Chicago-based Phalanx Capital Management of Chicago has relaunched its volatility multistrategy fund with a strategic investment from Hong Kong-based Vision Investment Management.
Chicago-based Phalanx Capital Management of Chicago has relaunched its volatility multistrategy fund with a strategic investment from Hong Kong-based Vision Investment Management. Together with capital from the firm’s own management, Phalanx now manages a total of USD20m.
The fund employs a multistrategy approach to investing in Asian markets, with a moderate-volatility, absolute return target. The strategy focuses on three specialties, convertible arbitrage, volatility arbitrage, and risk arbitrage, with performance of the fund best during volatile and unsettled markets.
‘Volatile markets are our friends,’ says Phalanx founder and portfolio manager Christopher McGuire. ‘During times of market dislocation, Phalanx returns outperform the majority of hedge funds, and our relaunch with strategic investment from Vision only makes our business and investment case stronger.’
Vision’s investment makes it the largest single investor in the fund, which was established in April 2005 with initial capital of USD2m from the firm’s principals and returned 10.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
‘Phalanx has built a world-class investment team, and Vision has invested in the fund to take them to the next level of performance and institutional capital-raising,’ says Julius Wang, a director of the Vision Angel Fund.
The Phalanx multistrategy fund has returned 443.9 per cent since its launch in April 2005, an average annualized return of 75.9 per cent. Before founding the firm, McGuire managed the Japanese multistrategy portfolio of Daiwa Securities America, having earlier run Japanese and Asian relative value trading for the Spear, Leeds & Kellogg division of Goldman Sachs. Previously he was in charge of trading and managing the Japanese convertible bond portfolio for Marin Capital Partners.
Established in 2000, Vision Investment Group manages some USD1.3bn in Asian investment portfolios, including the Vision Angel Fund, a close-ended fund that seeds emerging hedge funds in the Asia-Pacific region.
