A new long/short equity hedge fund firm, Manas Capital Ltd., has been launched in Hong Kong. Anuj Sehgal is the founder and portfolio manager of the firm’s Manas Asian Equities Value Fund, which commenced trading 1 March 2012. Manas is Sanskrit for ‘Mind’. Seghal has over 10 years’ investment experience in Asia ex-Japan having previously worked at J. P. Morgan, North of South Capital and Nomura across investment banking, equity research/sales and investment risk analysis. The new hedge fund invests in publicly listed Asia ex-Japan equities and uses a fundamental, long-term bottom-up investment style with a value bias. The fund’s primary market focus will be on Hong Kong, India, Singapore and Taiwan. The objective is to give investors exposure to equity growth opportunities across supply chain, component, product and service companies. The portfolio aims to remain concentrated on around 30 positions on the long side and five to 10 positions on the short side. No leverage will be employed and use of derivatives will be limited. It’s also understood that the fund will liquidate to cash in the event of a major macro risk event.