Alternative Market Briefing

The probable rise of managed accounts (2) - Innocap sees greatest number of due diligence through Summer 2009

Thursday, August 20, 2009

From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York:

This is the second article of a four-part series.

Call it the calm before the storm. Managed accounts, which received so much attention in the months following the revelation of the Madoff fraud, have faded out of the news. However, this is due to the information gathering and due diligence procedures needed by large investors preparing to move portions (or all) of their hedge fund positions onto managed accounts.

"March and April is when we heard investors talking about managed accounts to increase transparency into hedge funds. What followed was a period of fact finding," Martin Gagnon, Co-CEO, Innocap Investment Management Inc told Opalesque. "We have never seen as many due diligence requests as we did during the months of May, June, and July."

The latest announcement in favor of managed accounts came in late July when Union Bancaire Prive (UBP) was reported to be restructuring much of its absolute return portfolio. The overhaul will include moving approximately 70% of hedge fund investments into managed accounts.

Such moves by institutional investors are evidence of the intricate network of operations that needs to be established in order to run a large managed account platform.

Montreal-based Innocap, which is owned by two large banks was established 13 years ago in July 1996. This backing allows the platform the resources to include relation......................

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