Longship launches fixed income fund of hedge funds

One of the few of its type, the new fund of hedge funds focuses exclusively on fixed income strategies. The underlying thesis of the Longship Fund is to provide investors with a vehicle that can efficiently gain exposure and manage the risks involved in a diversified pool of strategies managed by best in class fixed income managers.

Todd Jorn of Longship Capital, a former Managing Director at Lehman Brothers Fixed Income unit, said: "The Longship Multi-Strategy Debt Fund represents a unique opportunity for investors to gain access to fixed income hedge funds which are heavily underrepresented relative to the size and breadth of this asset class."

Jorn continued: "The fund solves for a number of challenges in investing in fixed income hedge funds, specifically the efficient allocation of capital and management of the underlying risks within a broad spectrum of fixed income disciplines".

Primary fund objectives are net returns of 12% per annum with a standard deviation of 4.0%. Pro forma results have noted average annual returns of 14.75% with an annual standard deviation of 2.85%.

Longship’s Chief Investment Officer, William "Biv" Wadden IV, will be the fund manager. He brings over 24 years of fixed income fund management experience, most recently with Columbia Management Group (formerly Stein Roe & Farnham) where he was a senior portfolio manager whose responsibilities included oversight of the firm’s USD 4.1 billion structured finance CDO portfolio.

Wadden said that the Longship Fund "is structured to produce consistent, absolute returns while incurring minimal levels of volatility. We are focusing on strategies that employ inherently conservative levels of leverage and whose performance is largely uncorrelated to interest rates or the broader markets. The current portfolio mix was established on May 1 of 2002 and we feel very confident about the selections we’ve made following a 17 month observation period".

Copyright hedgeweek 2003