HedgeCo.net ( New York ) Venus Capital Management, Inc. has launched a new Event driven fund, the Venus Special Situations Fund. The general objective of the Fund is to seek long-term growth of capital by investing in event driven arbitrage and special situation opportunities in Asia, particularly in India.
Venus Capital believes that this is one of the best ways to generate risk-adjusted returns from India. The Fund aims for an absolute annual net return of 20%+ with a standard deviation of 8-10% or less, through a well diversified, multi-managed multi-strategy program. The fund expects to generate returns mostly from alpha with a very small contribution from beta. The Fund will largely invest in a number of equity-oriented special situation strategies in connection with mergers and acquisitions, government and non-government divestitures or spin-offs, non-bankruptcy restructurings, reorganizations, value with catalysts, intra-capital arbitrage opportunities and corporate actions such as share buybacks and special dividends. M&A activity in India was reported to be $18.2 billion in 2005, an overall increase of about 48% compared to 2004 according to Grant Thornton. In the first four months of 2006, $8.2 billion worth of deals took place.
The Portfolio Manager is veteran fund manager Vik Mehrotra, CEO and founder of Venus Capital Management, Inc., a Boston-based, registered investment advisor with the SEC. Venus Capital, founded in 1994, manages over $300 million in Asia dedicated strategies and is focused on getting the best risk-adjusted returns from Asia, for its investors, which are mostly US and European fund of funds, pension funds, endowments & foundations and family offices. Venus Capital currently manages the India-focused, multi-strategy, market neutral, Venus Arbitrage Fund and the Asia ex-Japan focused, long/short, Venus Acumen Asia Fund. Venus’ flagship product – the Venus Arbitrage Fund is now closed to new investors and has returned 12%+ per annum during the last 3 and 1/2 years with almost zero beta.
Venus Special Situations Fund had positive net returns of +0.41% during its first month of May, ’06 when most markets were down. Both onshore and offshore versions of the fund are available to accredited investors. Investors can request a private placement memorandum by visiting the manager”s website.
SOURCE: Venus Capital Management, Inc. www.venuscapital.com
