The Amber Equity Fund, a Luxembourg UCITS fund on the Alpha UCITS Platform, has grown assets under management to USD174m only six months after launch on 2 October 2013.
The Amber Equity Fund is managed by Giorgio Martorelli at Amber Capital Italia SGR, which is a Milan-based asset management company regulated by the Bank of Italy and part of the Amber Capital Group.
The Amber Capital Group is an investment firm founded in 2005 by Joseph Oughourlian with main offices in London and New York and a current firm AuM of about USD1.7bn.
Amber Capital Italia decided in 2013 to transform its four-year old Italian domestic fund, Amber Italia Equity, into a UCITS fund called Amber Equity Fund. The Amber Italia Equity fund’s cumulative performance since inception in November 2009 to its stop of trading before the Amber Equity Fund UCITS launch at the end September 2013 has been +22.65 per cent, compared to a FTSE MIB Index performance over the same period of -22.79 per cent, with a worst month of -2.47 per cent, a volatility below five per cent and a net exposure to equity markets close to zero.
The strategy was up 15.81 per cent in 2013 and the Amber Equity Fund is up 4.18 per cent in 2014 YTD. The Amber Equity Fund UCITS is up 8.65 per cent in its first six months since launch.
The Amber Equity Fund aims at returning consistent absolute returns by investing on a long/short beta-neutral basis in European equities, with a focus on Italian investments. The fund is using a fundamental value and bottom-up approach. The investment strategies include directional long or short positions with or without a catalyst; long/short equity pairs with or without a catalyst; capital structure arbitrage; risk arbitrage; share class arbitrage; company holding discounts; and relative and fundamental-value.
The aim is to grow the Amber Equity Fund to about USD350m within the next 12 months.
Martorelli says: “We have been able to generate consistent returns (+8.65 per cent since inception) for our investors with low volatility and very limited exposure to the equity markets while maintaining the same disciplined approach. We keep focusing on a limited number of companies, mostly mid-sized and based in Italy, and we monitor their progress with frequent and direct interaction with top management.”
