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Coupland Cardiff shuts Asia event-driven strategy

The closure of the CC Asia Advantage Fund follows a redemption from its sole investor and comes as the region sees a sharp fall in regional M&A deals.
Coupland Cardiff shuts Asia event-driven strategy

Coupland Cardiff, the UK-based hedge fund manager, has recently closed its CC Asia Advantage Fund, following a redemption from its sole investor.

The Asia event-driven strategy is understood to have had a negative return of -5.98% in 2011 and -3.6% in this year to August.

It had about $80 million in assets, which were attributable to just one investor, at the time of closure, according to Coupland Cardiff chief executive Richard Cardiff.

“The investor decided to re-allocate their assets internally and made some asset allocation shifts away from event-driven, so the fund was closed down and the money returned to the investor,” says Cardiff.

CC Asia Advantage was set up in 2007 to capture opportunities in Asian mergers and acquisitions activity. It was among the best-performing regional event-driven strategies in 2009, returning about 22%.

However, the regional M&A environment has proven challenging lately, with completed deal activity in Asia-Pacific totalling $247.8 billion in the first nine months of 2012, down 37.1% from the same period last year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

While it was initially launched as an open-ended fund, redemptions resulted in the strategy becoming a single-investor fund in 2010. Jinesh Patel, who managed the strategy, remains with the firm, says Cardiff.

UK-headquartered Coupland Cardiff, which oversees $1.2 billion in assets, runs a series of funds focused on Asia, where it has an office in Singapore.

Cardiff did not rule out the possibility of launching an Asian event-driven strategy again in the future. “We’re always open to examining avenues where we think investors will see decent returns,” he says.

¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
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