A pair of former Lone Pine and Goldman Sachs executives are planning to raise USD1billion for a new Asia-focused hedge fund said sources familiar with the matter
A pair of former Lone Pine and Goldman Sachs executives are planning to raise USD1billion for a new Asia-focused hedge fund said sources familiar with the matter reported Reuters this week. Eashwar Krishnan is a former analyst at Greenwich-based hedge fund Lone Pine Capital. Tanvir Ghani is a former head of capital introduction for Asia Pacific at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. It serves as yet further evidence that high profile executives with strong track records are well-positioned to raise capital in the region and in so doing grow its fledgling hedge fund Billion Dollar Club. It is believed that the new Hong Kong-based fund is preparing to launch in April 2012. Sources said that Krishnan would serve as CIO and Ghani, who spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs, would be the fund’s COO. Carl Huttenlocher, the former Asia head of Highbridge Capital, launched the Myriad Opportunities Master Fund Ltd., on 1 December in Hong Kong and aims to grow its AUM to USD2billion in 2012. Morgan Tze’s Azentus Capital, which started trading in April this year, has already reached USD2billion.
This new launch by Ghani and Krishnan will bring greater competition for investor assets amongst managers. It will also, encouragingly, widen the choice of high quality Asian billion-dollar funds available to institutions like pension funds and endowments. “I won’t say it’s easy to collect USD1billion in Asia but if you have a credible portfolio manager and a strong team to support the business, it’s possible,” James Fallon (pictured), director of financing sales in Asia Pacific, Bank of America Corp, was quoted as saying. “Lone Pine has got a great reputation and not too many people have left there over the years. That alone will get a lot of people interested.”
