Industry Updates

Lazard launches Opportunities Fund following the closure of Matrix UCITS platform

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

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Opalesque Industry Update - Following the recent closure of Matrix UCITS fund platform, the assets of the Matrix Lazard Opportunities Fund have been merged into the newly created Lazard Opportunities Fund, which was launched yesterday. This is a sub-fund of Lazard Global Investment Funds plc, an Irish-registered Open Ended Investment Company and recognised UCITS.

Mike Wariebi, Head of Alternative Investments, Marketing and Business Development in Europe and the Middle East at Lazard Asset Management, commented: “The transition from Matrix to the Lazard UCITS platform has been seamless and we welcome existing and future investors. We anticipate significant demand for the fund as the market is seeing $90billion+ of convertible debt maturing over the next few years. We believe companies looking to re-finance debt and re-structure may create opportunities in special situations.”

The Lazard Opportunities Fund is a relative value capital structure and convertible arbitrage fund focused on special situations and events trading. The fund aims to generate returns by exploiting anomalies across a corporate’s securities, using proprietary screening tools, quantitative analysis and fundamental research. The Fund is domiciled in Ireland and has weekly liquidity.

The fund uses a strategic macro-economic overview to optimise portfolio design across two interrelated strategies: special situations and events and convertible arbitrage. This approach expands the opportunity set for the strategy while diversifying its sources of return. Proprietary quantitative tools, deep credit analysis and rigorous fundamental analysis by Lazard’s analysts provide a foundation for the strategy’s differentiated approach.

The Lazard Opportunities Fund is managed by a team led by Portfolio Manager Sean Reynolds in New York. The investment team consists of six experienced investment professionals who have an average of 16 year’s industry experience. The team also benefits from the fundamental insights of more than 215 Lazard Asset Management investment professionals around the world.

Sean Reynolds, Portfolio Manager of the Lazard Opportunities Fund, said: “We anticipate ongoing periods of volatility spikes as markets digest political, economic and sovereign events and this will likely create a generally volatile investment environment in the near term. The Lazard Opportunities Fund is designed to take try to advantage of increased volatility via its current bias towards short-dated corporate credit. The emphasis on shorter-dated trades where outcomes are more definable provides appropriate exposure to the beta of the asset class, but also helps to cushion during periods of risk aversion from the alpha generation delivered via special situations.” Corporate website: Source

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