London hedge fund Westbeck bullish on both oil and its new electric metals UCITS fund

Westbeck Capital Management, a hedge fund in London set up by veteran investors Will Smith, Jon Hykawy (PhD), and Jean-Louis Le Mee, has launched a UCITS fund focused on electric metals to capitalise on the unfolding electric vehicles revolution. As paradoxical as it may sound to be bullish both oil and electric vehicles, Westbeck says its existing oil equities fund has been performing well recently and believes this is just the beginning of the sector starting to recover.

The new Westbeck Electric Metals Fund is a fundamental long-biased equities fund aiming to capitalise on the 'electric revolution' that is unfolding. The fund will focus primarily on 'electric metals' , i.e. the raw materials essential to enabling the fast development of Electric Vehicles and more generally Batteries for Power Storage, as well as the build out of their supporting infrastructure (charging points, grid extension and upgrade) . The main materials include (but are not limited to) Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Rare Earths & Graphite. At least 75% of the portfolio will be dedicated to companies focused on exploring and producing these key materials.

The fund will also have some ?exibility to invest in other aspects of the electric value chain, such as battery manufacturing & recycling, speciality chemicals and infrastructure players. These other themes will account for up to 25% of the portfolio. The fund has a capacity of $250m and is offered on the Carne Ireland platform

Veteran investors get support from awardwinning physicist

With Partner / Head of Research Jon Hykawy (PhD), Westbeck has one of the most seasoned rare metals experts on board. Hen trained as a physicist & after completing an MBA began work as a sellside technology analyst with Canaccord in 2001. He helped found 2 brokerages (Fraser Mackenzie & Byron Cap......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.