AI Hedge Awards 2017

52 Acquisition International - Hedge Fund Awards 2017 Elara Asset Management Best Offshore India Dedicated Fund: Elara India Gateway Fund Elara Asset Management Company: Elara Asset Man- agement Email :[email protected] Web Address:Elaracapital.com HF170048 Elara PLC is a global boutique investment bank, with 100 employees, London (HQ) with other offices in New York, Mauritius, Dubai, Singapore, Mumbai, and Delhi. We profile the firm and its flagship fund, the Elara India Gateway Fund (EIGF). ElaraPLCand itsvarioussubsidiaries offers a wide range of services from investment management through to investment banking. Through its subsidiary Elara Asset Management, the firm offers the Elara India Gateway fund, which runs long only India strategy. It also offers managed accounts for large clients. Investment Advisor has 5 professionals with 35 years of investment research experience. Investment Advisor team is headed by Sonaal Kohli who has over 13 years experience investing in Indian equities. Sonaal worked for 7 years at Indea Capital, a India dedicated hedge fund (AUM ~USD 1 Billion) where he was heading the India office and was the senior most investment professional after the founder The fund invests in a much more concentrated portfolio of 10-20 mispriced stocks to generate absolute returns. Unlike other India funds it aims to make asymmetric investments and holds cash in case the investment team is unable to find absolute return ideas which deem to have favourable risk reward. The fund is more focused towards midcaps to generate alpha In addition, the fund is value oriented, taking a proprietary 360-degree approach seeking to reduce risks and aims to avoid value traps. The investment process involves identifying stock ideas through proprietary screens, dividing all businesses into three categories of Great, good, average businesses with a different holding period and approach for each category. Its investment strategy aims to find flaws in the consensus view to be able to identify truly mispriced stocks. The investment team undertakes a rigorous analysis of 15 years and 60 quarters financials The investment team has a proprietary four stage process which helps to identify companies with suspect corporate governance practices, which the firm believe is the biggest challenge to investing successfully in Indian and other emerging markets. Ultimately, India is one of the fastest growing large economies in the world with half of the population below 25 years of age. Interest rates in India have been decreasing as compared to other parts of the world where we are witnessing higher interest rates. It has a relatively stable currency as the two largest items of imports are gold and oil. Further since independence, it has one of the most business friendly governments, which has been trying to increase the ease of doing business in India and increasing tax compliance. All these conditions make it ripe to have a long term bull market over next 10 years, and as such EIGF, will be seeking to capitalise on this moving forward. ELYSIUM Investment Advisors Best Alternative Asset Manager - India & Best Long Term Absolute Return Fund (Since Inception): Elysium India Fund ELYSIUM Investment Advisors Company: Elysium Investment Advisors LLP Name: Vineet Sachdeva Email: updates@ elysiuminvestment.com Address: 506, The Capital, A Wing, Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai 400051 Phone: +91 22 6694 0170 HF170052 Elysium Investment Advisors LLP offers an India dedicated systematic investment strategy which aims to maximise absolute return over the long term at lower risk levels than that of the index. We invited Vineet Sachdeva to tell us more about this innovative investment approach. Elysium was founded in January 2013 by Vineet Sachdeva and Amit Patni. The firm offers both long only and market neutral options to its investors. Both these strategies are one of the best performing in its category with a much lower volatility compared to its peers. Since its inception in 2013, the fund has been growing capital at attractive rates, both on an absolute and a relative basis. The fund has delivered significant annualised returns (in USD) of 21% in the long-only; and 17% in the market neutral book; creating an excess return of 16% and 12% over the benchmark Nifty Index respectively. This was achieved with much lower volatility (risk) of 13% (for the long only) compared to volatility of 16% for the benchmark. Co-Founder and CEO Vineet oversees Elysium’s investment strategy, portfolio management and risk management. He brings nearly two decades of investment management and financial services experience. He has a strong background in investing with several years of experience in investing in the Indian markets. He discusses how his firm has differentiated itself from its competitors and marked itself as the best possible option for investors seeking to move into India’s emerging investment market. “For international investors looking to invest in the Indian equity markets, using a factor based systematic investment strategy is the best option and Elysium is the only choice on offer. Our primary investment objective is to generate long-term capital growth and absolute returns from a portfolio of equities, index futures and options. We believe that the secular growth story in India is one of the strong investment themes globally and we seek to capitalize on this opportunity.” At a GDP growth rate of over 7%, India is amongst the fastest growing economies in the world. Vineet concludes by outlining the reasons why the country will continue to build upon its success moving forward and how his firm intends to capitalise on the opportunities this growth will provide. “Currently India enjoys favourable economic conditions with several factors contributing to its rise; amongst these, a controlled current account deficit, lower oil prices, low inflation and increased government spending on infrastructure projects. We believe that these factors lead to above average returns to the discerning investor and are cause for institutions to increase allocations to the India story.”