West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Alternative asset manager, Duet Group, has launched the first Middle East and North Africa (MENA) multistrategy hedge fund "Duet MENA Opportunities Fund". The new fund will target both equity and fixed income markets in the MENA region and will be managed by Duet MENA Limited, a DIFC licensed asset manager.

Rabih Sultani, Chief Investment Officer, will manage the fund under the leadership of Hedi Ben Mlouka, Chief Executive Officer of Duet MENA. Rabih brings over 9 years of fund management and research experience across equities and fixed income.

"The investment team has one of the longest established track records in the Middle East." Hedi Ben Mlouka said, "The current unfolding crisis has created unprecedented opportunities in global markets. Such opportunities appear to be even more eye-catching in the MENA region, and we, Duet Group, are well positioned to take advantage of these prospects for our clients. I am pleased to announce that Duet’s commitment to the Middle East has led to the allocation of significant capital to the fund from existing shareholders and clients".

The new hedge fund will deploy three main investment strategies: Conviction, Relative Arbitrage and Opportunistic trading. These will be premised on pricing dislocations and valuation imbalances that are created from time to time under the influence of economic, political and capital flow factors.

The hedge fund manager has $2 billion of equity under management and their flagship hedge fund ‘Duet Global Opportunities Fund’ was awarded Best Equity Market Neutral Fund of the year in 2007 by Euro Hedge and HFM.

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Business24-7 – Middle East hedge fund investors expect emerging markets, the US and Asia (excluding Japan) will outperform in 2009 despite economic downturn, according to a survey conducted across the Mena region.

The survey, conducted by an investment placement specialist Capintro Partners, said the family offices are allocating a larger percentage of their portfolio to hedge funds than to other institutions. It said investors in the region prefer funds with larger asset sizes, longer track records and higher levels of liquidity.

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Tags: asia, economic-downturn, emerging-markets, fund investors, institutions, japan, liquidity, mena region, placement specialist