AI Hedge Awards 2017

Acquisition International - Hedge Fund Awards 2017 49 Bellecapital Partners AG Best Asia-Focussed Investment Manager - Switzerland & Best Asian Equity Fund (5 Years): Galileo Asia Fund Bellecapital Partners AG Bellecapital Partners (BCP) is the asset management arm of Bellecapital group, one of the largest independent Swiss asset managers with offices in Zurich and London. We invited Christian Kuersteiner, Head of Distribution at BCP, to tell us more. Company: Bellecapital Partners AG Email: BCPartners@ bellecapital.ch Web: www.bellecapital.ch Address: Limmatquai 1, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland Phone: +41 44 250 87 87 HF170029 BCP is a pioneer in alternative investments, commodities and Asia, regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). The firm supports a range of clients including pension funds, insurance companies, banks, independent asset managers and family offices. Christian is keen to highlight the firm’s focus and how it aims to offer a superior service by drawing on its expertise and knowledge. “Alternative investments historically exhibited low correlation to equity and bond returns and are therefore ideal for portfolio diversification. Asia remains particularly interesting for the strategically thinking investor thanks to its superior growth perspectives.” “The common denominator is active management. For all these asset classes active management makes a lot of sense as it allows us to benefit from available market inefficiencies and invest in the most promising companies, strategies, styles or commodities. If necessary, this also allows us to decisively reduce portfolio risk so to generate an attractive risk-adjusted performance.” Alongside risk management, client service is also central to the firm’s success. As such BCP aims to understand their clients’ investment strategy, process and style and serve their overt and latent needs. In addition, the firm aims to be fully transparent on strategy, investments and costs. Looking to the future, this focus on achieving client satisfaction will remain the core focus. Christian concludes that he is optimistic about the future, both of the market and BCP itself. “Institutional investors are becoming bored of the mantra of pure passive investments and are seeing more and more the merits of active investing in areas where it absolutely makes sense, among them Asia. Additionally, the underweight in asset classes such as commodities, hedge funds and emerging markets is questioned with many clients indicating that they are looking to add to them in the near future.” “These developments present BCP with a number of exciting opportunities. In order to be able to take advantage of these our firm is also looking to expand, and we are currently in discussions with other managers with successful track records in the areas we operate, with a view to inviting them to join our firm. This will add to the investment synergies and enhance our offering in Asia, commodities and alternative investments.” Castle Hall Alternatives Best Global Operational Due Diligence Firm 2017 Castle Hall Company: Castle Hall Alternatives Email: info@ castlehallalternatives.com Web: www.castlehallaltneratives.com HF170038 Castle Hall Alternatives helps investors build comprehensive due diligence programs across hedge fund, private equity and long only portfolios. Built upon Castle Hall’s next generation, online diligence architecture, DueDiligenceProfessional™, the firm helps institutions, fund of funds, advisors, endowments and family offices evaluate whether asset managers meet operational best practice. Around the world, institutional and private allocators, and their advisors, face competing challenges of meeting investment objectives within a sensible governance, risk and compliance framework, while delivering those results in a fiscally responsible manner. As such Castle Hall Alternatives helps investors build comprehensive due diligence programs across hedge fund, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and long only portfolios. Conducting approximately 400 diligence reviews annually, in addition to monitoring hundreds of funds on an ongoing basis, allows Castle Hall to assess practices across a broad scope of asset classes and thereby identify evolving operational best practice trends in the asset management industry. In addition, Castle Hall monitors regulatory and industry association directives, and developments in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) frameworks, as well as Enrionmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria as they pertain to investment management operational best practice and the expectations or requirements of institutional allocators. This approach enables the firm to add value to clients through multiple avenues. The company recently completed an extensive FinTech initiative to transform the delivery of its services, enhancing and expanding functionality, reporting and analytical capabilities. This initiative has produced the award- winning DueDiligenceProfessional™ platform. In addition, this initiative has facilitated a fundamental change to the way in which the firm’s services are completed and documented, leading to a process that is industry leading and Patent Pending. The DueDiligenceProfessional™ platform is a risk management tool that offers tremendous gains in work flow efficiency and effectiveness for clients. The platform captures diligence data consistently and conveniently, identifying risk flags across a matrix of risk categories, ultimately allowing clients to find information and risks quickly so they can spend the majority of their time addressing risks and concerns, rather than gathering and processing data to identify material risks or concerns. In addition, the platform aggregates risk metrics and flags across a portfolio at a glance, facilitating more effective use of time and diligence resources for those responsible for due diligence within any organization. Looking ahead, Castle Hall will continue to expand its customized service suite while delivering flexible and comprehensive diligence solutions to clients. The firm anticipates continued expansion in operations, and will be looking to launch new services and support for the industry.