Money in the family: #Hedge funds target Asian #familyoffices

It’s all in the family it would seem, at least that’s what many small to mid size hedge funds would have you believe.  A recent Bloomberg article reporting that small to mid-sized hedge funds are increasingly turning to Asian #family offices and millionaires for investments – citing that larger institutions and pension funds favoured funds at the big end of town, with large assets under management and proven track records.

Extremely high volatility in equity markets has seen hedge funds take on an increasingly important role for family offices, their low correlation characteristics acting as a good diversifier for their portfolios.  This need has opened up opportunities for some smaller based hedge funds such as Guangzhou-based E Fund Management – Zhen Liu the fund’s managing director of index and quantitative investment stating “It is always hard to raise money for new startup hedge funds, but it is generally easier from family offices and private wealth…They are more performance driven and more willing to try out new and novel strategies and managers.”

The data also seems to support this, with almost 90% of family offices surveyed in the first quarter suggesting they were “highly likely to put more money into hedge funds this year”, according to accounting and advisory firm Rothstein Kass.

On the 12th March 2012, Asian family offices will gather together in Singapore at the 5th annual Asian Family Office Forum.  This is a closed door forum exclusively for family offices.  For more information on the 5th annual Asian Family Office Forum click here or contact Juliah Jailani at juliah.jailani@terrapinn.com .