Active Alpha, the Switzerland-based trading-oriented equity long/short manager, has successfully continued delivering strong and uncorrelated performance since going independent six months ago.
“The rationale behind Active Alpha becoming an independent boutique was convincing in many ways, but most importantly, it allows us to be entirely focused on investment performance and fully align our interests with those of our investors. Recent research confirms our notion that being a smaller and very nimble investment manager is a characteristic that is increasingly sought after by many hedge fund investors”, says Active Alpha Chairman and CEO Daniel Schweizer.
Starting its fund in 2008 within the larger alternative investment firm Horizon21 and with institutional backing, the firm spun out in Q3 2010 to become an equities-focused investment boutique. To assure continuity to its investors during the amicable spin-off, the firm has kept all its existing service providers. In addition, Active Alpha has maintained the institutional operational and risk management infrastructure that was built over the years. Active Alpha has been able to retain all existing investors as well as attracting new clients over the past few months. Assets under management have grown to around USD 150 million.
Equity long/short strategy offering true diversification benefits Active Alpha’s trading-oriented approach is clearly differentiable from the more fundamental investment strategies applied by most equity long/short managers. Its investment process is contrarian and driven by news, sentiment and technical analysis. In marked difference to most hedge funds, Active Alpha is very nimble in managing its net market exposure and does not have a long-bias.
Commenting on Active Alpha’s key strengths, Daniel Schweizer (pictured) says: “Key to our investment success is a highly efficient information gathering process that we have refined over the past 20 years as proprietary traders and fund managers. Being very close to the markets from the European open to the US close requires an extraordinary commitment but allows us to trade various cross-regional opportunities untapped by our regionally focused rivals.”
Active Alpha is built on the proven expertise of its seven team members. The firm’s Chairman and CEO, Daniel Schweizer, and the two Senior Portfolio Managers, Michael Uebersax and Silvio Zgraggen, have worked together for more than 15 years at UBS.
