USD250million within twelve months: that’s the aim for Northwest Investment Management Ltd, the firm’s CEO George Philips told Bloomberg thi
USD250million within twelve months: that’s the aim for Northwest Investment Management Ltd, the firm’s CEO George Philips told Bloomberg this week. Formerly owned by London-based RAB Capital Plc before it was sold it 2009, the Hong Kong firm hopes to launch its Asia-focused stock hedge fund – the market neutral Northwest Equity Alpha Fund – in April with an unspecified amount of seed capital being committed by the firm’s six principals. The fund will not bet on general market direction with Philips saying that “the link between economic growth and equity returns is just not a good one”. Using a fundamental bottom-up approach to stock selection, the investment team will pick no more than 15 stocks in each of the fund’s major markets that will include: Hong Kong, China, Japan, India and Taiwan. Once you go above 30, 40, 50 positions you do “become the market” Philips was quoted as saying. Having expanded its assets by 37 percent last year thanks to pension and endowment interest, Philips believes the new fund may appeal to pension funds already invested in equity funds that don’t short and want to “limit the market risks” of additional equity investments. The fund will use index futures to hedge risk.
