Numen Capital LLP was founded in May 2008 by Filippo Lanza and Kushal Kumar. The firm’s flagship mandate is the Numen Credit Opportunities Fund, an event-driven credit special situations strategy.  The fund looks at opportunities in the liquid credit space related to issuers spanning sovereigns, financial institutions and corporates. The analytical approach used is a proprietary adaptation of the traditional corporate credit tool kit to analyse ex-risk free assets i.e. sovereigns, as though they are traditional corporate borrowers. “We apply this approach across the board from AAA-rated borrowers all the way down to stressed and distressed banks and corporates. Our

Swiss Seagull AG runs the Crossfire Fund, which follows what it refers to as a trend breakout strategy. Rather than take a trend following or countertrend trading approach, Swiss Seagull uses a multi-directional hybrid trading strategy. As such, it is composed of one core strategy and two sub-strategies, which provide more of discretionary element to how the fund is managed. “Our trading strategy is more tactical as opposed to necessarily being based on fundamental data or using indicators. Rather we look at market levels: which levels are broken, by how much? What is the volume in the market? That’s our

By Marianne Scordel – Summer in London brings with it a whole new wave of would be hedge fund managers, who have either left their employers as part of a pre-bonus cost-cutting exercise, or are planning to do so once they have been paid the sums they will then use as the required investments to start up their new ventures. Those currently involved in drawing up business plans, as well as incumbents taking a look at where they are within the industry in order to monitor levels of profitability, all have an interest in reviewing the competitive landscape. While the

The Hedgeweek USA Awards 2013 presented earlier this month in New York City brought together the leading names in the US hedge funds industry to celebrate the achievements of the best performing managers and service providers in 2012. Delivering the opening remarks at the Awards, Jim Munsell, Partner, Sidley Austin, LLP, highlighted a number of significant business and regulatory developments for alternative investment funds and their managers. He concluded, “Most of the recent developments have served to increase barriers to entry, increase costs, and compress operating margins. Nevertheless, this remains a great business to be in, with tremendous opportunities for

Stockholm-based CTA specialist RPM Risk & Portfolio Management has launched a new fund with a focus on smaller “evolving” CTAs.  The new fund, the RPM Evolving CTA Fund, will invest in a portfolio of CTA managers across three strategic groups – trend following, short-term and fundamental.    RPM Risk & Portfolio Management, which has roughly USD4bn in funds under management and advisory services, has based its new fund on internal research that found that CTAs in the evolving phase – those typically between two and seven years old with USD30m to USD2bn in AuM – are the most promising from

By Mush Ali, One Ten Associates – COOs are playing an increasingly important role within start-ups, as investors want to have in place an individual with the background to handle the complexity of regulation and governance. Mush Ali of One Ten Associates explains the main factors that should be considered when hiring a COO. The COO hire in any start-up hedge fund is typically the first ‘non-investment hire’ the firm will need to make. We have seen the evolution of the importance of this hire change from it simply being a ‘need ‘ to now being just as essential as

By Aliya Allen, CEO & Executive Director, BFSB – The Bahamas, in keeping with its long history of providing investment fund services, has taken measured steps over the past ten years to differentiate it from other jurisdictions. A key point of differentiation is the regulatory environment for investment funds which is robust though flexible. The Bahamas can accommodate any strategy and any investor, whether individual or institutional, and the creation of the SMART Fund is an example of the truly risked based framework for regulation that the Investment Funds Act, 2003 embraces. The Bahamas’ growing attraction as a funds centre

By Caroline Chan, Ogier – With 40 years’ experience, Guernsey has developed into a leading jurisdiction for the establishment of investment funds. For example, Guernsey remains the leader in non-UK listings on the London Stock Exchange, in terms of the number of its companies listed/traded on the LSE markets. At the end of last year Guernsey had 122 vehicles listed on the combined markets of the LSE. Significant growth in the local funds industry has also been achieved in recent years. This can be attributed in part to the policies of the Guernsey authorities and the flexibility of the regulatory