Hedge Fund Awards 2015

Hedge Fund Awards 2015 www.acquisition-intl.com 22 Innovation in Exchange Traded Futures, Best for Technical Analysis Methods - UK, Best for Risk Allocation - UK (Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC), Top Performing Fund: Finex Navigator Futures Fund (UCITS IV) and Best Emerging New Fund (1 Year) - Malta (Finex Navigator) Finex LLP / Finex Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC After over a decade of designing, implementing and trading technical analysis models for Tier 1 institutions, in 2010 Andrew Gebhardt, Marcello Bugnoli and Michael Carney created Finex LLP, an asset manager specialising in multi-asset futures and options portfolios. We caught up with Gebhardt to find out more about this young firm and its rapid rise Finex is a UK regulated fund manager with a UCITS listed Fund and also offers Managed Accounts. The strategies combine mean rever- sion, breakout, and trend following in an effort to deliver uncorrelated, “all weather” returns. “In terms of AuM, our focus is to grow the UCITS fund, which cur- rently stands at $2.5 mln, since the bulk of our assets ($50 mln) is in Managed Accounts.” says Andrew Gebhardt, Managing Partner. “However, almost all the money in the fund comes from external investors, which vary from multinationals to private pensions (SIPP).” Asked which strategies performed best throughout 2014, and which he thinks will be the most successful as we move into 2015 and beyond, Gebhardt says that, without a shadow of a doubt, the mean reversion strategies worked best due to low volatility. “This made the fund return a solid 7.4% annualised for 2.2 Sharpe. As the strategies are sufficiently diverse the fund is ready for anything 2015 wishes to throw at us. Despite the limited AuM we are already running 29 mod- els with this going up to 57 as we near 15m and then 80 as we reach 40m in the near future.” Asked about current industry trends, Gebhardt says, “For us the obsession of validation from AuM rather than performance is the industry’s greatest weakness. It is well documented that small to mid- size managers perform best, yet the allocators and investors prefer lower profits in return for a more recognisable brand.” Hedge funds are often viewed less than favourably by the general public, and this is due to a lack of understanding of the work manag- ers do, says Gebhardt. “Hedge funds are easy targets for the press; the industry has no real lobby and struggles to collaborate at any level. Whilst individually some funds are well represented the majority do their work in total darkness. The estate agent analogy works quite well; no one likes them until they are selling your house for a higher price than you thought.” Finex distinguishes itself by using a hybrid approach, using both machines and humans to generate returns, says Gebhardt. “We firmly believe that humans still have an edge over machines when it comes to spotting patterns and taking imperfect decisions. However the machines surpass us in the capacity to act without emotion. We combine these attributes to create totally distinct methodologies than when applied collaboratively in a single portfolio can generate returns in all conditions. “Coming from a trading background, the team is focused on delivery of returns over the simple accumulation of assets. Judge us on our NAV, not on our AUM.” Recently, apart from having built all its own models from scratch, Finex also internally developed the execution engine which transacts for the fund, says Gebhardt. “However, our latest technological achievement is to build a live po- sitional and regulatory reporting system which displays all parametric risk values for the fund on a continuous basis. The output includes everything we need to know to comply with UCITS regulation as well as day to day risk management. The system also automatically recon- ciles all positions and broker end of day files. “We run over 80 distinct models, of which 70% of them are intraday. Since there is little available off the shelf that can cope, we invested heavily in model building and developed an execution engine which transacts for the fund.” Finex was recently named winner of five awards in the Acquisition International Hedge Fund Awards. “As an emerging manager it is a great satisfaction to be publicly recognised for the extraordinary efforts made by the whole the team behind closed doors,” says Gebhardt. “In such a highly regulated environment the public sometimes cannot grasp the work that goes into corporate governance and regulation, let alone having to raise assets whilst at the same time being involved in the markets 24/7. “These awards go some way to raise our profile in an industry where it is increasingly difficult to compare the true return on risk of various funds. Even within the relatively tight constraints of the UCITS environ- ment risk is not always utilised in the same way by all participants. “I think that a lot of clients and peers like the candid approach we have towards investment. We have a very humble, approachable culture and realize that the only reason why Finex exists is because of Company: Finex LLP / Finex Navigator UCITS SICAV PLC Name: Andrew Gebhardt Email: andrew.gebhardt@ finexlondon.com Web: www.finexlondon.com Address: 50 Cannon Street, London, EC4N 6JJ Phone: +44 20 3008 2539 Fact File Innovation in Exchange Traded Futures and Best for Technical Analysis Methods - UK

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