Mon, 12 Feb 2007
BNP Paribas Asset Management has signed an agreement under which it will take a minority stake in Finaltis, a Paris-based independent asset management company focused on alternative techniques, and invest in its hedge funds.
This investment is part of am incubation and seeding programme initiated by Gilles de Vaugrigneuse 18 months ago on behalf of BNP Paribas Asset Management & Services, and is designed to provide Finaltis with the resources to strengthen its efforts to develop high value, innovative alternative investment approaches.
The firm, which is headed by chief executive Denis Beaudoin and regulated by the French financial supervisor, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, is aiming to become a key player in the hedge fund market in continental Europe, offering single-strategy and multi-strategy high alpha products to professional investors.
The Finaltis team of 17 staff including nine fund managers has developed a range of products based on techniques including statistical arbitrage, gamma replication, dual structure arbitrage and high frequency trading. The firm has designed and implemented sophisticated tools including trading robots for futures and equities and real-time risk control and monitoring.
Finaltis' products are offered professional investors through highly liquid legal structures, offering daily subscriptions and redemptions. Its range includes three French fonds commun de placement, QuantiSelect (quantitative multi-strategy), MoneyMix (enhanced money market multi-strategy) and Finaltis Select (multi-strategy).
The firm also offers three single-strategy funds domiciled in Ireland: AlphaPrime/AlphaPrime Plus, which offers discretionary arbitrage on European equities; AlphaSquare, whose European equity statistical arbitrage performance has ranked it first in specialised league tables and databases; and AlphaCube, which offers gamma and short-term volatility trading in an innovative investment process with very robust daily returns.
In June 2003 the Finaltis management bought out stakes held by Robeco of the Netherlands and other investors in the firm since its establishment two years earlier.
Finaltis' investors consist of European and international institutions including funds of hedge funds, banks and insurance companies, and the firm has assets under management of EUR350m.
BNP Paribas Asset Management Group, the holding company for the asset management arm of BNP Paribas, takes equity stakes in asset management firms with a different focus from and a diversifying approach to that of BNP PAM.
Monday, February 19, 2007 | |
