New Event Driven Fund Targets Asian M&A

Vanessa Doctor

17 January 2010

Cayman-based hedge fund manager Tiresias Capital has announced plans to set up an Asian fund in the next months, Bloomberg reports.

The new event driven fund will be created to take advantage of the expected surge in M&A activity in the region over the next months, the news service said. It will be led by former Centaurus Capital Hong Kong head Matthew Moskey, who will also be joined by ex-Centaurus colleague Erik Senko. The fund will reportedly have initial capital of around $50 million.

"We're at the bottom of the mergers and acquisition cycle," Mr Moskey was quoted as having said in an interview. “The cycle is picking up and the quality of deals is improving. It’s no longer just the state-owned enterprises buying commodities. You are seeing minority buyouts, corporate transactions and strategic deals.”

Preliminary results from the latest Eurekahedge Asia Arbitrage Hedge Fund Index showed that event driven hedge fund strategies had gone up 24 per cent in 2009, ranking it third in terms of performance. The strategy reportedly represented 15 per cent of Asian hedge funds in the third quarter of last year.

Event driven hedge funds are those that trade securities of firms during mergers, bankruptcies and reorganisations.