Drake appoints Horodeck to head Japan and Asian drive

Drake Management, a global fixed income manager, has appointed Horodeck as a Managing Director within the firm’s client management group.

HedgeJapan specialists Kenji Yamauchi and Takako Funada also joined the Drake client servicing team under Horodeck’s direction. HedgeJapan, which was founded and headed by Horodeck, will cease activity.

Horodeck’s group will build upon Drake’s existing relationships in the region, expanding that capability, commencing 2005, to include local offices in Tokyo and elsewhere in Asia.

“The demand for multi-strategy investment funds from high quality managers is growing rapidly throughout Asia and, in particular, Japan”, notes Horodeck. “Performance, transparency and client service are the criteria Asian institutional investors look for when selecting managers. US and European asset managers often meet the first two hurdles, but fail to deliver a differentiated product due to cultural and time zone differences. Drake’s genuine commitment in this area, as evidenced by its allocation of resources and adoption of a long-term plan, will strike the right note in Asia.”

Horodeck is a New York attorney whose practice, prior to joining Drake and since the mid-1980’s, focused on the tax, legal and business structuring of offshore investments for Japan’s leading financial institutions. As a lawyer, he created the first US and offshore limited partnerships funded with Japanese public pension money (the well-known “Nenpuku” funds), and the first offshore unit trusts organised by Japanese insurers. Horodeck, who speaks Japanese and Mandarin, holds a PhD from Cornell University.

Actively involved with Asia for many years, Horodeck lived 11 years in Japan and knows the country like few foreigners do, having designed one of the first Japanese word processors (for which he earned his PhD and a patent). Writing in Japanese, he contributes regularly to the Japanese media and is the author of The Intelligent Investor’s Guide to Offshore and Hedge Fund Investing, published by Diamond in 1999.

HedgeJapan, the consulting arm of his law practice, was established in 1996 in response to calls from his Japanese clients for more accurate information about hedge funds. “Given his experience as a due diligence advisor and legal counsel to many large institutions, there is probably no one who understands the Japanese and Asian markets better than Richard”, said Steve Luttrell, Drake’s Chief Operating Officer.

Background Note: Based in New York, Drake Management LLC was founded in May 2001 and is an SEC-registered Investment Adviser. The founders worked together at both Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) and BlackRock, Inc. prior to starting Drake Management. Presently, Drake employs 45 professionals and manages just under USD 2 billion across two global, multi-sector fixed income hedge funds—its flagship Drake Absolute Return Fund and the more recently launched Drake Global Opportunities Fund—plus several managed accounts for traditional institutional investors.