1 Jul 2010
Gartmore has launched a new long/short equity fund to be managed by John Bennett, who joined the firm from GAM at the beginning of 2010. Anticipating the EU Alternative Investment Fund Manager’s Directive, the Gartmore AlphaGen Pan-European Equity Hedge Fund is the firm’s first Dublin-domiciled hedge fund.
Gartmore and Bennett have launched the fund with €30 million of start-up capital. Bennett has a 20-year track record managing European equities and over 10 years’ experience managing long short portfolios. He will run the fund with a team of four who currently manage €4 billion in European equities.
The Fund will be managed in a similar style to the GAM European Equity Hedge Fund. Bennett ran the GAM fund from its inception in January 1999 until September 2009, achieving an annualised return of 7.3%. His style is fundamental stock picking and the new hedge fund will seek to blend identification of sector themes with bottom-up stock specifics.
The Gartmore AlphaGen Pan-European Equity Hedge Fund is a sub-fund of the Gartmore Qualified Investor Fund, an open ended investment company. The fund’s target market is institutional investors and the minimum investment is €250,000.
Bennett believes that clear sector themes present themselves over the course of a cycle, offering distinct investment opportunities, both long and short. As such themes are often transportable, Bennett consequently plays close attention to sector drivers globally in order to gain insight into particular European plays. From time to time such opportunities will be addressed via sector Exchange Traded Funds as well as single stock positions.
The second key opportunity Bennett and his team seek to exploit is pure stock picking. Here Bennett follows an analytical approach based upon cash return on invested capital, seeking to identify inflection points in a company's capital deployment since this is often a powerful driver of returns on both the long and short sides of the fund's book. The fund is pursuing an all cap strategy, although the portfolio will mainly comprise companies with a market capitalisation of more than €1 billion.
The new fund is expected to reflect Bennett’s bearish view of financials and utilities. On the long side, in recent quarters he has favoured tech plays like business software provider Sage and providers of consumer staples, including Unilever and Nestle.
Gartmore managed over £22 billion as of April 30th. The firm is a pure equities shop and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of running hedge funds alongside its long-only operations.
Gartmore and Bennett have launched the fund with €30 million of start-up capital. Bennett has a 20-year track record managing European equities and over 10 years’ experience managing long short portfolios. He will run the fund with a team of four who currently manage €4 billion in European equities.
The Fund will be managed in a similar style to the GAM European Equity Hedge Fund. Bennett ran the GAM fund from its inception in January 1999 until September 2009, achieving an annualised return of 7.3%. His style is fundamental stock picking and the new hedge fund will seek to blend identification of sector themes with bottom-up stock specifics.
“This is a superb addition to Gartmore’s highly respected hedge fund range with John’s ten years’ experience of running European equity long/short funds,” said Paul Graham, Gartmore’s Global Head of Alternatives, commenting on the launch. “Investors will now be able to access his distinctive investment style and excellent track record through this latest offering. The fund’s Dublin domicile is an example of how our operations platform can easily adapt to meet the needs of our clients in the face of regulatory change.”
The Gartmore AlphaGen Pan-European Equity Hedge Fund is a sub-fund of the Gartmore Qualified Investor Fund, an open ended investment company. The fund’s target market is institutional investors and the minimum investment is €250,000.
Bennett believes that clear sector themes present themselves over the course of a cycle, offering distinct investment opportunities, both long and short. As such themes are often transportable, Bennett consequently plays close attention to sector drivers globally in order to gain insight into particular European plays. From time to time such opportunities will be addressed via sector Exchange Traded Funds as well as single stock positions.
The second key opportunity Bennett and his team seek to exploit is pure stock picking. Here Bennett follows an analytical approach based upon cash return on invested capital, seeking to identify inflection points in a company's capital deployment since this is often a powerful driver of returns on both the long and short sides of the fund's book. The fund is pursuing an all cap strategy, although the portfolio will mainly comprise companies with a market capitalisation of more than €1 billion.
The new fund is expected to reflect Bennett’s bearish view of financials and utilities. On the long side, in recent quarters he has favoured tech plays like business software provider Sage and providers of consumer staples, including Unilever and Nestle.
Gartmore managed over £22 billion as of April 30th. The firm is a pure equities shop and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of running hedge funds alongside its long-only operations.
