Alternative Market Briefing

Isolated New Zealanders deal with asset raising in different ways

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

From the Opalesque team: New Zealand, being so far away, has many courageous hedge fund managers. Courageous because they have to deal with the geographical isolation of their location as well as a local investor base that is not always open to sophisticated portfolio strategies. At the recent Opalesque New Zealand Roundtable (report here), some of these managers discussed how they handle such hurdles that are intrinsic to their beautiful country.

Enough of all this: NZ manager looking to leave London for Singapore “Right from the start of our business, we decided not to target New Zealand investors because firstly, we offer a very niche strategy; secondly, we thought to get local people to understand the strategy would be very difficult; and thirdly, that probably there would just not be the capital here for our kind of strategy,” said Anthony Limbrick, CIO of Pure Capital, a quantitatively driven investment manager.

But as due diligence trips to New Zealand (11 hours from Hong Kong, about 23 hours from London, 21 hours from New York) can be a deterrent to overseas investors, Pure set up a European office; a strategy which worked well, as the firm grew its assets from $10m two years ago to $43m.

But Limbrick is having second thoughts about being based in London: “We are seriously questioning our commitment to being in Europe. I am referring here to the plethora of re......................

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