere was established in 2008 by Paul Everitt and Roger Parry, each of whom is professionally qualified and came together with a common desire to break the mold of pure service provision and use the independence of the company to allow flexibility of approach, entrepreneurialism and responsiveness in their dealings with clients. The company remains wholly owner-managed and continues to grow on these values.

Lumiere Fund Services Limited Name: Roger Parry / Gordon Purvis Tel: +44 1481 732888 Tel: +44 (0)1481 732888 Email: roger.parry@lumierefs.com Email: gordon.purvis@lumierefs.com Web: www.lumierefs.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best New Newcomer Ebullio Far East Commodity Futures Fund

Corporate Profile

87

Ebullio manage a range of funds and SPVs focused on commodities and natural resources. We spoke to their Chief Operating Officer & Managing Partner Mark Bayley about their highly skilled and international team of individuals who bring a wealth of experience from some of the best known financial markets firms globally.

Our company Ebullio has 6 Managing Partners who bring 95 years of markets experience from different disciplines and geographies. Despite this diverse background, we are united by our team ethos of being committed to Ebullio’s success and therefore to the success of our investors.

Ebullio Name: Mark Bayley Email: mark@ebullio.co.uk Address: Ebullio House 33 Clarence Street Southend-on-Sea Essex SS1 1BH Telephone: + 44 1702 608 511 Fax: + 44 1702 608 510

Ebullio was established in 2007 by Lars H. Steffensen and is based 25 miles east of London in Southend-onSea. At the moment, we currently manage 2 commodity futures funds and 4 special purpose vehicles.

Our special purpose vehicles include Ebullio Return, Ebullio Invest, Ebullio Partnership and Ebullio West Africa Gold. These funds are structured around our mining assets and have been designed in response to investor demand for ‘coupon-bearing’ investments.

Being a resources specialist firm, we have expanded further into the supply chain via Ebullio Resources Ltd., taking direct stakes in mining projects in Turkey and West Africa.

Best Small Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund Cayman Islands (Northglen Aggressive Slater Investments Limited)

Slater Investments Limited is an investment management company which manages pooled funds and segregated portfolios for institutional pension funds and High Net Worth Individuals. We also manage a hedge fund, Northglen Aggressive.

Slater Investments is wholly owned by its directors and staff. The directors and staff have invested a substantial part of their wealth in funds managed by Slater Investments Limited ensuring that our interests are directly aligned with those of our clients.

For more information, contact: Slater Investments Limited Name: Lisa Letham Tel: 0207 2209365 Email: lisa@slaterinvestments.com Web: slaterinvestments.com Address: Nicholas House, 3 Laurence Pountney Hill, London EC4R 0EU

Slater Investments offers a complementary suite of UK equity fund products. The funds share a common focus of protecting against downside risk and a rigorous approach to screening for opportunities and weeding out companies that may disappoint. Our three main funds are MFM Slater Growth, MFM Slater Income and MFM Slater Recovery.

Our flagship service is investing in UK equities. The objective is for the core of all portfolios to consist of shares in companies with exciting prospects (above-average, sustainable growth) which can be bought with a significant margin of safety.

We also offer private unit trusts to families and high net worth individuals. Slater Investments provides the investment management service whilst Marlborough Fund Managers provides the administrative service. This successful partnership has been in place since 1999.

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Natural Resources Focused Fund - UK (Genus Natural Resources Fund)

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Baker Steel Capital Managers has extensive experience in the management of funds, investing in the natural resources, gold and precious metals sectors.

Investment rationale and approach

Baker Steel Capital Managers’ investment management team is underpinned by strong technical backgrounds in the geo-sciences, mining, geology and engineering. This in-depth understanding of our sectors, combined with the investment expertise of our team, has produced an impressive investment track record.

● Concentrated portfolio focused on proven stock research and selection process for highest alpha generation

Our fund managers and analysts make regular research trips throughout the world, covering countries as diverse as China, Africa, Canada and Australia, in order to identify investment opportunities with the best growth prospects and fundamental value. This is arguably one of the only teams in the sector with such breadth and depth of experience.

● Strong emphasis on identifying value and stock-picking

Our offices in London and Sydney enable us to carry out research with 24 hour coverage of world markets. We manage substantial assets on behalf of a broad range of financial institutions, wealth managers and professional investors.

The Genus Natural Resources Fund: Fund objective

● Sector specific directional exposure

● Flexibility to use cash and commodities to provide portfolio capital protection

● Cyclicality of commodities provides additional opportunities and the potential for periodic exceptional returns Fund features ● Launched in June 2002 ● A Cayman corporate fund ● Share denomination: Euro and US$ ● Investors: Professional investors only (not US persons or funds accepting US persons) Baker Steel Capital Managers Website: www.bakersteelcap.com

Long-biased “best ideas” fund optimising risk-adjusted returns

Best for Manager Research - UK

Redington is an independent, employee-owned investment consultant to UK pension funds and other long-term savings institutions. A clear, framework-based approach allows consultants to totally focus on each client’s unique objectives and constraints in order to deliver better outcomes. Founded in 2006, Redington currently has £350bn in assets under consulting and 62 clients.

The manager research team’s goal is to know clients’ managers so well that they do not need to. It is vital that clients feel informed and in control, so their governance budget is better spent on the things that matter most.

The firm believes that beauty parades and drawn-out manager selection exercises are not the best way to appoint managers.

Over the past 18 months, Pete Drewienkiewicz and his team have redesigned Redington’s manager research process from scratch so it best meets the needs of clients. The new process streamlines the practice of both hiring and firing managers. This includes the development of high-conviction “Preferred Lists” across all strategies recommended to clients, use of a proprietary 10 factor screening process to select, assess and monitor managers and an early warning system (“Red Radar”) to flag important developments to both managers and clients. The firm adds that fund manager monitoring by consultants needs to go beyond performance and risk reporting, so it actually helps clients to anticipate issues and engage systematically with managers.

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The new process has impressed clients with the clarity and decisiveness of recommendations, with one commenting how unusual this is in the pension industry.

Redington Ltd Address: Austin Friars House, 2-6 Austin Friars, London EC2N 2HD Tel: 020 7250 3331 Web: www.redington.co.uk

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best FX Strategies - UK

CrescoCap MultiStrat Program

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CrescoCap provides Investment Advice to institutional and sophisticated professional investors seeking enhanced returns in alternative investment strategies, by offering a slate of Foreign Exchange (FX) strategies that are traded through Managed Accounts. Our philosophy at CrescoCap is to focus exclusively on the global currency markets and strive to provide a personalised service to our clients using accomplished and verified investment solutions, from our headquarters in London under the supervision of the FCA.

high net worth individuals seeking direct access to ‘Best-of-Breed’ strategies that are executed in transparent account structures.

Cresco Capital Management (UK) Ltd Address: 21 Arlington Street, London, SW1A 1RN Web: www.crescocap.com

By focusing exclusively on the global currency markets, our flagship program utilises a multi strategy approach to investing whilst diversifying risk across a spectrum of trading styles and crosses. Defined as being an Absolute Return program the different strategies employ techniques including short selling, as well as using leverage to improve the risk to reward profile. The CrescoCap Multi-Strat FX Program sources and allocates to a several external traders that provide stable returns trading unique strategies within a larger portfolio. This style of investing attempts to profit regardless of the market direction, by evaluating individual trading strategies on how they perform over the medium to long term. Based on their trading styles and strategy it is the trader skill that generates returns at a low correlation to benchmark indices.

At CrescoCap our ideology is to adopt an independent, dynamic and results-orientated culture with a flexible approach that transcends the traditional role of an investment advisor. We aim to develop a client base that includes institutions, fund of funds and

Risk Management Advisory Firm of the Year

Global Risk Management Advisors, Inc. (“GRMA”), is the leading risk management advisory and implementation firm that provides asset managers and institutional investors with complete, independent and institutional-quality investment risk management on a managed services basis.

GRMA has over 60 clients ranging in size from $50 million to $88 billion AUM with total client assets under advisory exceeding $125 billion.

For institutional investors, GRMA provides complete risk analysis, advisory and implementation solutions, for investment risk management in three key focus areas:

With an average of 25 years’ of front-line experience at top global financial and asset management institutions, GRMA has a team of well-recognized thought leaders and practitioners in risk management.

• Risk Measurement and Reporting – developing portfolio-wide risk measurement reporting that includes both liquid and illiquid investments and performance attribution and benchmarking.

What distinguishes GRMA from other risk service providers is that GRMA goes beyond just measuring risk: they help clients to better manage risks by fully addressing their clients internal and external risk management challenges and needs.

• Education and Sounding Board – providing education and training to the investment staff and the Board.

For asset managers, GRMA offers clients complete and cost-effective managed services for portfolio risk measurement, risk management and all risk-related regulatory and investor reporting. Specifically, GRMA assists Asset Managers in three primary areas:

• Risk Management Framework and Governance – including enhancing Investment Policy Statements, developing risk policy guidelines and improving risk management governance.

Global Risk Management Advisors, Inc. Phone: 212-230-1099 Web: www.grmainc.com Address: 299 Park Avenue, 6th Floor New York, New York, 10171 USA

• Risk Measurement and Risk Infrastructure Services – implementation of risk software/systems. Including risk measurement, reporting, monitoring and interpretation services.

• Risk Management Services – including hedging strategies, developing limits, risk policies and procedures, and risk governance.

• Risk-based Regulatory and Investor Reporting Services – (e.g., Form PF, CPO-PQR, CTA-PR, AIFMD/ESMA, OPERA).

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Award for Excellence in Small Hedge Fund Investing

90

Protégé Partners, LLC (“Protégé) focuses on investing in small established and select emerging hedge fund managers.

Protégé’s unique combination of tenured judgment, information advantages and world class risk management allows it to identify quality managers and put capital to work through arms-length, seed and tactical investments. In a constantly evolving industry, Protégé seeks to work side-by-side with institutional investors to help them address the challenges of building, executing and monitoring hedge fund portfolios.

Protégé utilizes its strategic core competencies to provide a range of solutions for the challenges faced by today’s investors. Key components of the Protégé Solutions model include Fund-of-One customized portfolios and A-S.P.N., the AltShare Private Network, a comprehensive front, middle, and back office technology platform which incorporates every aspect of the hedge fund investment process.

Protégé is headquartered in New York, NY with a research office in Singapore. As of 1/1/2015, the firm’s 32-person team managed approximately $2.1 B in assets on behalf of investors.

Protégé Partners Name: John D. Mackin, CFA, Senior Managing Director Address: 25 West 53rd Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10019 USA Website: www.protegepartners.com

Best for Swaps & Derivatives - Switzerland

LCJ Investments S.A.

LCJ Investments S.A. is the investment manager of the LCJ FX Strategy, a fundamental and discretionary global macro strategy expressing both directional and non-directional views on currencies.

LCJ is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and was founded in 2007 by Conor MacManus, Jonathan Tullett and Leonora Kerry Keane. The LCJ FX Strategy was launched in September 2007, and has returned 57% net since inception at an annualized volatility of 6.8%, with 2014 delivering 10.8% net.

The portfolio managers, Conor MacManus and Jonathan Tullett, have between them over 37 years of working in FX markets and conceived the strategy back when working together in the late 1990s.

The investment universe includes major currency pairs, non-traditional crosses, and emerging market currencies.

Utilising a wide and diverse range of market data and analysis, and extensive experience of FX Markets and FX Options, we identify medium-term and long-term themes, for which we seek to find attractive risk-reward opportunities within a well-defined risk and volatility mandate.

The Strategy invests using FX Options because it is our belief that the natural leverage and deleverage elements of these products provide a favourable risk-return profile and furthermore allow the Strategy to buy time for anticipated price behaviour to occur.

Since inception the Strategy has been managed through a variety of different economic and market conditions, and has

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consistently produced long term class-leading risk-adjusted returns utilizing a robust risk management framework.

LCJ Investments S.A. Address: 118 Rue Du Rhône, 1204 Geneva, Switzerland Website: www.lcjinvestments.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Quantitative Directional Futures Strategy - QM Directional Strategy

Quantmetrics

91

Quantmetrics was founded in 2003 by James Fowler and Dr Mushtaq Shah. They have a combined experience of nearly 50 years in quantitative investment management, and have been working together since 1997. Mr Fowler and Dr Shah are responsible for all investment management decisions taken at the firm, and remain heavily involved in the research process.

Quantmetrics is a boutique investment manager specialising in niche short term systematic strategies.

Quantmetrics offers two managed futures products to institutions via managed accounts (QM Premier 12V & QM Directional 10V) as well as an offshore fund (QM Multi Strategy) that has exposure to both products.

insensitive to overall market conditions and, therefore, useful in low volatility environments, as well as a reactive component. The average holding period is 20 hours, targeting a volatility of 10%.

Quantmetrics Capital Management LLP 1 Red Place, London, W1K 6PL Tel: +44 (0)20 75699300 Email: info@quantmetrics.com Website: www.quantmetrics.com

Each product uses statistical and econometric models to exploit small and temporary pricing discrepancies in the futures markets. We are cognisant of the drivers of the behavioural effects we try to exploit and employ a targeted approach to capture different opportunity sets at different times, including models designed to do well during times of crisis.

Our products benefit from high liquidity and a low correlation to both equities and bonds, giving an overall profile that seeks to generate steady returns in all market conditions and in particular during times of market crisis.

QM Directional 10V Launched in 2007, the QM Directional strategy trades futures across equity indices, government bonds, FX and commodities. It comprises a predictive strategy which is

Best Boutique European Equity Specialist

Verrazzano Capital

Verrazzano Capital was founded by Guillaume Rambourg (CIO) in October 2011. Guillaume employs the same strategies he co-managed at Gartmore Investment Management, where he worked from 1995-2010, co-managing equity long short portfolios, including AlphaGen Capella and AlphaGen Tucana. The firm invests in large and midcap European equities using fundamental analysis and active portfolio management.

Verrazzano manages two strategies. The Verrazzano European Opportunities Fund is more diversified employing lower gross and net market exposures and a part tactical/ part fundamental approach. It has an objective to deliver returns with lower volatility than, and low correlation to the equity market.

The Verrazzano European Focus Fund is a concentrated portfolio employing higher gross and net market exposures with a greater emphasis on core fundamental holdings, with a small element of tactical trading.

Verrazzano Capital SAS Address: 10 rue de Castiglione, 75001 Paris, France Phone: +33 (0) 1 53 57 33 60 Website: www.verrazzanocap.com

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best Hedge Fund Manager - Netherlands

92

Founded in 1977, Finles Capital Management is an independent (management-owned) dedicated investment consultancy and asset management boutique.

Regulated by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and the authority of Malta (MFSA), Finles is also registered with the SEC as an investment adviser under Section 203 (c) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 on the 2nd of October 2012.

Finles Capital Management

Finles Capital Management Email: info@finles.nl Web: www.finlescapitalmanagement.com Address: Euclideslaan 151, 3584 BS Utrecht, The Netherlands Tel: +31 30 2 974 935 Fax: +31 30 2 975 959

The firm and its experienced and dedicated staff are experienced in offering single manager, multi manager and passive (tracker) products and services to clients, including insurance companies, asset managers, wealth managers, family offices, private banks, investment banks and pension funds.

In addition to designing and implementing customised institutional mandates and products, Finles creates inhouse funds that are customised to the precise needs of its clients, the company also manages the Finles/IEX Dutch Hedge Fund Index.

The firm, which plays a key role in the Dutch fund management industry, has a presence in The Netherlands, Austria, Singapore and the UK and has agents in Switzerland, USA and Hong Kong.

Best in Discretionary Commodity Hedge Funds

AC Investment Management, LLC (ACIM) is a private New York-based investment advisor, specializing in focused niche fund of hedge funds.

Currently, the company manages two vehicles with a particular emphasis on active commodity strategies on a global basis. These vehicles include one dedicated to commodities and one dedicated to global power trading.

ACIM manages capital on behalf of institutional investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.

AC Investment Management, LLC

Investment Philosophy AC Investment Management’s hedge fund of funds products invest across the commodities spectrum, including agriculture, energy, softs, livestock, and metals.

AC Investment Management focuses on identifying the premier specialist traders in niche commodity markets.

Also critical is the identification of markets that are likely to provide future trading opportunities, as well as AUM appropriate for the underlying markets in which the managers trade. All trading is fundamental and discretionary.

The Fund of Funds products are actively managed and operate as a hybrid of single- and multi-manager products. AC Investment Management invests via an internal, separately managed account platform that provides a high level of transparency into the majority of the underlying funds. This allows for a significantly increased level of monitoring and risk management that is not possible in the traditional fund of funds methodology of investing in co-mingled hedge fund vehicles.

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AC Investment Management, LLC Email: info@acimfunds.com Web: www.acimfunds.com Address: 1350 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2300. New York, NY 10019 USA

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

93

Your Outsourced Business Partner Outsourcing | Consultancy | Investigations | Whistleblowing | Audit | Incorporation | Due Diligence | Training | Recruitment | Solutions

We will provide all our valued clients with the best experts, talents and technical resources delivering world class services and technical advice to ensure that we meet their needs, exceed their expectations and help them stay compliant.

Maintain proper Corporate Governance Ensure full Regulatory Compliance Manage your Risk Combat Financial Crimes Train & Certify your Employees Preserve your Reputation

Allied Compliance Consultants “ACC” City Tower 2, Level 16, South Wing, Suite: 1604 | Sheikh Zayed Road | P.O. Box 53962, Dubai, United Arab Emirates “UAE” Phone: +971 (4) 313 6900 | Fax: +971 (4) 313 6999 | Hotlines: +1 971 Call ACC (2255 222) / +971 (50) 724-6244 www.acquisition-intl.com www.acc-co.com | info@acc-co.com

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

94

Best for Commodity Strategies - UK

Established in 2007 by the two founding partners, JeanMarc Bonnefous and Bruno Syrmen, Tellurian Capital brings together exceptional track records and expertise in global commodity markets.

Tellurian Capital

Based in London, Tellurian Capital is responsible for the Tellurian Commodity Fund, the Tellurian Commodity Ascend strategy and a number of other discretionary, fundamentals-driven energy and commodity strategies with exposure to a diverse set of commodity markets, strong risk management background, and extensive commodities trading expertise over a long period of up and down markets.

We have a clearly defined investment process; a fully integrated and scalable commodity risk system and a strong focus on operations and controls.

Tellurian Capital Email: info@telluriancapital.com Web: www.telluriancapital.com Address: 22 Arlington Street (Ground Floor), SW1A 1RD, London Tel: 0207 0420 900

The Tellurian Investment Approach is based on a thorough fundamental analysis of the various commodity markets. The objective is to deliver consistent positive returns with limited downside risk. When constructing the portfolio, the manager identifies macro-economic themes as well as specific structural industry themes that can impact commodity price behaviour. There is a very strong risk management process in place to limit downside risk.

Trading decisions are discretionary and are based on fundamental research; supply/demand, production capacity and macro-economic factors supported by technical and analytical signals. Strategies must conform to the following rules: liquidity, transparency, moderate leverage and attractive risk adjusted return.

Best Placement Agent Michigan

REO Capital

Founded in 2009, REO Capital is a capital raising firm with over 75 years of combined experience and unique LP relationships with emerging managers across various types of private equity funds, venture capital funds and hedge funds.

REO Capital provides global capital raises for private equity funds, hedge funds and venture capital funds, seeking between US$100m and US$1bn in new capital, along with a host of other comprehensive services, such as CFO services, legal services, research data, executive HR services and advisory services.

The firm partners with the GPs so that it can co-invest with them into the funds it raises capital for, rather than just making introductions!

Offering the most comprehensive and vast distribution channels, the firm can assist with growth for emerging managers by branding their fund with over 30,000 registered investment advisory firms that manage over US$20tn in AUM for high net worth investors and institutions.

When interviewing a placement agent, REO Capital realises that the most important thing is not the number of capital raises completed, but rather the LP Investors they represent and whether or not those LPs are the best fit for your fund.

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REO Capital Name: John Denes Email: johndenes@reocapitalllc.com Web: www.reocapitalllc.com Address: 535 Griswold Street, Detroit, MI 48226 Tel: +1 248 313 9966

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Best for US Energy Infrastructure

Parker Global Strategies

95

Parker Global Strategies was founded by Managing Member and CIO, Virginia Reynolds Parker in 1995 to offer alternative investments to institutional clients across the globe. PGS specializes in Energy investments with a specific expertise in Master Limited Partnerships. We are a US-based, woman-owned firm with our energy track record commencing in July 2008.

Parker Global Strategies, LLC Name: Virginia Reynolds Parker Email: investorServices@parkerglobal.com Web: www.parkerglobal.com Address: 9 West Broad Street, Suite 300, Stamford, CT 06902 USA Tel: +1 203 358 4000 Fax: +1 203 358 4012

We have a Cayman fund and a UCITS fund for our active MLP strategy. In addition to the direct investment in energy infrastructure through Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), the firm has an investable MLP index and a number of multi-manager portfolios and indices involved in foreign exchange strategies.

We endeavor to apply our vision to identify important investment themes and to constructing cutting edge client solutions for gaining exposure and controlling risk. We are committed to growing and developing our strategies involving energy and US energy infrastructure (MLPs), as well as our index investment solutions for FX. Our strong history in a variety of specialized asset classes goes hand in hand with our commitment to adding significant value in addressing the investment needs of our clients.

Our firm’s investment process is based on a robust, cross-disciplinary approach, encompassing all key members from different areas of our firm. PGS uses a combination of top down and bottom up strategies, regularly monitors risk using state-of-the-art risk measurement techniques, and imposes a prudent set of checks and balances to ensure that each client’s portfolio runs properly.

Award for Excellence in Alternative Strategy Funds - South Africa

The perfect synergy: Edge combines world-class partnerships, a wealth of expertise and the like-minded pursuit of excellence to create a unique investment team that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Managing Director, Mike Kirsten explains more…

Edge is leading South Africa’s alternative investment industry through:

Edge Capital

independent managers who have the skills and ability to provide the building blocks for viable, sustainable and world-class investment solutions.

Edge seeks to partner and invest with managers who exhibit the following traits:

● Innovation: First-to-market with innovative products, Edge offers a fresh approach to the challenges that face the investment arena in South Africa.

• FSB registered as a hedge fund manager • Skill-based investment strategies (high alpha) • Strategies which are not dependent on market direction (low beta) • A proven track record • A sophisticated investment approach (employs all tools of modern finance) • Boutique teams • An alignment of interest (managers invest alongside their clients)

● Creation: We create innovative financial solutions by constantly adapting our products to the evolving investment environment – always keeping in mind that the preservation of wealth is as important as its creation.

With an understanding of the behavioural characteristics of the various alternative investment styles, we utilise several investment approaches to create a stable, lowrisk, robust absolute return vehicle.

● Diversification: Through an association with our international partners, we are able to provide our clients with access to a broader range of international opportunities in alternative assets and emerging markets.

Edge Capital Name: Mike Kirsten Email: edgeclientservices@edge.co.za Web: www.edge.co.za Address: Edge House, 3 Heuwelkruin Close, Durbanville, 7550, Cape Town, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 21 976 1012 Fax: +27 (0) 21 976 1096

Co-operation: We leverage our internal intellectual capital through partnerships with leaders in segmented disciplines to provide truly innovative, flexible and unique financial solutions.

We don’t believe that the entire complement of intellectual capital or expertise can exist within any one organisation. In pursuit of our investment goals, Edge selects

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

96

and the winners are...

Australia Aon Auscap Long Short Australian Equities Fund Avenir Capital Boronia Capital Pty Ltd Degraves Capital Management Degraves Global Diversified Program GMO Systematic Global Macro Goldleaf Australian Asset Management Limited JBS Investments International Advantage fund KIS Capital Partners LHC Capital Pty Ltd. Macquarie Asian Alpha Fund Merricks Capital Soft Commodities Fund Milestone Group Minter Ellison Monash Absolute Investment Fund Monash Absolute Return Fund (Wholesale Series) Pacific Fund Systems Ltd Sunsuper Tactical Global Management Limited Zen Capital Management Global Fund Austria 24FX Global Advisors Ltd. Graf Patsch Taucher Rechtsanwalte Qbasis i Trend Qbasis Invest SMN Investment Services Superfund Blue SPC Class A (Gold) Bahamas Coastal Partners Ltd. Deltec Bank & Trust Limited Deltec Select Fund Limited New Providence Income Fund Ltd Belgium Aphilion Q²

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Best for Insurance Due Diligence - Australia Best Long Short Equities Hedge Fund - Australia Best Absolute Return Hedge Fund Manager - Australia Best Short Term CTA - Australia Commodity Trading Advisor of the Year - Australia Best CTA/Managed Futures Hedge Fund - Australia Best Global Macro Hedge Fund - Australia Best Open-Ended Investment Hedge Fund - Australia Best Outperforming Event Driven Hedge Fund - Australia Emerging Absolute Return Management Firm of the Year - Australia Best Research Driven Investment Strategy - Australia Best Pan Asian Quantitative Market Neutral Hedge Fund - Australia Best Soft Commodities Hedge Fund - Australia Most Innovative Financial Software Firm - Australia Best Hedge Fund Law Firm - Australia Emerging Hedge Fund of the Year - Australia Best Long/short Equity Absolute Return Fund - Australia Hedge Fund Administration Platform of the Year - Australia Strongest Performing Super Hedge Fund - Australia Best for Global Tactical Asset Allocation Best Systematic Global Macro Hedge Fund - Australia

Currency Hedging Firm of the Year - Austria Hedge Fund Law Firm of the Year - Austria Best Systematic Managed Futures Strategy - Austria Alternative Investment Management Firm of the Year - Austria Independent Financial Services Firm of the Year - Austria Best Equity Market Neutral Hedge Fund - Austria

Best for Offshore Hedge Funds - Bahamas Emerging Portfolio Manager of the Year - Bahamas Hedge Fund of the Year - Bahamas Best Real Estate Mortgage Hedge Fund - Bahamas

Hedge Fund of the Year - Belgium

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

97

Bermuda AlphaCat Managers BNY Mellon Caritas Royalties Fund (Bermuda) Ltd Caritas Royalties Fund (Bermuda) Ltd Chobe Sub-Saharan Segregated Portfolio Copernico Capital Partners Equilibria Capital Management Ltd. Investmentimer Research Service Phoenix Legal Financing Fund I Phoenix Legal Financing Fund Prime Management The Laureola Investment Fund Brazil FAMA Investimentos Ltda.

POLO III FIC FIA SPX Capital Bulgaria Boyanov & Co BVI Antarctica Asset Management Culross Global Management Ltd. Folio Administrators Canada BULLWEALTH Agilith North American Diversified Fund LP AIP Global Macro Fund AlphaNorth Asset Management AlphaNorth Partners Fund AlphaNorth Partners Fund Amethyst Arbitrage Fund Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group DKAM Capital Ideas Fund LP Fiera Market Neutral Equity Fund Friedberg Asset Allocation JZAI Global Hedged Growth Fund KFL Capital Management McMillan Nimble Fund Nova Scotia Business Inc. PMAM Global Long Short Equity Fund PMAM Long Short Emerging Markets Fund Silvercove Fund Management Ltd The AlphaNorth Partners Fund Venator Partners Fund Cayman Islands Appleby Arosa Capital Management Market Neutral Fund Campbells Danesmead Partners Foundation China Opportunity Fund Income Partners All Seasons Macro Fund Kriya Capital (Cayman) Limited Longitude (Cayman) Ltd. LR Global LR Global Frontier Fund Mayar Fund Ltd. Parametrica Global Fund Qbasis i Trend Fund Solomon Harris Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund Walkers China DM Capital Quam China Focus SP

Best for Insurance Linked Securities - Bermuda Most Innovative Alternative Investment Services Firm of the Year - Bermuda Best Energy/Commodities Focused Offshore Hedge Fund Bermuda Best Oil and Gas Hedge Fund - Bermuda Best Sub-Saharan Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund Most Outstanding Equity Advisory - Bermuda Asset Manager of the Year - Bermuda Best Technical Analysis Service - Bermuda Most innovative Hedge Fund - Bermuda Legal Financing Hedge Fund of the Year - Bermuda Best Onshore & Offshore Hedge Fund Administrator - Bermuda Best Life Settlements Hedge Fund - Bermuda

Best Asset Management Firm - Brazil Best Event Driven Hedge Fund - Brazil Best Assed Manager - Brazil

Hedge Fund Law Firm of the Year - Bulgaria

Best Fund of Hedge Funds Manager - BVI Best BVI Domiciled Fund: Culross Global Fund Best Multi-Jurisdictional Offshore Hedge Funds Service Provider BVI

Best Alternative Investment Analysis Firm - Canada Long/Short Hedge Fund of the Year - Canada Best Macro Hedge Fund – Canada Best for Long-Term Equity Returns - Canada Best Investment Manager - Canada Best Small Cap Long Biased Hedge Fund - Canada Best Arbitrage Hedge Fund - Canada Best Equity Portfolio Manager - Canada Best Opportunistic Hedge Fund - Canada Best Pairs Trading Hedge Fund - Canada Best Multi-Strategy Global Macro Hedge Fund - Canada Best Performing Global Macro Hedge Fund - Canada 2015 Alpha Award: Best Commodity Trading Manager - Canada Best Financial Law Firm - Canada Best Newly Launched Small to Mid-Cap Hedge Fund - Canada Best Business Development Agency - Canada Best Global Long Short Equity Hedge Fund - Canada Best Long/Short Emerging Markets Hedge Fund - Canada Best Hard Asset Hedge Fund - Canada Equity-Focused Hedge Fund of the Year- Canada Best Newly Launched Bottom Up Hedge Fund - Canada

Best for Hedge Fund Disputes - Cayman Islands Best Newly Launched Energy Focused Hedge Fund - Cayman Islands Best Hedge Fund Law Firm- Cayman Islands Best Hedge Fund Formation & Structuring Firm - Cayman Islands Equity-Focused Hedge Fund of the year - Cayman Islands Fixed-Income Hedge Fund of the Year - Cayman Islands Best Performing Long/Short Fund (3 Years): Kriya China Fund Best Securities Investment Advisory - Cayman Islands Emerging Manager of the Year - Cayman Islands Frontier Markets Hedge Fund of the Year - Cayman Islands Best Global Equities Hedge Fund - Cayman Islands Best Performing Quantitative Hedge Fund - Cayman Islands Best Performing CTA Strategy - Cayman Islands Best Hedge Fund Structuring Law Firm - Cayman Islands Top 10 Performing Fund - Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund 2015 Alpha Award: Excellence in Hedge Fund Law - Cayman Islands

Most Outstanding Investment Research Firm - China Best Event-driven Hedge Fund - China

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

98

Colombia Andean Capital Management Cyprus The Elbrus Fund Limited Montanios & Montanios European Kames Finland Pohjola Property Management Ltd R2 Crystal Fund

Best Russian Focused Hedge Fund of the Year Best Hedge Fund Law Firm - Cyprus

European Fixed Income Manager of the Year

Asset Manager of the Year - Finland Best Fund of Hedge Funds - Finland

France Ag2r Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund Delta Alternative Management Diva Synergy UCITS Oddo AM Rivoli Equity Fund Rothschild HDF Investment Solutions Seven Absolute Return Fund Seven Capital Management Sycomore Asset Management Sycomore L/S Opportunities I Syquant Capital Tendance Finance Vatel Capital

Product Manager of the Year - France Best Systematic Hedge Fund - France Most Entrepreneurial Hedge Fund Manager - France Best Event Driven Hedge Fund - France Best Asset Management Team - France Best Equity Market Neutral Hedge Fund - France Best Funds of Hedge Funds - France Best UCITS Hedge Fund - France Best Absolute Return Hedge Fund Management Firm - France Most Outstanding Investment Boutique - France Best Directional Long / Short Hedge Fund - France Best Arbitrage Multi Strategy Hedge Fund - France Best Portfolio Management Firm - France Best Energy Focused Asset Manager - France

Germany Aquila Capital Metzler Asset Management GmbH Metzler Asset Management GmbH Portfolio Concept GmbH RP Crest GmbH RP Crest GmbH Trycon G. C. M. A G Tungsten Capital Management GmbH

Most Respected Hedge Fund Managers - Germany Best for Managed Futures - Germany Best Private Bank - Germany Best for All-Round Asset Solutions - Germany Award for Innovation in Alternative Beta Best for Volatility Risk Premium - Germany Best CTA Fund - Luxembourg (TUNGSTEN TRYCON Basic Invest HAIG) Best Fund Manager - Germany

Gibraltar Balkan Emerging Frontiers Fund Global Edge Limited Global Orangefield Columbus S C S Financial Soaring Pelican

Best Frontier Markets Hedge Fund - BVI Best Long/Short Hedge Fund - Gibraltar

Award for Excellence in Hedge Fund Technology Solutions & Best Fund Administrator – US Overall Credit Focused Hedge Fund - The GRK Master Fund LP Best Intrday Program - The Soaring Pelican Managed Futures program

Greece Dromeus Capital Management Papapolitis & Papapolitis

Greece Focused Alternative Asset Manager Best Fund Lawyers - Greece

Guernsey Legis Group Legis Group Lumiere Fund Services Limited Private Equity Administrators

Award for Innovation in Multi-Jurisdictional Fund Structuring Best Fund Administrator - Guernsey Best Investment Administration Services - Channel Islands Best in Global Boutique Fund Administration

Hong Kong Adamas Asset Management AFC Asia Frontier Fund AFC Vietnam Fund Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. Wolver Hill Asset Management Asia Limited Central Asset Investments Central Asset Investments Colliers International D’Aguilar Capital Management Limited Enhanced Investment Products Limited Foundation Asset Management Limited Gen2 Partners Limited Greenwoods Asset Management Income Partners Asset Management (HK) Ltd.

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Most Outstanding Alternative Asset Management Firm - Colombia

Best Alternative Asset Manager - China Best Performing Asian Frontier Markets Fund Best Performing Equities Fund - Vietnam Award for Sustained Excellence in Frontier Markets Best Asia Pacific Equity Fund: AFC Asia Frontier Fund Best Asian Micro-Cap Fund: AFC Vietnam Fund Best Japan Focused Multi-Strategy Fund of Funds Best Asia-Focused Multi-Strategy Investment Firm Top Multi-Strategy Fund China: CAI Global Fund Best in Hedge Fund Real Estate - Hong Kong Best Asian Focused CTA - Hong Kong Best Non-Correlated Alpha Products - Hong Kong Best Single Manager - China Best for Customised Asian Hedge Funds Best for Greater China Equities Investment Best Asia Fixed Income Asset Manager

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

99

Income Partners Asset Management (HK) Ltd. Kriya Capital (Cayman) Limited Kriya Capital (Cayman) Limited KS Asia Absolute Return Fund IC LBN Advisers Limited MSCI One Space Orchid China Master Fund Parametrica Management Limited Pinpoint China Fund Progressive Global Investment Advisor Ltd Sidley The LBN China+ Opportunity Fund Trading Screen India ARA Law Malabar India Fund Malabar Investments Redart Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd Ireland Credit Suisse Administration Services Diversified Dynamic Solutions Fund DMS Offshore Investment Services KB Associates Offshore Fund Consulting KB Associates Offshore Fund Consulting KPMG KPMG Lyxor Asset Management Lyxor Asset Management Lyxor Epsilon Managed Futures Fund ML Capital Oristan Ireland Limited Oristan Ireland Limited Pricewaterhouse Coopers Pricewaterhouse Coopers Setanta Asset Management Ltd Isle of Man MannBenham Advocates Japan Atlantis Investment Management Atlantis Investment Management Croesus Capital Mori Hamada & Matsumoto Rogers Investment Advisors Wolver Hill Japan Multistrategy Offshore Fund Lebanon PMB Audit Service Silver Arrow Management Silver Arrow Management Liechtenstein AIM Capital AIMhedge Management Limited Lithuania MC Wealth Management Motieka & Audzevicius Luxembourg Bonn Steichen & Partners Brucher Thieltgen & Partners Carlisle Management Company Luxembourg Life Fund: Long Term Growth TreeTop TreeTop Convertible International A EUR Trycon G. C. M. A G Malta Fenech & Fenech Advocates GANADO Advocates Level E Capital SICAV plc Valletta Fund Services

Best Performing Macro Fund (1 Year) - Hong Kong Best Asian Start-Up Fund Best Performing Long/Short Fund (3 Years): Kriya China Fund Best Multi-Strategy Fund - Asia Best in China Related Securities Best for Hedge Fund Performance Analytics Best for Combined Architecture & Technology Solutions in Financial Services Best Overall China Hedge Fund Best in Arbitrage - Hong Kong Overall Chinese Fund : Pinpoint China Fund Best Asia CTA Strategy Best Asia Investment Funds Practice Best Performing Equity Long Short Fund - China Best for Hedge Fund Investment Technology

Best Hedge Fund Law Firm - India Best Returns Since Inception Best for Small-Cap Indian Investments Best Value Oriented Investment Management Firm - India

Best Hedge Fund Administrator - Ireland Best Global Macro Fund - Ireland Award for Excellence in AIFMD Strategy Award for Innovation in Fund Establishment Offshore Fund Consultants of the Year - Ireland Best for Irish domiciled UCITS Best for Hedge Fund Audit & Assurance - Ireland Award for Innovation in Trend Identification Best Managed Futures (Ireland): Epsilon Managed Futures Fund Best CTA - Systematic Best UCITS Platform Provider Award for Excellence in Structured Credit Products Best Fixed Income Fund: BK Opportunities Fund Best in Financial Services Risk Management - Ireland Best for AIFMD Advice - Ireland Best Asset Manager - Ireland

Best in Hedge Fund Litigation - Isle of Man

Best Asia Focused Independent Investment Boutique Best Global Healthcare Fund: Atlantis China Healthcare Fund Best Absolute Return Fund (Cayman Islands): Croesus Absolute Return Fund Best Asset Management Law Firm - Japan Best Hedge Fund Due Diligence - Japan Best Japan Focused Multi-Strategy Fund of Funds

Best for Hedge Fund Audit & Assurance - Lebanon Best Discretionary Macro Hedge Fund (Cayman Islands) : Future Trends Capital Fund Best Fund Manager - Lebanon

Best Asset Manager - Liechtenstein Best for Managed Futures

Best for HNWI Wealth Solutions - Lithuania Investment Funds Law firm of the Year - Lithuania

Best European Investment Funds Law Firm Best Financial Services Law Firm - Luxembourg Best Fund Manager - Luxembourg Best European Long Term Growth Fund Award for Excellence in Hedge Fund Risk Management Best Performing Equity & Convertible Bond Fund - Luxembourg Best CTA Fund - Luxembourg (TUNGSTEN TRYCON Basic Invest HAIG)

Personal Award: Best Investment Fund Lawyer - Malta Hedge Fund Law Firm of the Year - Malta Best Market Neutral Fund - Malta Best Full-Service Fund Services Provider - Malta

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

100

Mauritius Intercontinental Trust Ltd. Mexico Centurion Fund Internacional de Capitales SA de CV Morocco Global Edge Limited Netherlands Altreva Finles Lotus Fund Finless HiQ Invest B.V. Hof Hoorneman Bankiers N.V. Saemor Capital New Zealand MGH Asset Management MGH Investment Fund Limited Strategic Capital Services Limited Norway Ferd Puerto Rico X-Square Alternative Dividend Alpha Fund X-Square Capital, Inc. Russia Copperstone Alpha Fund Europe Finance Seychelles Seaside Investment Management Ltd. Singapore Athenaeum Asian Equities Fund Censere Group Chiliogon Asia Pte Ltd GCI Investment Management Singapore Pte. Ltd GCI Japan Hybride Millennia Investment Management Ltd MNJ Asia-Pacific Absolute Return Fund MNJ Capital Management Pte. Ltd. Monterey Capital Management Pte Ltd Monterey Japan Equity Fund Pangolin Investment Management Pte. Ltd. SFP Value Realization Fund Ltd Swiss-Asia Financial Services Pte Ltd. Swiss-Asia Financial Services Pte Ltd. Symphony Financial Partners Co., Ltd. South Africa 36ONE Asset Management 36ONE Asset Management Capricorn Capital Group Edge Capital Laurium Capital Lighthouse Fund Maitland Fund Servic Maitland Group Novare Investments Rand Merchant Bank Prime Broking Skybound Capital The Chobe Long/Short Fund Spain Fonditel Gestion TrueAlpha Capital Management TrueAlpha Capital Management Sweden Merrant Fonder AB Merrant Fonder AB Merrant Fonder AB

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Best Hedge Fund Advisory Firm - Mauritius

Best Mexico Focused Hedge Fund (10 Years) Best Multi strategy Approach to Investing - Mexico

Best Trading Manager - Morocco

Best for Agent-Based Market Simulation Models - The Netherlands Best European Emerging Market Focused Fund of Fund Best Hedge Fund Manager - Netherlands Best Dutch Market Neutral Fund - HiQ Invest Market Neutral Fund Best in Distressed Debt - Hoorneman Phoenix Fund Best in Equity Market Neutral - Saemor Capital Europe Alpha Fund

Best Investment Management Firm - New Zealand Best Equity Biased Long Only Fund - Cayman Islands Best Hedge Fund Marketer -Asia/Australasia

Best Norwegian Hedge Fund Portfolio

Best Puerto Rico Fund Best Asset Manager - Puerto Rico

Best Russian Fund ( Since Inception) Best Hedge Fund Start-Up Services - Russia

Best Investment Manager - Seychelles

Best Singapore Hedge Fund & Best Family Office Advisory Firm - Singapore Best Financial Valuation & Advisory Services - Asia Pacific Best Exempt Fund Manager - Singapore Best for Fixed Income Investments - Singapore Best Multi-Strategy, Japan Focused Fund Best Investment Management Firm - Singapore Best Asian Quantitative Fund Award for Innovation in Quantitative Strategy Award for Sustained Excellence in Risk Management - Singapore Best Japan-Focused Equity Hedge Fund Best Asia Focused Long Term Value Fund Manager Best Performing Equity Long Only Fund (3 Years) - Singapore Award for Excellence & Innovation in Start-Up Hedge Funds Best Hedge Fund Platform - Asia Pacific Personal Award: Best Fund Manager - Singapore

Best South African Equity Fund: 36ONE Hedge Fund Sustained Excellence in Asset Management - South Africa Best Hedge Fund Team - South Africa Award for Excellence in Alternative Strategy Funds - South Africa Best Alternative Asset Manager- South Africa Best Multi-Strategy, Low Volatility Fund - South Africa Best Hedge Fund Administrator - South Africa Best Family Office Services - South Africa Best Africa Focused Investment Managers Best Prime Broking Services - South Africa Best Fund Management Firm - South Africa Best Long/Short Equity Fund (5 Years) - South Africa

Best for Tail Risk Hedging - Spain Best for Uncorrelated Proprietary FX Strategies - Spain Best Spanish Open-End Hedge Fund - True Alpha Global Currency Fund

Best Market Neutral FOHFÂ - Sweden Best Market Neutral Fund of Funds Solutions- Sweden Personal Award: Best Portfolio Manager - Sweden

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

101

Nordkinn Asset Management Nordkinn Asset Management Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund NOK B Peak Partners Kapitalforvaltning AB Peak Partners Kapitalforvaltning AB Peak Partners Kapitalforvaltning AB Peak Partners Kapitalforvaltning AB QQM Fund Management AB RAM Rational Asset Management Rhenman Partners Switzerland 1741 SIF Diversified Trends Alix Capital Amplitude Capital AG Argentiere Capital Banque Heritage BCM & Partners BCM & Partners SA BCM & Partners SA Bellevue Asset Management Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Private Banking Alternative Investments Credit Suisse SICAV One (Lux) Da Vinci Invest Deep Field Capital Edesia Asset Management Eleuthera Capital Future Trade AG Future Trade AG Future Trade AG Galileo Natural Resources Fund GL Funds AG Grand Haven Capital Hedgegate Herculis Partners Aries Fund Herculis Partners SA Hinder Asset Management LCJ Investments SA lecocqassociate lecocqassociate LGT Capital Partners Medicis Multiplicity Partners AG Niggli Rechtsanwaelte Notz, Stucki Europe SA. Odyssey Analytic Odyssey Analytic SA Odyssey Green Planet Fund Progressive Capital Partners Quaesta Capital Quaesta Capital A G Street Reichmuth Matterhorn 24 Sidewinder Investment AG Skenderbeg Alternative Investments AG Skenderbeg Alternative Investments AG Skenderbeg Fund Steppen Wolf Capital SwissAnalytics SwissDirekt Syrio LTD Systematic Absolute Return AG Systematic Absolute Return AG TCA Asset Management Twelve Capital UBS Turkey Strateji Securities Strateji Securities

Best Large Nordic Fixed Income Macro Fund - Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund Best Single Hedge Fund Manager - Sweden Best Nordic Fixed Income Fund - Nordkinn Fixed Income Macro Fund Best Market Neutral Fund-of-Funds- Peak Core Hedge Best Product Launch in Sweden - Peak Core Strategies Multi-Family Office & Asset Management Firm - Sweden Best Product Launch in Sweden - Peak Core Strategies Best Systematic Equity Market Neutral Fund - QQM Equity Hedge - Sweden & Best Nordic Equity Focused Hedge Fund Best Global L/S Equity Hedge Fund - RAM ONE Top Nordic Equity Focused Hedge Fund

Diversified Strategy Fund of the Year - Switzerland Best Regulated Alternative Investment Boutique - Switzerland Best for Systematic CTA Programs - Switzerland Best for Equity Volatility Strategies - Switzerland Best Fund of Hedge Funds - Heritage Long Short Equity - Switzerland Swiss Multi-Strategy Asset Management Firm Best for Alternative Investment Fund Management - Switzerland Top Performing Fund: DUEMME SICAV: C-QUADRAT Euro Investments Plus Best for Managing Equity Vehicles - Switzerland & Best Alternative UCITS Global Macro Fund - BB Global Macro Best for Liquidity Monitoring - Europe Best for Product Development - Switzerland Small & Mid Cap Long/Short Fund - Switzerland Best in Swiss Event Driven Investment - Da Vinci K2 Tachyon Fund & Best Swiss CEO Best European Systematic Asset Manager & Award for Excellence in Liquid Futures Best for Alternative Investment Products - Switzerland Best Investment Solutions Provider - Switzerland Best CTA Trading Strategy - Thales Swing Trading Programme Best Swiss Commodity Trading Advisor Best Commodity Pool Operator - Switzerland & Best for Trading Commodity Futures.

Best for Equity & Equity Related Securities - Galileo Natural Resources Fund Best Multi-Strategy Fund of Funds - Switzerland & Best Long-Only Products Manager - Switzerland Best Independent Asset Manager - Switzerland Best Swiss Funds of Hedge Funds Database Best Swiss Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Hercules Partners Aries Fund Best Swiss Alternative Investment Boutique Best Dualistic Portfolio Concept - Arena funds Global Macro Best for Swaps & Derivatives - Switzerland Best Structuring & Licensing Law Firm - Switzerland Market Leader: Hedge Funds Legal Practice of the Year - Switzerland Best Asset Management Group - Switzerland Risk/Return Focused Independent Asset Management Boutique - Switzerland Secondaries Advisers of the Year - Switzerland Most Trusted Law Firm for Asset Management - Switzerland Best for Manager Selection Award for Innovation in Socially Responsible Investments Best Socially Responsible Investment Vehicle - Odyssey Green Planet Fund Best Thematic Long/Short Equity Fund - Malta Best Asset Manager for Collective Investment Schemes - Switzerland Best Swiss Long/Short FX Volatility Strategy - FX v-Pro Best Swiss Fundamental Multi-Asset Class Strategy - Global Opportunities & Best in Currency & Macro Management - Switzerland Best Swiss Credit Focused Fund of Hedge Fund- Reichmuth Matterhorn 24 Best in Energy Commodities Trading - Switzerland Most Innovative FoHF - The SkĂŤnderbeg Fund Best New FoHF Company - Switzerland Best New coming Fund of Hedge Fund - Liechtenstein Best Swiss-based Multi Manager Multi Fund Investment Company Best for Hedge Fund Due Diligence - Switzerland Best Conservative Trading System - The Auctus strategy Best for Calibrated Systematically Traded Global Macro Strategies - Switzerland Best for Research-Driven Investment - Switzerland Top Absolute Return Strategy -Switzerland Best Multi-Boutique Asset Manager - Switzerland Best in Insurance Linked Securities & Best Insurance Linked Strategy Fund - Twelve Falcon ILS Fund Best for Single Manager Offerings & Best for Fund of Hedge Funds Business - Switzerland

Best Long Only Equity Fund: Strateji Long Only Turkish Equity Fund Best Long short Stratejii Long/Short Turkish Equity Fund

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

102

UAE Dalma Capital Management Ltd. UK ADG Capital Management LLP Agora Search & Selection Alken Asset Management Altera Partners Management, Ltd. Alternative Soft Armstrong Investment Managers LLP (AIM) Aspect Capital Atlantis Investment Management Barclays Beach Horizon BGB Weston Blue Bay Asset Management Cardwell Investment Technologies Castellain Capital LLP Castellain Value Fund Clearance Capital Connexion Capital Cresco Capital Management (UK) Ltd CrescoCap Multi Strat Program Cube Capital Culross Global Dacharan Capital Dalton Strategic Partnership LLP Deutsche Bank dbSelect Deutsche Bank Fund Services Dragon Associates Earth Capital Partners LLP. Ebullio Capital Management Ecofin Limited Ecofin Limited Energy Alpha Strategies Eze Castle Integration F&C Thames River F&C Thames River Farema Capital LLP Farema Capital LLP Farley & Thompson Financial Risk Management Finex LLP Finex LLP Finex LLP Finex LLP Finex Navigator FolioMetrics FundNAV Futures Techs Gatemore Capital Management Genus Natural Resources Fund Global Advisors Global Perspectives GlobalPrimePartners GMO LLC Hardy Financial Headstart Advisers Ltd. Headstart Advisers Ltd. HeadStart Fund of Funds Hedge Guard Hume Brophy Independent UCITS Platform Insparo Asset Management Islandbridge Capital Limited Jackdaw Capital Jackdaw Capital LLP Jackdaw Capital LLP Jackdaw Capital LLP Jaguar Investments Limited Karroo Capital Kriya Capital (Cayman) Limited Kuvera Capital Partners L C F Rothschild Asset Management Limite Leadenhall Capital Partners London and Capital Investment Advisors Inc. London Diversified Fund Management

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Best for Quantitative Investment Modelling - UAE

2015 Alpha Award: Best Investment Management Boutique - UK Best for Investment Banking Search and Selection - UK Best for European Equity Best for Discretionary Portfolios - UK Best for Analytical Investment Solutions - UK Best Fully Integrated Asset Management for HNI Best Momentum-Based Investment Strategy (the Aspect Diversified Programme) Top Perfuming Fund - Atlantis China Healthcare Fund Best for Operational Due Diligence - UK Best Systematic Fund Manager - UK Best in Clean Energy Alternative Investment - UK Best for Fixed Income Products - UK Best in the Futures Market - UK Award for Excellence in Value Investing Best Performing Niche Hedge Fund (5 years) Best for European Real Estate Capital Markets Best for Emerging Markets Hedge Funds - UK Best FX Strategies - UK Award for Innovation in Emerging Programs Best Independent Alternatives Boutique - UK Best Boutique FoHF Manager - UK Best for High Frequency G10 Spot (cash) FX Strategies - UK Best Long-short Fund - Melchior Selected Trust European Absolute Return Fund Best UK Managed Accounts Platform Best Alternative Fund Administrator - UK Best in Hedge Fund Marketing - UK Best Responsible Investor - UK Best New Newcomer - Ebullio Far East Commodity Futures Fund Top Performing Long/Short Equity Fund - Ecofin Vista Long/Short Master Fund Limited Global Utility Investment Firm - UK Best Hedge Fund Focused Family Office Investment Firm - UK Best for IT Solutions & Private Cloud Services - UK Best Market-Neutral Equity Fund - UK (F&C Real Estate Equity Long/Short Fund) Best UK Fund Manager Best Equity Asset Management Company - UK Best UK Investment Approach - Farema European Fund Most Trusted Discretionary Portfolio Managers - UK Best for Open-Architecture Hedge Fund & Alpha Strategy Solutions - UK Award for Innovation in Exchange Traded Futures Best for Risk Allocation - Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC - UK Best for Technical Analysis Methods - UK Top Performing Fund : Finex Navigator Futures Fund (UCITS IV) Best Emerging New Fund (1 Year) - Malta Best Tailored Alternative Investment CRM Solutions Best Hedge Fund Accounting Software - UK Best Technical Analysis for Futures Market - UK Best Outsourced Chief Investment Officer - UK Best Natural Resources Focused Fund - UK Best Offshore Fund: Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund Best for Asset Management Consulting - UK Best European Prime Brokerage Top Performing Fund: GMO Global Real Return (UCITS) Fund Best for Hedge Fund Front Office Requirements - UK Award for Commitment to Hedge Fund Transparency Best Global Diversified Multi-Strategy Fund of Hedge Funds - UK Best Diversified Fund of Hedge Funds - UK Best Risk Management Software- UK Best for Investor Relations - UK Best European UCITS Platform Best Frontier Markets Fund: Insparo African Equity Fund Best Emerging Market Focused Fund - Island bridge Multi Manager Fund Best Relative Value Fund Manager - UK Best Asset Manager for Real Estate Securities - UK Best Market Neutral Fund Manager - UK Best UCITS Fund: The Jackdaw Real Estate Fund Best Commodity Investment Manager - UK Best Specialist Placement Agent - UK Best Asian Start-Up Fund Best India Long-Short Strategy - UK Top Performing Fund of Hedge Fund: Prifund Alpha Diversified ($) Cl. A Best for Insurance Linked Investments Portfolio Investment - UK Best Asset Management Team - UK Best for Diversified Fund Management - UK

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

103

Martin Currie European Long/Short Martin Currie Inc Martin Currie Japan Alpha Matterhorn Investment Management LLP Mercer Merrill Corporation Milltrust International Group Milltrust International Group ML Capital Mulvaney Capital Management Murano Systems Limited Nikko Asset Management Europe Ltd North MaxQ Macro Fund Oesa Limited Old Park Capital Limited Otus Capital Managment Pairstech Capital Management LLP Platinum All Star Platinum Capital Management Plurimi Investment Managers Plurimi Investment Managers Portland Hill Capital LLP Prodigy Capital Partners, LLP PROFILE Software PVE Capital LLP PVE Capital LLP PwC Quality Capital Management, Ltd. QuantMetrics Capital Management Quotidian Investments LLP Record Currency Management Limited Redington RMCAS Ltd RMG Wealth Management LLP RWC Partners S.W.Mitchell Capital LLP S.W.Mitchell Capital LLP Schulenburg Capital Securis I Fund Sequoia Capital Fund Management LLP Serone Capital Management Serone Capital Management LLP. Simmons & Company International Simmons & Simmons Slater Investments Slater Investments Spinnaker Asset Management Spinnaker Capital Limited Stenham Asset Management Inc. Stratton Street Capital LLP Stratton Street Capital LLP Street Sussex Partners UK Limited Tellurian Capital ManagementLLP Ten Intelligence The ECU Group plc The ECU Group plc Tufton Oceanic Ltd Verrazzano Capital Walkers Walkers Global Watson Wheatley US Virgin Islands James River Capital Corp.

USA 400 Capital Management A H Williams & Co. LP AC Investment Management, LLC AC Investment Mgmt LLC Accretive Capital Accretive Capital Partners, LLC Accretive Capital Partners, LLC Accretive Capital Partners, LLC Adaws Capital LLC Adaws Eagle Fund, LP AFEX (Associated Foreign Exchange)

Best Equity Hedge Alternative UCITS Fund Active Equity Specialists of the Year Best Japan-Focused UK Fund (1 Year) Best Emerging Market Hedge Fund.

Best Alternatives Boutique - UK Best Virtual Data Room Provider for Hedge Funds - UK Best Emerging Markets Investment Group - UK Most Innovative Trading Platform: EMMA UCITS Best UK Launch : Montlake UCITS Platform Best UK Managed Futures Program - The Mulvaney Capital Global Diversified Program Best Support Aid in Hedge Funds: Chromic RSP Best of Breed Platform of the Year - UK Best Discretionary Global Macro Fund (3 Years) Best for Regulation Advice for Alternative Asset Managers- UK Best for Managed Futures: The Maestro Managed Futures Strategy - UK 2015 Alpha Award: Maga Smaller Companies Fund Best CTA/Managed Futures Fund ( Malta) : The J8 Futures Fund Best Diversified Fund of Hedge Fund (Since Inception) Best Family-Run Investment Firm Best for Top-Down Macro Allocation Global Macro Manager of the Year - UK Best Catalyst-Driven Strategy - Offshore Fund Top Performing UCITS Fund - Prodigy Asia & Emerging Markets Fund Best Technology Solutions for Portfolio Management Best Multi-Strategy Fund Manager - UK Recommended Credit Fund: Total Return Credit Fund Best Hedge Funds Advisory - UK Top Global Macro Hedge Fund Manager - UK Best Quantitative Directional Futures Strategy - QM Directional Strategy Best UK Balanced Fund - The Quotidian Fund PCC PLC Best for Risk-reducing Hedging - UK Best for Manager Research - UK Award for Innovation in Futures & Equities Best FX Strategy: RMG FX Strategy Best Portfolio Management Team - UK Top UK Hedge Fund : The Charlemagne Fund European Equities Investment Manager - UK Award for Best in Class Financial Solutions - UK Best Open-Ended Insurance Focused Fund ( Caymans) - Securis I Fund Best for Short Term Derivatives & FX Spots Trading Opportunities - UK Best in Specialised Credit - Key Opportunities Fund ( Caymans) Specialist Credit Asset Manager of the Year - UK Best Oil Service Equity Research Team - UK Most Outstanding Full Service Hedge Fund Law Firm Best for UK Equities - Northglen Aggressive ( Caymans) Best Small Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund - Cayman Islands Best for UK Corporate Credit: Spinnaker Global Opportunity Fund No1 in Emerging Markets Investment Management.

Best for Absolute Return Portfolios - UK Best for Japanese Equity: Japan Synthetic Warrant Fund Best for Asian Fixed Income Bonds: Renminbi Bond Fund Most Trusted in Manager Selection - UK Best for Commodity Strategies - UK Best for Due Diligence - UK Best for Currency Management Services Best Global Macro Advisory Team - UK Best for Maritime Fund Management - UK Best Boutique European Equity Specialist Hedge Choice Award: Best for British Virgin Islands Law Best for Trusts - UK Best Reconciliation & Data Aggregation Software - UK

2015 Alpha Award: Best for Alternative Investment - Virginia

Best Structured Credit Asset Management Firm - New York Best for Municipal Bond Trading - USA Best in Discretionary Commodity Hedge Funds Best in Discretionary Commodity Hedge Funds Best Long-Term, Value Added Wealth Manager - USA Best for Long-Term Performance - Active Value Fund Best Long-Term, Value Added Wealth Manager - USA Best Long-Term, Value Added Wealth Manager - USA Award for Innovation in Wealth Creation - Washington Best Long/Short Equity Strategy - Washington Best for Global Payment & Risk Management Solutions - New York

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

104

Agecroft Partners Agecroft Partners AGR Master AllianceBernstein Alpha Theory Alphamega Diversified Fund LP Altegris Investments Alternative Investment Group, LLC Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP Apache Capital Arbiter Partners Capital Management, LLC Arbiter Partners LP Archway Arosa Capital Management Arthur Bell CPAS ATFX Atlantic Capital Advisors LLC Atlantic Trust Atlantic Trust Atrevida Partners Aurora Investment Management L.L.C. Aurora Investment Management L.L.C. Avenue Capital Group Avenue Multi-Manager Strategy Backstop Solutions Group Barge Consulting-SCA Compliance Bayou City Capital, LP Bija Capital Management Bluegrass Capital Management BNY Mellon Capital Markets, LLC Bogan Associates Bowery Investment Management, LLC Brar Investment Capital LLC Bridgewater Bristol Capital Advisors Brittany Global Fund, LP Brookdale Equity Long/Short Fund, L.P. Brown Brothers Harriman Browning Search Group Buckley Capital Partners Caddo Capital Management Canid Asset Management, LLC Caravel Management Clinamen Financial Group LLC Cobra Legal Solutions LLC Cobra Legal Solutions LLC CohnReznick Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP Command Capital Management, L.L.C. Compass Strategic Investments, LLC Connotate Conquest Capital Group LLC Convergence Capital Management Group, LLC Convergence Capital Partners Fund I, LP Cornerstone Acquisition & Management Company LLC Cornerstone Acquisition & Management Company LLC Cornerstone Acquisition & Management Company LLC Corsair Capital Management Corsair Capital Management, LLC County Cork LLC Covenant Capital Management Covenant Capital Management Crawford Fund Management Crystal Tower Advisors, LLC CurAlea Associates LLC Cypress Energy Cypress Energy Capital Mgmt, LP Diversified Capital Management Dix Hills Partners Doherty Advisors DUNN Capital Management, LLC e360 Power LLC EACM Advisors Eaglewood Capital Management Eaglewood Capital Management

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Overall Hedge Fund Marketing Firm Overall Hedge Fund Marketing Firm Best Commodity Hedge Fund - USA Best Asset Manager - USA Best Portfolio Management Platform - New York Best Newly Launched Hedge Fund - California Best for Portfolio Diversification - California Best for Small & Early Stage Hedge Funds Best US Hedge Fund Accountancy Firm Best Hedge Fund Auditors - New York Best in Fixed Income Arbitrage - USA Best Hedge Fund Sponsor - New York Best Long-Short Hedge Fund (3 Years) Best Technology Platform for Hedge Funds - USA Energy Fund Focused Investment Advisory of the Year - New York Best Hedge Fund Accounting Services Provider - Maryland Best for Currency Investment Strategy & Portfolio Management Best for Asset Management - New Jersey Best for Private Wealth Management - Georgia Award for Excellence in HFoF Risk Management Best in Funds-of-Hedge Funds - New York Award for Sustained Excellence in Hedge Funds Innovators in High-Quality, Multi-Manager Portfolios Best in Distressed Debt - New York Best Event-Driven Fund of Hedge Fund (Since Inception) Best CRM Software Suites for Investment Managers - USA Best for 40 Act Compliance Services & Consulting Best in Futures & Options Trading - USA Best Newly Launched Global Macro Fund - USA (Bija Global Macro Fund) & Commitment to Transparency Award - USA Overall Emerging Manager of the Year Best for ETF Services - USA Award for Excellence in Biosciences Investing Best in Niche Distressed Investments - New York Personal Award - Best Money Manager Best Overall Portfolio Manager Best Hedge Fund Advisor - California Best Long-Term Performance Equity Fund Best Defensive Sector Focused Fund Highly Rated in Hedge Fund Administration Services - USA Best Hedge Fund Recruitment Firm - USA Best Value & Special Situation Focused Long/Short Equity Fund Best Commodity Trading Advisor - California Best Boutique Value Hedge Fund - California Best in Beyond–BRIC Emerging and Frontier Markets -USA Best Volatility Arbitrage & Hedging Strategies - New York Best for Document Review & Management Solutions - USA Best for Hedge Fund Compliance- Texas Best Hedge Fund Accountancy Firm - New York Best Investment Fund Lawyer - USA Best Comprehensive Financial Services Firm - Illinois Best Absolute Return Program: Custom Alpha Bond Investment Program - Minnesota Best for Web Data Extraction & Monitoring Solutions Best Systematic CTA Replication Strategy Best Emerging New Manager - USA Best Performing Absolute Return Fund (1 Year) - California Best Energy/Commodities Hedge Fund Portfolio Manager – USA Best Energy/Commodities Hedge Fund – USA Best Energy/Commodities Offshore Hedge Fund – Bermuda Best Value Orientated Investment Firm - New York Best Value Orientated Investment Firm - New York Best US CTA Managed Account - Ag Long/Short Program Best for Risk Adjusted Returns - USA Most Innovative CTA - USA Best Long/Short fund Manager - Massachusetts Best US Short Term Futures Program - CRYSTAL TOWER FUTURES (CTF) Best for Risk Management - New Jersey Best Discretionary Energy Commodity Hedge Fund Natural Gas Trading Firm of the Year Best US Enhanced Fixed Income Strategy - Alpha Return Enhanced Fixed Income Program Best in Global Interest Rate Specialists Best Single Sector CTA Best Multi-Advisor Fund (Insurance Dedicated Fund) Award for Innovation in US Energy Trading Best Portfolio Allocation Manager - USA Best in Online Lending Strategies - New York Best in Online Lending Strategies - New York

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

105

Eddystone Funds Eden Arc Capital Management LLC Elazar Advisors, LLC Elmbank Capital EMC Episteme Capital Partners Equinox Funds Espial Capital Esulep Management Esulep Management Everest Capital Flatiron Partners LLC Florio, Scally & Leahy LLP Floyd Capital Management LLC Forex Capital Markets, LLC Frontaura Capital LLC Frumerman & Nemeth Inc Fund Tax Services LLC Gallery Capital Management GalNet Asset Management, LLC Global Fund Exchange Global Risk Management Advisors Global Sigma Group, LLC Global Trading Analytics, LLC Globe Tax Services Inc. GNE Management, LLC Goldstein Capital Golub Capital Gondor Capital Management, LLC Gordian Compliance Graham Capital Mgmt., L.P. Grand Slam Asset Management Grandmaster Capital Management Greenberg Traurig GreenLake Capital Ltd. GrizzlyRock Capital GrizzlyRock Capital GRK Partners GRK Partners Master Fund Hangar 4 Partners, LLC Harvest Fund Advisors LLC Healthcare Value Capital Heard Capital Highlands CPA Hi-Tech Futures Trading Horse Cove Partners LLC Horton Point LLC Husic Capital Management INCLINE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT, LLC Incline Global Offshore Ltd. Index IQ Infinitas Capital LLC Infinity Capital Partners Infinity Capital Partners Insignia Managed Capital IntegriDATA IntegriDATA Interglobal Asset Managment LLC Intex Investor Analytics Iron Asset Management iVelocity Fund J E Moody & Company Jadwin Partners LLC Jai Guru Capital JKG Capital LLC Jones Day K & L Gates Kawa Capital Kennyhertz Perry King Muir Fund Advisors LLC Ledgex Systems LoPresti Law Group LR Global LR Global Frontier Fund, Ltd. Lyxor Asset Management Maglan Capital

Award for Excellence in Hard Asset Investing Best US Pooled Investment Fund: Eden Arc Capital Partners, LP Best Financial Services Firm - New York 2015 Alpha Awards: Best for Commodity Index Trading - New York Best Systematic Global Macro Investment Firm - USA Best CCO - New York Best in Managed Futures - Colorado Best TMT Investment Management Firm - New York Award for Most Consistent Returns - USA Most Desirable Fund: Permo Investment Program Best Frontier Markets Strategy - Everest Capital Frontier Markets Equity Best Macro Strategy - New York Best Hedge Fund Law Firm - New York Best for Allocation - New Jersey Best Online Forex Trading Broker - USA Best Frontier Market Focused Portfolio Manager - USA Best Hedge Fund Marketer - New York Best for Hedge Fund Tax Services - New York Best for European Fund Raising Efforts -Georgia Best US Commodity Pool - GalNet Alpha Fund, LLC Best for Hedge Fund Manager Due Diligence Best Risk Management Advisory Firm - New York Best Emerging Commodity Trade Adviser Best TCA Consulting Firm - USA Fund Manager’s Choice: Best for Tax Reclamation Best Management Trading Program - New York Best Hedge Fund Strategy - New York Investor Choice Award :Best Credit Asset Manager - USA Investor Choice Award: Best Long Bias Equity Fund Hedge Choice Award: Best Fund Manager Compliance Solutions Best for Macro-Orientated Discretionary Strategy Best Long/Short US Equity Value Fund (10 year) : Grand Slam Capital Partners LP ( Delaware) Best Hedge Fund Manager - California Best Securities Practice - Illinois Best for Hedge Fund Due Diligence - USA Best Asset Manager in Credit & Equity Markets - USA Best Portfolio Manager - Illinois Credit-Focused Investment Management Firm of the Year Best Credit-Focused Hedge Fund (Since Inception) Award for Excellence in Public Growth Investments Best for Emergent MLPs Opportunities -USA Best Portfolio Manager - New York Best Global Fundamental Long/short Sector Investment Manager - Illinois Best In Hedge Fund Tax Services - Colorado Best for Forex Trading Strategies - Florida 2015 Alpha Award: Best Hedge Fund Advisory Firm - Georgia Best Family Office for Liquid Alternative Strategies - New York Best Growth Equity Investment Manager - California Best Opportunistic Credit Strategy - New York Best Offshore Focused Hedge Fund (1 Year) Best Hedge Fund Replication Strategies - USA Best Capital Investment Services – New York.

Best Fund (Since Inception): Ocean Fund, Ltd. Best US Fund ( 5 years): Infinity Premier Fund, LP Best in Options Strategies - USA Best Software Product: CAARS Collateral Management System Award for Innovation in Hedge Fund Technology Award for Innovation in Risk Management Technology Best Credit Spread Trading Strategy - USA Best for AIFMD Annex IV Reporting - USA Best Absolute Return Focused Credit Strategy in Illinois - Hedged Credit Opportunity Fund Best Hedge Fund - California Best in Commodities - USA Best Low-Net Exposure Strategy - USA Top New York Hedge Fund Best Futures Focused Capital Management Company - Massachusetts Award for Excellence in Investment Fund Law Best in Capital Markets Law - North Carolina Best Asset Management Firm - Florida Best in Securities Law - Missouri Top Emerging Market Fund: KGR, LLC Series II Best Due Diligence Platform for Fund of Funds - USA Best Alternative Investment Management Law Firm Best in Frontier Market Investing - New York Best Frontier-Market Focused Fund (Since Inception) Best Managed Account Platform - USA Best Event-Driven Hedge Fund - New York

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

106

Martin Fund Management LLC MatlinPatterson McGladrey LLP Merritt Capital Partners MicroVest Capital Management LLC Midway Market Neutral Fund Millstreet Capital Management Morgan Lewis Mount Kamet Partners, LLC MSF Capital Advisors Napier Park Global Capital National Regulatory Services NAV Consulting NEPC Netage Solutions NickJen Capital Management NickJen Capital Management Nipun Capital LLC Noble Equity Nomura Asset Management Oak Park Market Neutral Partners LP Objecutive, Inc. ONYX Capital Advisors LLC ONYX Capital Advisors LLC Orical LLC Pan Agora Asset Management Pan Multi Strategy, L.P. Pan Reliance Capital Advisors Paradigm Consulting Services, LLC (P C S) Pardo Capital Limited Parker Global Strategies, LLC Partner Capital Group Pendo Systems Peninsula LP Penny Penny-It Works Petra Partners LLC Petra Partners LLC Petra Capital Partners Platinum Partners Preserver Partners, LLC Princeton Advisory Group Prosiris Capital Management LP Protege Partners, LLC PTAM (PT Asset Management) Purrington Moody Weil LLP QED Capital Management QQFund.com LLC Quant Trade, LLC Quant Trading Quantitative Equity Strategies, LLC QuantZ Capital Management Quest Partners Reid Street Capital, LLC Reid Street Fund, LP REO Capital,LLC Rhythmic Capital Management RMBS Management LLC Robust Methods LLC Robust Methods LLC Rosen Capital Advisors LLC S C S Financial S S & C Technologies Sancus Capital Management Scott’s Cove Management LLC Secor Asset Management L P Secor Asset Management LP Seedinvest Sequoia Hill Capital Management Seward & Kissel Shaked Opportunity Fund SHARPE+SIGNA LLC Snow Asset Management Solus Alternative Asset Management Southpaw Asset Management Spitfire Capital LLC SSCG Africa Opportunities Master Fund L.P.

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Best CTA Newcomer - New York Best Securitized Credit Team - New York Best for Assurance, Tax & Consulting Services in Financial Services Best Relative Value Arbitrage Fund of Hedge Funds Best Asset Management Firm - Maryland Best Market Neutral Fund (1 Year) Best in the Midcap & Small-Cap Market - USA Best Fund of Funds Legal Services - USA Most Anticipated Newly Launched Hedge Fund (Mount Kamet Fund LP) Best Global Multi-Family Office Best Corporate Credit Strategies Team Best for Securities Focused Compliance & Registration Services Best North American Hedge Fund Administrators 2015 Alpha Award: Best for Alternative Assets Research - USA Best Hedge Fund CRM software - USA Best Commodity Trading Advisor Best Natural Resources Discretionary Strategy Best Asian-Equity Focused Asset Manager Best Portfolio Manager - New Jersey Most Trusted Asset Manager - USA Best Equity Market Neutral Fund (10 Years) Best for e-Services Consulting - New Jersey Best Foreign Exchange Hedge Fund 2015 Alpha Award: Best Foreign Exchange Hedge Fund Best Regulatory and Compliance Consulting Firm – New York, USA Top US Long/Short Strategy - Diversified Arbitrage Best Multi-Strategy Fund of Hedge Fund (10 Years) Best Fund of Hedge Fund Portfolios Best for Fund-of-Funds Due Diligence Best Trading System - XT99 - Illinois Best for US Energy Infrastructure Best Institutional Investor & Consultant Network - USA Best Fund Administration Software: Basis Point Top Californian Hedge Fund Best Hedge-Focused Accounting Software Best Hedge-Focused Accounting Software Best P2P Fund: Petra Credit Fund I Emerging Manager of the Year Best Private Equity Firm - Tennessee Best Long-Term Track Record: Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage Fund Best Alternative Asset Management Firm - Tennessee Best in Fixed Income Asset Manager - USA Best Credit-Oriented Investment Manager - USA Award for Excellence in Small Hedge Fund Investing Best for Credit & Fixed-Income Markets - Illinois Best for Fund Acquisition & Disposal Advice Best Quantitatively-Anchored Value-Oriented Long/Short Equity Fund.

Best Fund Management Firm - Illinois Best for Commercial Hedging - USA Best Quantitative Currency Trading Program - USA Best Quantitative Firm Operating Liquid Alternatives - USA Best Quantitative Hedge Fund - New York Best Research Driven Alternative Investment Firm - USA Best Newcomer Award Best Broad-Based Long-Short Equity Fund (1 Year) Best Placement Agent - Michigan Best for Relative Value Investing - USA Best in Securitized Products - USA Best for Multi-Asset Absolute Returns Strategies - USA Personal Award: Best High Frequency Trader - New York Best Options Volatility Arbitrage Strategy Overall Credit Focused Investment Management Firm Best Asset Management Software Best Diversified Credit Hedge Fund - USA Best Event Driven Investment Manager - New York Award for Innovation in Alpha Strategy Award for Innovation in Alpha Strategy Best Equity Investment Platform - USA Best for Managed Futures - Florida Investment Advisory Law Firm of the Year - USA Best Fund of Emerging Hedge Funds - USA Best FX Manager - USA Best Long/Short Fixed Income Hedge Fund Manager - USA Award for Excellence in Leveraged Loan Investing Best for Deep-Value Distressed Investments Award for Excellence in Public Markets Best Newly Launched Africa-Focused Fund

Hedge Fund Awards 2015

107

Steben & Company SteelBridge Ventures Consulting Stone Toro Asset Management, LLC Stonegate Global Fund Services, LLC Stonegate Global Fund Services, LLC Sub-Sahara Capital Group LP SunGard’s XSP Symphony Asset Management Synaptic Capital Group, LLC T3 Asset Management, LLC Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP Tata Consultancy Services The Midway Group The Solaris Group Tiburon Capital Management LLC Tillage Commodities Management, LLC TKC Investment Services Tlaloc Capital, LLC TMF Custom House Tower Capital Tradex Global Advisors UMB Fund Services UMB Fund Services Untracht Early LLC V2M(R) Capital LLC Valley Forge Capital Valuation Research Corp. (VRC) Venor Capital Management LP Viteos Voyager Management Waterfall Asset Management LLC Waterfall Eden Fund Waterfall Victoria Fund Waterstone Capital Management L.P. Weaver Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisors White Bison Capital, LLC Wilfrid Aubrey LLC Wilfrid Global Opportunity Fund, LP Woodfield Fund Administration Woodside Capital Partners Wynnefield Capital Management, LLC Yakira Partners, L.P. York Capital Management Yulish & Associates Vanuatu FTM Limited

US Fund Of Hedge Funds - Steben Select Multi-Strategy Fund Capital Advisory Firm of the Year - Pennsylvania Best for Managed Account - New Jersey Most Cost Effective Fund Administrator - Global Global Innovation Award for Fund Formation Award for Innovation in Net-Short African Investments Award for Innovation in Global Corporate Actions Processing Best US Credit & Equity Hedge Fund Best for Mid to Large-Cap Equities - Synaptic Medical Fund, L.P. Best Systematic Long/Short Equity Strategies Award for Sustained Excellence in Hedge Fund Law Best Wealth & Asset Management Consulting Services Best Fixed Income Manager - New York Best All-Cap Manager - USA Best for Capital Structure Arbitrage - USA Best Commodity Manager - USA Highly Recommended in Managed Futures - USA Best in Managed Futures - Texas Best Fund Formation Services - USA Best Thematic African Fund Niche Fund of Hedge Fund Manager of the Year - USA Best US Alternative Investment Technology (FastPro) & Best Alternative Investment Team - USA Best for Hedge Fund Services - Utah Best for Hedge Fund Tax Services - New Jersey Best Hedge Fund Sponsor - USA Best US Long Biased Equity Hedge Fund: Valley Forge Capital, L.P. Best for Hedge Fund Valuations Event-Driven Hedge Fund Manager of the Year Best Bespoke Solutions in Hedge Funds Best for Long/Short Investing - California Best Asset Backed Security Credit Advisor Best US Directional Hedge Fund (1 Year) Best Multi-Sector High Yield Fund (Since Inception) Best Event-Driven Fund - The Waterstone Quarry Master Fund - Minnesota Best Hedge Fund Assurance Services - Texas Best Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund Manager - USA Best HNWI Focussed Financial Adviser - Colorado Best in Distressed Securities - USA Best Opportunistic Fund (Since Inception) Best Hedge Fund Administrator - USA Best for Debt & Equity Capital Raising - USA Best for US Small Cap Situations Best for Arbitrage - New York Most Consistent Risk Adjusted Returns Best Fund of Hedge Fund Administrator - USA

Best Offshore Fixed Income Fund

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Hedge Fund Awards 2015

www.acquisition-intl.com

108