Gamma Finance, a provider of advisory services to the alternative investment sector, has been awarded advisory mandates of USD500m by clients seeking to optimise exits from a diverse range of lower-liquidity assets, including real estate and private equity positions.
Placement agents and research companies are reporting that real asset and private equity investors are currently looking to raise additional capital and may deploy up to USD200bn prior to the end of 2013.
According to Gamma Finance, some of the beneficiaries of this increased activity may indirectly be the investors in hedge funds that have experienced low liquidity in the post-crisis years.
Florian de Sigy (pictured), founder of Gamma Finance, says: “Since we launched our real assets advisory business in 2011 – which is complementary to our hedge fund secondary market business launched in 2009 – we have seen a steady growth of interest both from hedge funds managing lower liquidity investments, and from specialist investors with appetite for the real assets held in such investment vehicles. Private equity funds in particular recognise this as a new source of assets that are not available through their usual channels.
“In the pre-crisis environment of significant capital in-flows into the hedge fund sector, the beneficiaries of these flows needed to put this new money to work, and that often meant seeking alpha in longer dated and less liquid investment opportunities. For example, a number of credit hedge funds started private lending facilities directly to companies, activities sometimes referred to as ‘shadow banking’.”
Gamma Finance’s real assets advisory business aims to create a bridge between hedge fund managers and buyers with appetite for such longer–term assets – often private equity and real asset specialists. Less than 18 months after inception, this business has won mandates with a combined value of USD500m with particular emphasis on private companies in the energy and real estate sectors.
