Deer Park Road is to launch a new fund – the SBF Opportunities Fund – on 1 July. The new fund will complement Deer Park’s two existing funds, STS Partners Fund and Burgess Creek Fund.
As with Deer Park’s existing funds, SBF Opportunities Fund will focus on mortgage-backed and other asset-backed securities, but is expected to invest in a broader range of MBS/ABS securities. It is also expected to differ from Deer Park’s other funds by being more actively traded, and incorporating larger leverage and short components.
“The SBF Opportunities Fund is really a response to the numerous requests that we have received over the years from investors to apply our firm’s unique portfolio management process, systems and deal flow to a broader, more trading oriented strategy,” says Michael Craig-Scheckman, CEO of Deer Park Road. “We were able to bring aboard a very talented portfolio manager that we have known for many years that has an extensive track-record running this type of portfolio”.
The fund will be run by Sam Barron-Fox who joined Deer Park in January of this year. Craig-Scheckman and Scott Burg, CIO of Deer Park, will act as risk managers for the fund.
“My many years of managing mortgage and asset backed portfolios has taught me that there are usually attractive opportunities to make money in this sector, and the current environment is no exception,” says Sam Barron-Fox. “The opportunity to launch a new fund at Deer Park is very exciting.”
Barron-Fox started his career, trading and analysing mortgage-backed securities at Bear Stearns, in 2002. At Bear Stearns he was a member of a portfolio management team that ran a USD500 million non-Agency mortgage credit fund. After Bear Stearns, Barron-Fox started and grew the Horizon fund, a mortgage and asset backed fund, to USD700 million.
