Opalesque Exclusive: Agricultural commodities might be a trend in 2010 (2)

Alternative Market Briefing

Opalesque Exclusive: Agricultural commodities might be a trend in 2010 (2) - GAIA is firmly betting on price hikes

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

Yesterday’s Part One (“Many expect price hike due to supply/demand imbalance”) can be found here.

The GAIA World Agri Fund, launched in May 2008 and run by GAIA Capital Advisors, an investment advisory company based in Geneva, invests opportunistically in upstream farming operations, agri-land, equipment and technology and related businesses in emerging regions. The fund invests in equities only. Class B gained 6.44% in November and is up 51.03% YTD (in 2009) – following the previous year’s 50% losses. GAIA was founded in 2006 by John Coast Sullenger, who talked to Opalesque after the presentation of a film by Klaus Pas in London last month (see Part One for details).

Strategy shifts towards liquidity Following the losses that the fund encountered in 2008, the strategy had to be reviewed. And this was done successfully, as the fund is now above water. Coast Sullenger explained that the main crux of the strategy shift was to get more liquid - mainly because the financing risks the small companies normally face became much more pronounced after the crisis.

“So we have been focusing on companies having cash flow and solvent businesses,” he said, “not that we did not do that in the past but then we would also buy some early-stage companies. Now the focus is on more liquid companies.” And investors also wa......................

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