Hedge Fund Awards 2015 www.acquisition-intl.com 62 The Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund, which has been named Best Systematic Hedge Fund – France in the Hedge Fund Awards, adopts a systematic approach to investing in global futures markets. Multiple trend detection techniques are employed by the fund, which is run by John Locke Investments, a Paris-based commodity trading advisor, over multiple time horizons, to a diverse basket of futures markets. Risk is equalised across all contracts through the use of real time volatility measures. A dynamic risk management tool also analyses risk factors such as rising correlations, reversal risk and sideway risk at the portfolio level. The average holding period of the fund is approx- imately two weeks. The fund provides for daily liquidity. “We believe that the general psychology of the markets is reflected into price behaviours that repeat themselves over time; they create trends that, in certain markets, persist over time, and that can be captured with the prudent use of robust quantitative analysis technologies,” says Alex Dramu, Senior Vice President. “The Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund aims to capture these trends – bullish as well as bearish ones – through an advanced statistical analysis of historical prices. “The fund now has 15 years of consistent track record and has traded through bullish markets, several financial crises, wars and market shocks of all sorts. All told, world equities are flat over the period, while the fund has almost tripled initial capital. I think that speaks for its interest in the long run.” John Locke Investments’ strong focus on research, as well as its commitment to staying on top of the latest technological de- velopments, is critical to the firm’s success, says Dramu. “We have a strong and highly qualified research team of researchers and IT developers, which bring together financial markets ex- perience and strong backgrounds in a variety of fields including physics, statistics, financial mathematics and trading. This, combined with an extremely powerful proprietary research and execution platform are the reasons of our success.” Asked what it is like to be a business working in the hedge fund industry at the present time, Dramu says the pressure Best Systematic Hedge Fund - France Company: John Locke Investments Name: Alex Dramu Email: alex.dramu@jl-invest- ments.com Address: 38 av Franklin Roo- sevelt, 77210, Avon Telephone: +33 1 64 70 40 34 Fact File Best Socially Responsible Investment Vehicle Company: Odyssey Analytic SA Name: Alexandros Tselentis Email:
[email protected] Web: www.odysseyanalytic.ch Address: WTC, Via Lugano 13, 6982 Agno, Switzerland Tel: +41-91 610 2970 Fact File to “adapt” the strategy in various ways has been very strong over the past few years. “As CTAs, including ourselves have underperformed over the past few years, some peopled started to voice concerns about their ability to deliver in the new, post-crisis environment. We have seen competitors shift their strategies dramatically, from trend following to more equity-driven strategies under this pressure. We did not give in to this temptation and 2014 performance shows we were ultimately right.” Dramu says that, based on what he sees within his firm, the development of UCITS hedge funds has led to a certain democratisation of hedge funds. “The investor base is today much more diverse and quite different than in the past. I hope this will lead to a better understanding of hedge fund managers for what they truly are – genuine entrepreneurs whose reason of being is to manage your money better than passive asset managers!” n Odyssey Green Planet Fund is an alternative investment vehicle reg- istered as a Professional Investor Fund in the jurisdiction of Malta. The Odyssey Green Planet Fund’s primary objective is to give investors access to the long term growth prospects of the clean technology sector, whilst controlling the risks and volatility asso- ciated with growth industries via a long/short equity vehicle that invests in publicly traded securities, says Alexandros Tselentis, President at Odyssey Analytic SA, which advises the fund. “We firmly believe that clean technologies are enabling technologies that have a positive impact on the wider economy. Their use is driven by global demographic megatrends both in terms of popu- lation increases and the movement of these populations from rural to urban centres. This demographic phenomenon means that demand for energy and clean water will increase over the coming decades, and clean technologies will enable this transformation to take place. “However, it is not enough to offer a good risk/reward profile or an interesting investment. The fund also has a clearly defined Social- ly Responsible Investment mandate and in this respect we apply stringent criteria of a higher standard than some of the largest public institutions globally.” Tselentis says the firm’s product clearly adds value to existing SRI portfolios by being innovative and taking a fresh look at investing in this manner. “This can be seen by our outperformance of the theme’s passive indexes.” Asked whether fund managers should be doing more to help improve society, Tselentis says that, first and foremost, managers have a responsibility first to their investors. “However, managers and investors do not live in a vacuum but within society, and responsible and transparent deployment of capital in an account- able manner whilst returning equal or better results than non-SRI investments is a win-win. There is no one uniform solution for achieving this, however. One of the most challenging aspects as manager is understanding the different value systems of our investors. “Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is inevitably a longer process subject to much more variation and customisation, as managers must first understand the investor’s values in order to be able to build a suitable portfolio. “Odyssey Analytic offers a unique quantitative approach in the SRI investment arena, a sector which is dominated by purely qualitatively-focused managers, says Tselentis. “We thus offer SRI investors a unique alpha stream to enhance and stabilise their portfolios. In absolute terms we offer long/short equity investors a unique and uncorrelated product compared to our peers, so this is not just a product for SRI portfolios. To quantify this, our fund offers 30% better performance than the theme’s passive index product with half the volatility and risk over the past year.” Hedge fund managers have traditionally been viewed, by people outside the industry, in a less than favourable light. This, says Tselentis, has changed little in recent years. “If perceptions have changed in recent years it has not been for the better. Popular perceptions of hedge fund managers reflect how the hedge fund industry as a whole is perceived. At best, this can be described as ambivalence – at worst, hostility. This is not a good outlook going forward. I believe this is an unfortunate result of people outside the industry having little direct exposure to hedge funds in general beyond their coverage in the media, often for all the wrong reasons (fraud, insider-trading, and manipula- tion). Such reports become a background noise which taints even the positive aspects of the industry such as SRI and other success stories.” Regional challenges facing the firm in the near term are mostly regulatory compliance burdens, Tselentis says. “Northern Europe, where there is a strong and growing tend towards SRI, is obviously an opportunity for investment advisory boutiques. “It is important that in the broader context of the hedge fund industry that innovation is recognised to be alive and well, and that investor demands are being met and exceeded,” he adds. And looking to the future, beyond growing Odyssey Green Planet, the firm plans to expand its fund franchise by focusing on other SRI themes, specifically healthcare, says Tselentis. n Cyril Systematic UCITS Fund Odyssey Green Planet Fund