PMA Capital Management has launched a new India fund, which focuses on alpha generation from long and short positioning in the top 250 Indian companies according to market capitalization.
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The new vehicle, the PMA India Fund, utilizes a mix of rigorous qualitative and quantitative processes that combines a top-down discipline with bottom-up analysis.
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The PMA India Fund is being managed by Anoop Villait, who heads the PMA India Strategy and has over 15 years of experience in the Indian markets, as well as an extensive contact base with Indian corporates and foreign banks.
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Prior to joining PMA, Villait was the lead manager of the Kuvera Fund, an Indian long short equity fund which had peak AUM of approximately US$190 million. From July 2004 to July 2007, Villait achieved a composite performance of 93.16% and an annualized return of 23.8%.
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“It is a great time to introduce this fund as the Indian market has inefficiencies that we aim to exploit to deliver absolute returns for our investors,” said Villait.
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Investors can also achieve exposure to the PMA India Fund by investing in the multi-strategy PMA Asian Opportunities Fund, which directly invests into PMA single strategy funds and also incubates new strategies. The Asian Opportunities Fund provides broad Pan-Asian exposure via liquid asset classes including credit, equity long/short, and forex. The portfolio weightings of the Asian Opportunities Fund are dynamically rebalanced as investment opportunities arise.
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“The launch of the India Fund is a noteworthy undertaking as it comes at a time when the market environment makes it increasingly difficult to launch new funds,” said PMA’s Chief Operating Officer Kam Bahra. “The market demands of hedge funds more robust infrastructure and higher levels of service, such as heightened transparency and operational controls, which require substantial investment. PMA had the foresight to institutionalize our platform from the very beginning. Our ability to meet these investor requirements and launch the India Fund is the result of a longstanding focus on a best-in-class infrastructure, including diligent daily reporting and an independent risk management function.”
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PMA was established in July 2002 and is recognized as one of the leading Asia-based institutional hedge fund platforms with assets under management of $1.7 billion.