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From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York: Valens Capital Management has announced the opening of a Tokyo office to support the growing base of Asian investors in their yen-denominated asset based lending fund. That launch in May of 2008 has resulted in approximately $140m in investments, mainly from Japanese pension funds, Dennis Pollack, Partner at New York-based Laurus-Valens, told Opalesque.

The firm has three asset based lending funds, which remain in positive territory throughout 2008, and together with its affiliate Laurus Capital Management oversee approximately $1.6bln in assets. In addition to the yen denominated fund, which is a mirror image of the Laurus Offshore Fund, the firm is in the process of finalizing a Euro denominated class with the goal of providing European investors with the same limits to currency exchange risk and will look next to the Australian markets for a similar product.

Making these products available “Is a good way for investors in another part of the world to tap into the micro cap space in the US – where there are very good companies with high value,” Pollack said. “We are in our eighth year and investors have seen that they can get exposure to the positive, uncorrelated returns that a fund can achieve when it approaches an asset based lending strategy correctly.”

With the Tokyo hire of Kiyomi Hioki, whose background in alternatives includes time as a Director at FinTech G......................

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