Gottex Fund Management’s flagship market neutral strategies posted positive performance year to date, outperforming all major fund of hedge funds indices and helping to return the company to profit, according to the firm’s interim results.
Total fee-earning assets increased to USD8.9 billion at the end of June 2011 from USD7.3 billion 12 months earlier.
The companies has reported gross revenues of USD 31.9 million (1H 2010: USD 32.9m; 2H 2010: USD 30.9m), with net profit of USD 1.0 million (1H 2010: loss of USD 2.4m; 2H 2010: loss of USD 1.1m), and basic EPS of USD 0.01 (1H 2010: USD -0.06).
THe company currently holds USD 46.8 million in cash reserves and liquid financial investments.
Joachim Gottschalk (pictured), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gottex, says: “I am very pleased that during the first half of this year Gottex achieved its main goals, namely the return to profitability and posting positive returns for our main products. Our largest flagship fund started to generate performance fees, the asset base continued to grow by USD 600 million and the Gottex solutions business GSS expanded to more than USD 2 billion of fee-earning assets. However, risks have risen considerably in global financial markets since the end of the second quarter. In particular August saw severe market stress, even though our market neutral products are expected to retain a positive year-to-date performance at the end of August. However, we expect the recent ongoing economic uncertainty and the European sovereign debt crisis to impact near term client flows to our industry.
“Gottex is a profitable business with substantial cash reserves and no debt. On a short term horizon, Gottex, like the rest of our industry, have to be prepared to face a volatile risk-on, risk-off environment, but we remain positive about the longer term outlook, as the relative stability of hedge fund returns will draw investors back to our asset class. Full-year profitability for the company depends on the ability of our flagship market neutral plus product and the multi-asset endowment products to continue to generate performance fees in the second half of this year.”
