Trafalgar Capital Management, the London based hedge fund manager, has teamed up with industry veteran Chris Poil to launch its first Ucits regulated vehicle, the Trafalgar Quadrant Fund.
The fund, a European long/short Ucits equity fund, predominately invests in UK equities drawn from the FTSE 350 universe and focuses on recovery situations.
The fund splits companies into four quadrants or segments based on their value and growth characteristics, taking long positions in companies that are priced cheaply with the potential for growth and conversely short positions in expensive businesses that are likely to disappoint.
Poil says: “Strong performance can be created by establishing where the unrecognised growth characteristics lie and identifying the ‘torpedoes’ on the reverse side of the trade i.e. stocks that are expensively rated, have poor capital structures and may disappoint. Now is also the perfect time in the investment cycle to exploit recovery situations.”
He will work alongside senior portfolio manager Josh Jacobson, blending his own fundamental stock selection skills with Jacobson’s trading and analytical expertise gleaned in the global equity markets.
Poil began his career over 22 years ago at Mercury Asset Management. In 1996 he became head of UK equities and subsequently chairman of the global senior management team at ING Baring Asset Management, before later moving into various non-executive and advisory roles to public and private equity companies, as well as continuing to run private investment portfolios. He acted as investment consultant to Cheyne Capital from 2006 to 2009.
Chris Aarons, chief executive of Trafalgar Capital, says: “We are delighted to have such an experienced fund manager as Chris on board to spearhead our first foray into the Ucits space. Since we launched the company in 2001, our focus has been to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns and up until now, the funds have always been offshore unregulated entities. This new Ucits vehicle enables us to meet the needs of UK professional investors and offer a really interesting investment proposition backed by a talented fund management team. Given the interest we are seeing from institutional and private client wealth managers right now, we believe this avenue gives Trafalgar a significant edge in the UK market.”
