Tages Capital has held the first closing of Tages Emerging Opportunities II, a closed-end fund focused on providing seeding and acceleration capital to emerging hedge fund managers in exchange for an economic participation in their business with USD203 million in capital commitments.
The fund has been backed by institutional investors across Europe and Asia, with a notable participation from large insurance companies. It will now remain open to receive additional commitments for up to one year.
The fund’s strategy of seeding or accelerating a concentrated portfolio of hedge fund managers generates returns from a diversified combination of underlying fund investment performance and the economic firm interests received from these managers, at no additional cost, in exchange for making an early stage fund investment.
The strategy benefits from Tages’ ability to identify world-class hedge fund managers and business builders, and to provide valuable fund capital and expertise to enable these managers generate successful growth.
While active across several segments of alternatives investing more broadly, Tages has become a leading global provider of seed and acceleration capital to emerging alternative fund managers. The firm has been one of the most active seed investors globally over the past five years, having invested over USD900 million across 19 funds. The new fund is the second vintage of Tages’ dedicated seeding program and follows the end of the first vintage’s investment period in September 2017. Separately, Tages also manages a vehicle dedicated to UCITS seeding.
Jamie Kermisch (pictured), Chief Executive Officer at Tages Capital, says: “We are delighted with the response to our new fund raising in an area of our business where we are recognised as a global leader. The quality of the institutional investors that have supported this first close is a strong confirmation of the differentiated strategy and return profile, as well as our ability to source and develop excellent emerging manager talent. As we look to further grow the amount of capital commitments over the next months, this fund will allow Tages to remain a valuable source of committed capital for emerging hedge funds worldwide.”
Mark de Klerk, Head of Seeding Strategies at Tages Capital, says: “We are very excited about the seeding and acceleration opportunities in our pipeline today. With the scarcity of dedicated seed capital available, we are in a fantastic position to leverage off our deep research, operational due diligence and advisory capabilities to identify and select highly talented best-in-class managers. With the resurgence of asset flows back into the emerging manager segment, we believe this is a great time to enhance hedge fund returns via access to what remains a high margin industry, as we help a manager to scale up their business.”
