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Eliza Lau

Under the agreement, SFM will provide sourcing to talented managers and contribute its expertise on the dynamics of the ever-growing Asian emerging hedge fund universe, and IMQ will advise SFM on the business of seeding and accelerating hedge fund managers.

Eliza Lau, founder and CIO of Synergy, and former CEO and CIO of SAIL Advisors, commented, “We see a broad spectrum of hedge fund strategies with Asian emerging manager candidates. As the China market orderly opening up the alternative investment platform in the coming years, we see greater opportunity and many good talents with strategies in the CTA and commodity trading space given the advanced and highly active commodity exchanges in China.”

Jeroen Tielman, CEO and Founder of IMQ, and a 25-year veteran of the global institutional industry, says: “In essence, the premise of the mutual advisory is to explore the possibility of a joint activity in seeding and accelerating emerging hedge fund managers based in Asia. We believe Asia has myriad opportunities for establishing a seeding platform accommodating emerging manager talents; in particular we are expecting to see some quite exceptional emerging managers from China in the coming years.

Currently, the Asian hedge fund industry is estimated to be within $83bn, which is still 25%v below its peak in 2007.

Its size is expected to further decrease this year after a dismal performance in 2011 and the difficulty faced by Asian fund managers to raise capital. 2011 also saw the Asian hedge fund industry to slowdown in terms of growth.

Data released by Singapore-based data provider Eurekahedge Pte., showed that some 123 Asia-focused hedge funds folded up in the first 10 months of last year compared with 125 in all of 2010 and a record 184 in 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Artradis Fund Management Pte, once Singapore’s biggest hedge fund, was one of the companies which closed shop last year, while managers returning money to investors included CoreVest Partners and Kilometre Capital Management Ltd.

Asia-focused hedge funds also failed to deliver good returns last year with most strategies in the red. Only Asian macro funds managed to turn positive performance last year, with more than 6% in returns, it was reported.

However, despite its poor performance, Asian hedge funds still managed to outperform regional stock markets, with the group down 6.2% for the year to November, according to data from Deutsche Bank, compared with a 17.2% drop in the FTSE Asia Pacific index over the same period.
Edited B. Gravrand