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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Encouraged by a promising investment environment and accelerated investment pace, New York-based special opportunities fund, Atalaya Capital Management LP, today announced that it has expanded its team, adding three investment professionals and a marketing professional.
“Recent positive changes in our target investment markets have prompted Atalaya to bolster our professional platform in order to capitalize on market conditions and new opportunities,” said Ivan Q. Zinn, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer.
Josh Ufberg joined as a Principal from Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group, while Rana Mitra and Alex Wang have joined the team responsible for the sourcing and purchase of private credit assets as Senior Associate and Associate, respectively. Ashley Fochtman joined the Firm as a Vice President and will be working in a business development capacity. Previously, Ms. Fochtman worked in hedge fund marketing and at Goldman Sachs as an energy derivatives analyst.
Founded by Mr. Zinn in 2006, Atalaya focuses on the opportunistic purchase of senior secured credit from forced sellers, failed financial institutions and sellers in need of liquidity such as banks, commercial finance companies, and other financial and investment institutions.
About Atalaya Capital Management
Atalaya Capital Management is an alternative investment firm focused on investing in small and middle market credit opportunities. Since inception in early 2006, the Firm has successfully invested over $1 billion through (1) the opportunistic purchase of private, senior secured credit from forced sellers, failed financial institutions and sellers in need of liquidity, and (2) proprietary ‘new issue’ credit investments including DIP loans and other senior secured financings.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Viathon Capital, LP has officially launched the Whitewater Master Fund, LP, a credit opportunity fund focused on non-correlated absolute returns.
Employing a fundamental, credit-intensive research process in order to identify long and short investment opportunities in the United States and Europe, the hedge fund’s objective is to seek long term capital appreciation by investing in high yield and investment grade corporate bonds and bank debt.
As part of this launch, Viathon Capital has affiliates of Citigroup Alternative Investments, LLC (CAI) as its seed investor in this new fund. The fund launched in May of 2009 with $50 million in capital and had a net return of +0.92 % for the month of May and estimates +2.10% for June bringing it’s inception to date return to approximately +3.02%.
Viathon Capital’s team includes four investment professionals and two trade support/back office personnel with backgrounds from Marathon Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Neuberger Berman, SAC/Sigma, Providence Investment Management and Lehman Brothers.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Viathon Capital, LP has announced the launch of a new credit focused opportunity fund, the Whitewater Master Fund, LP, as of May 1, 2009. The launch has affiliated with Citigroup Alternative Investments LLC (CAI) as seed investor in this new fund.
The fund employs a fundamental, credit-intensive research process in order to identify long and short investment opportunities in both US and European markets.
"We have a multi-million dollar, best-in-class trading and risk management system that allows us to manage portfolio risk on a real time basis and seamlessly integrate with our prime brokers and independent administrator." Bob Becker and Rob Comizio, managing partners said, "In addition, we have the relationships, infrastructure and investment process in place to effectively execute our investment strategy."
"As managers of the Whitewater Master Fund, we are keenly aware of the current changes and challenges in our industry. As a result, we have instituted a number of key policies and initiatives specifically designed to service the needs of sophisticated investors in this new environment." they said.
The performance estimate for Whitewater Master Fund for the month of May 2009 was approximately +1%. Viathon Capital, LP has 60 years of combined market experience including four investment professionals and two trade support/back office personnel to manage the new fund.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Minneapolis Star Tribune – Like most market watchers, last year’s participants in the Star Tribune Investor Roundtable failed to predict that 2008 would be a year of stomach-churning stock market declines, failed financial institutions, multibillion-dollar bailouts and credit markets as frozen as a Minnesota lake in January.
"I think everybody in the room knew there was more leverage, more speculation, more betting on the economy, but it amazes me that it got to this level," said Phil Dow, director of equity strategy at RBC Wealth Management.
But what the group of Twin Cities investment professionals did foresee a year ago was a period of unprecedented stock market volatility. The VIX index, a gauge of market swings, reached a record high this fall.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – The largest hedge fund run by Citadel Investment Group has fallen 30 percent this year stemming from losses tied to convertible bonds. The $10 billion Kensington Global Strategies Fund has been hit hard by the credit crunch, prompting CEO Kennith Griffin to warn investors that returns may be extremely volatile in the next few weeks.
Yesterday, Mr. Griffin sent a letter to investors stating that September was the “single worst month, by far, in the history of Citadel. Our performance reflected extraordinary market conditions that I did not fully anticipate, combined with regulatory changes driven more by populism than policy.”
Rumors of the lagging performance were so strong that Mr. Griffin was forced to set the record straight. He also cited the temporary ban of short selling as one of the reasons for the losses, saying it “created material dislocations across many of our portfolios and disrupted our ability to assume and manage risk.”
Yesterday, Dealbreaker.com had published some of the swirling rumors highlighting Citadel’s problems, fueling fear and speculation in the market. The website eventually took the post down after Citadel expressed their disdain. Dealbreaker wrote: “We removed the citadel post after it was brought to our attention that it was a baseless rumor, and was irresponsible to repeat.”
Dealbreaker had pointed out that the fund uses 4 to 1 leverage, down from 7 to 1 earlier this year. Although they noted that this was high, it is not uncommon for hedge funds to use this much leverage, though some choose to use none. To put it into perspective, Long Term Capital Management and its infamous collapse used 25 to 1 leverage, or for every $1 they had, they borrowed $25.
Citadel was founded in 1990 and manages over $20 billion in assets throughout locations in the United States, Asia, England and Bermuda.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
