Driehaus Capital Management has launched the Driehaus Event Driven Fund, a liquid alternative offering which seeks low correlations to major asset classes while providing lower volatility than the S&P 500 Index with risk-adjusted returns.
The fund will be managed by KC Nelson (pictured), who leads the Driehaus long/short credit team. Nelson and his team currently manage distinct event-driven trading strategies in their long/short credit funds.
Nelson says: "We have found that event-driven trades often exist because of the complexity of the capital structure, the non-traditional nature of the investment opportunities, or the unwillingness of investors to participate in trades with binary outcomes. We believe this creates opportunities for positive asymmetric returns with low correlations to the equity and credit markets."
Trades within the Driehaus Event Driven Fund will have a defined catalyst that will unlock the value of the trade in the near to intermediate term.
"By combining the credit, equity and derivatives resources across our firm, we’ll identify opportunities globally to source mispricings in long, short and arbitrage trades based on hard catalysts, such as product launches, earnings releases, restructurings, and corporate actions," says Nelson.
While the event-driven space has been a significant segment of the alternatives universe for more than two decades, relatively few liquid alternative event-driven funds are available to investors.
"We believe investors will appreciate access to a liquid and transparent vehicle for a strategy that offers a differentiated market exposure," says Rob Gordon, president and chief executive of Driehaus. "We also expect investors to take comfort knowing that the fund is offered by a firm that has proven itself in the liquid alternative space and is managed by a team with significant experience with event-driven trades."
