Paris-based Olympia Capital Management has launched the Olympia Energy Fund, a diversified multistrategy energy-related fund of hedge funds with an initial investment of USD50m from a leading international energy company.

The Cayman-domiciled Olympia Energy Fund seeks to exploit energy commodity market inefficiencies in order to generate absolute returns. The product aims to achieve long-term capital appreciation and will allocate to hedge funds investing in all the components of the energy and energy related markets and employing CTA, global macro, long/short, equity market neutral and physical trading strategies.

The fund is targeting an annualised return of 5 to 10 per cent above Libor in the medium term (three years), with annualised volatility below 15 per cent. It is Olympia's second commodity-focused fund of hedge funds following the launch in July 2007 of the Olympia Sucden Commodity Fund, a diversified fund of hedge funds.

"The more we look in to the universe of energy-related hedge fund managers, the more we are convinced that hedge funds now have the ability to exploit market inefficiencies, providing significant improvement and diversification to the risk-adjusted return of diversified portfolios," says Olympia's co-chief investment officer Guido Bolliger.

Founded in 1989, Olympia Capital Management is an independent fund of hedge funds manager with USD6bn in assets under management and an investment team of more than 20 professionals at its offices in Paris, New York, London, Zurich and Hong Kong.

In addition to its flagship Olympia Star I fund, which has a 17-year track record, Olympia offers investors a wide range of alternative multi-strategy and thematic funds of funds, as well as managing customised and sub-advisory portfolios.