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From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York:

New York-based CL Kempner Asset Management recently announced that Melody Bryant, former Senior Portfolio Manager and Managing Director at Neuberger Berman joined Principal Carl Kempner to help the firm beef up its long/short equity strategy as it moves to target additional assets. Bryant, who joined the firm at the end of 2010 will help expand the portfolio's reach into pharma, technology, and bio-tech.

The $25m long/short value equity fund gained approximately 10% in 2010 and is up about 4% YTD in 2011.

"The old expectations from institutional investors were that a manager return a minimum of 10%. Now, the expectations are more around 8-10%, but if you aren't delivering that, and you aren't at $100m in assets you aren't going to attract those investors," Kempner told Opalesque.

With a twenty-five year track record, he believes the long/short value focused on capital protection through an options overlay will attract institutional investors, but like all small managers he knows that critical mass for those inflows is $100m. So, the firm is now moving to raise acceleration capital to bring them to that point. Hiring Bryant, who brings a long background of working with institutional clients, was one step in that process.

Another step is making their strategy more aggressive, and reaching further into sectors such as pharma, tech and bio-tech, in a......................

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