Woori Absolute Partners (WAP), the Singapore-based alternative investment platform of Woori Investment & Securities (WIS), and NewAlpha Asset Management, the Paris-based hedge fund incubation specialist, have announced the first strategic investment of the Woori NewAlpha Fund with Mosaic Asset Management, a new Singapore-based registered fund management company focused on Asian equity strategies.
Mosaic was founded by Tristan Edwards, chief investment officer, and Greg Laughlin, chief operating officer, both of whom are from Australia and have known each other for over 25 years.
Edwards spent three years at Brevan Howard in London where he last served as head of execution desk before joining Trafalgar Capital as a portfolio manager managing the Asian Equity portfolio from 2007 to 2010, during which he was based in both London and Hong Kong. Prior to that, he worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in Melbourne as an equity analyst and equity trader.
Laughlin has 11 years of experience at Credit Suisse and has worked at the Hong Kong, London and New York offices where he last served as a director in prime services.
The two principals have also brought on board Andrew Willersdorf who has nine years of experience having started his career with the Goldman Sachs graduate programme in Melbourne, Australia specialising in Australian equities for nearly three years before moving to London to spend six years covering Australian and Asian equities, then subsequently global cross products desks.
The Mosaic Trading Fund, which will launch on March 2013, deploys a fully hedged, short term trading strategy that focuses on supply and demand imbalances prevalent in Asian equity markets.
Together with Woori NewAlpha’s initial seed investment, Mosaic will manage approximately USD100m, once Mosaic finalises a significant allocation by a large North American institutional investor by way of a managed account.
“Tristan has established a successful investment track record as a portfolio manager running alpha driven equity strategies in Asia. He has demonstrated an ability to consistently deliver positive absolute returns on a risk-adjusted basis over the past several years – particularly during challenging market conditions,” says Edward Moon, chief investment officer of Woori Absolute Partners. “Our first seed transaction underscores the unique global strength of the Woori NewAlpha alliance through our ability to source, identify and forge strategic partnerships with “best of breed” emerging managers, and highlights the compelling investment opportunity set represented by the early stage hedge fund space in Asia.”
Antoine Rolland, chief executive of NewAlpha, says: “This first seed investment for the Woori NewAlpha Fund marks a very significant step in our ability to capture meaningful investment opportunities in Asia Pacific markets and meets the highest expectations of our financial sponsors, investors and other hedge fund allocators. In this respect, Mosaic differentiates strongly from its peers by the considerable amount of investment experience of the team in alpha-rich asset classes such as Asian cash equities. We are very excited by the prospects of supporting Mosaic in building a successful business.”
