Although Asia is often seen as an equity market play, ideal for when volatility can be tolerated in exchange for higher returns, there is more on offer than straight-forward equities alone – a fact that prompted Sydney-based Prodigal Capital to start a multi-strategy Asia ex-Japan fund in 2005.
The environment offered rich opportunities for the Prodigal Absolute Cayman Fund, yet there was little existing competition from hedge funds and prop traders, recalls founder and chief investment officer Mike Munns.
Mike Munns and Jeff Lee
“We wanted to generate returns from relative value trades, rather than outright positions in stocks, bonds, and so on,” he says. “We thought that good risk control, diversification and multi-market funds would perform better, so we developed funds and strategies that met those criteria. We started with multi-strategy because we believed that this framework gave us the opportunity to move capital depending on market conditions...