Vienna-headquartered Erste Group Bank, one of the largest financial services companies in Central Europe with over 17mill
Vienna-headquartered Erste Group Bank, one of the largest financial services companies in Central Europe with over 17million clients, is to roll out its inaugural UCITS fund of hedge funds in early 2011, according to a report in HFMWeek. The ESPA Alternative Diversified Fund is due to begin trading in January with EUR50million of the bank’s own capital, although outside Austrian investors are expected to buy into the fund once it goes live. It will follow a global multi-strategy investment approach. The bank’s Alternative Investments Group, led by Mark Cachia, has been selected to manage the Austria-domiciled newcits with the portfolio expecting to comprise of between 15 and 20 underlying managers. Nobody at EGB was available to comment at the time of writing. This latest news would appear to complement the bank’s operations; the Alternative Investment Group currently manages USD650million in global multi-strategy FoHFs. Recently released figures show that the bank’s net profits rose by 2.3 per cent to EUR736.8million in the first nine months of 2010.
