Nezu Asia, a hedge fund with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and a research office in Japan, which first opened its doors back in 2000, has had a good start to the New Year.
Nezu Asia, a hedge fund with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and a research office in Japan, which first opened its doors back in 2000, has had a good start to the New Year. The firm, which runs six funds and manages approximately USD400million in AUM, has received USD50million in seed capital for two of its hedgies from Tiger Management, the investment group founded by legendary manager, Julian Robertson, reported Reuters this week. After closing the firm’s flagship fund a decade ago, Robertson has gone on to seed more than 30 hedge fund managers, or “Tiger Cubs”, including the likes of John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital. The two Nezu Asia funds chosen for seeding are: Nezu Asia Fund, an equity l/s strategy, and the Nezu Kuma Fund, a Japan-focused short-biased equity strategy.
David Snoddy and Sohei Taki have been chosen as advisers to the funds and will be based in Tiger’s New York offices. To capitalise on the good fortune, Nezu Asia is believed to be installing a marketing executive, also in New York, to build investor momentum. The seed capital will help the two funds’ AUM grow to USD100million and USD25million (Nezu Kuma) respectively. Hedgeweek contacted Nezu Asia partner and COO, Richard Kincaid, but he was unavailable at the time of writing. At its high-water mark, Nezu Asia managed more than USD1billion before the global financial crisis instigated mass redemptions in Asian hedge funds. Nevertheless, having secured this tiger seed, the firm hopes to double its assets to USD800million by year-end. Kincaid said that their strategic partnership with Tiger would improve their ability to “access capital and strengthen our entire suite of funds”.
