Reuters – Having built a portfolio that’s reached the $2 billion mark in just two years since its founding, Morgan Creek Capital is looking to overseas markets for new opportunities.

The money management group is working to draw together a new pot of cash of at least $50 million to invest in hedge funds that work in the so-called “emerging markets” of India, China, Russia and other far-flung locations.

The move is the latest piece of corporate engineering done by Morgan Creek founder Mark Yusko. The firm has grown its funds under management from $1.2 billion in early 2005 to $1.8 billion in December to the current $2 billion.

“We continue to grow nicely, we continue to roll out funds, and we continue to hire,” says Mike Hennessy, Morgan Creek’s managing director for investments.

The company recently added a trio of directors at the top of its employment pyramid. Among them is former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney Bill Watts, who was brought in to serve as director of regulatory affairs.

Morgan Creek’s employee roster now stands at about 30.

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TORONTO, June 14 (Reuters) – Canada’s small but rapidly growing hedge-fund industry is attracting increased attention from large Wall Street investment houses and from foreign institutional investors who are impressed, in part, by the fund firms’ expertise in oil and mining.

The foreign investors are hungry for exposure to what has until recently been a piping-hot commodities sector, but Wall Street banks also are seeking to expand their prime brokerage businesses by setting up relationships with existing Canadian hedge fund managers or by seeding new outfits.

“There’s some very good investment talent here that is, just now, starting to get recognized internationally,” said James McGovern, chief executive of Toronto-based Arrow Hedge Partners Inc., which manages more than C$650 million ($585.6 million). “I think we’re going to see a lot of the growth in these managers come via international allocations over domestic allocations (of assets).”

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