EquNev-K1T Capita Hedge Fund, a US market-focused Indian hedge fund, said it had merged with the UK-based Coleman Group to create a total asset base of $ 400 million, which would allow it to expand into markets like Europe.
Launched in July 2015, EquNev-K1t Capital has been credited with, using its algorithms, taking contrarian view, including the Chinese crash of August 2015, the ‘Santa Rally’ of Dec 2015, the Crude Oil Rally of early 2016, the Brexit Crash of September 2016, the bond yields correction and the shorting of Amazon on several occasions last year.
UK-based Coleman Group, headed by founder and CEO, Matt McClean, ex-Morgan Stanley investment bank, was launched in January 2014. The European markets-focused fund manages over $40 million of investments and is profitable in 93 percent of months since its launch in 2014. The fund has been profitable in all years on an annual basis and the maximum monthly loss was 1.5 percent.
“With the merger of EquNev-K1T Capital Hedge Fund with Coleman Group, we are able to add quant-based investment strategies from the European markets along with our existing US markets. This would help in diversification to other mature markets and help us focus on both the US and European markets stocks which include S&P500, Eurostox 600, Major US and European Listed index futures, Volatility ETF’s,” said Kapil Khandelwal, founder of the Bengaluru-headquartered EquNev-K1T Capital.
The merged fund’s strategy has not only improved our Sharpe ratio to over 2.0 but also the combined returns for the last 3 years at 37.95 percent per annum for the fund against India’s Nifty which has delivered 9.71 per cent per annum in Rupee terms,” he said.
EquNev-K1t Capital’s CEO, Simon Wajcenberg will continue on the board of Coleman Group and in addition act as the Chief Marketing Officer. Anthony Medina, the current Chief Investment Officer of Coleman Group will take over as the CIO of the quant strategies and algorithms to manage the investments of the merged funds. Anthony, who is ex Lehman’s and Royal Bank of Scotland has over 20 years of quant trading, experience. Kapil Khandelwal will step onto the board of Coleman Group as part of the deal that was firmed up last week.
“Coleman Group’s governance is not only strengthened by induction of EquNev-K1t Capital’s board members from the perspective of business continuity but also strengthens the investment management team in terms of combined market experience and the combined algo’s brute capability to beat the best performing hedge funds in the world,” said Khandelwal.
The fund has retained its external auditors, prime brokers, legal counsel and fund administrators. Argon Financial and Global Prime Partners will continue as prime brokers to the fund. Deloitte has been appointed as the Fund’s auditor and Apex Fund services will continue to be the fund’s administrators.
The EquNev-Coleman Group Hedge Fund will continue to focus on expanding its investor base, outreach and education in key geographies such as India, Gulf Region, ASEAN region apart from its existing investor base from the US and Europe.
The merged fund will expand the Pharma and Healthcare investment strategy and eventually rolled out as a full-fledged fund next year based on investor interest and market conditions, the firm said.
Source: Business-Standard 