Ex-Mizuho Securities proprietary traders, Einoshin Arima and Giselle Leung, have rolled out a Japan-focused hedge fund – the Hareion Fund – to be managed by their new firm, Hong Kong-based Areion Asset Management. Despite hedge funds with an Asia ex-Japan mandate expecting to reach USD182 billion by end-2012, the appeal of Japan-focused funds like Hareion to investors remains evidently strong; at approximately USD120 million, this is one of the region’s largest, and rarest, start-ups year-to-date with most having only secured, on average, USD12.2 million. The fund will employ long/short and event driven strategies to deliver annual target returns of 20 per cent. A basket of up to 100 stocks will be used. Of particular interest to Arima will be those companies looking towards capital raising; event driven strategies seek to profit from opportunistic situations that may include M&As, IPOs and write-downs. Interest in the fund has largely come from institutional investors and whilst the fund has a USD300 million capacity, no additional inflows are expected over the short-term. On entering the fund arena at a tricky time, Arima told Bloomberg: “I don’t believe that Japan is going to be written off forever going forward. “We view this as a good time for us to start the fund.”