Alt Investments
More Capital Raising for Listed Absolute Returns Vehicle
Dexion Absolute, the Guernsey registered, closed-ended investment company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange is to raise £133 milli...
Dexion Absolute, the Guernsey registered, closed-ended investment company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange is to raise £133 million ($235 million) in a multi-currency share issue that will begin trading next week. This will be Dexion’s fifth major capital increase and it will be used for additional investments and to broaden its investor base in Europe and Asia. Dexion’s target market is investors who see the potential for profits in non-correlated investments and who want to get into hedge funds but feel more comfortable with a listed product. Dexion invests in about 50 hedge funds representing seven different investment styles. This year they have been successful in highlighting coal and steel related investments, as well as crude-oil futures and a bet on the rise in the value of the US dollar. Dexion Absolute has an exclusive arrangement with Chicago-based Harris Alternatives, manager of the Aurora fund of hedge funds. Under terms of the agreement, Dexion Absolute invests in funds selected by Harris Alternatives to replicate the performance of the Aurora funds which have recorded an average 13 per cent annual return from January 1988 to September 2005. About 55 per cent of Dexion Absolute's client base is institutional wealth managers who purchase shares on behalf of customers. "If you are a small pension fund, family office or an ultra-high-net-worth individual, hedge funds are an unregulated opaque world in which you have Cayman offshore funds and delays in reporting information and valuations, and there are often various tax implications," Robin Bowie, a director of Dexion Absolute told Dow Jones. "What we have tried to do is to say to international investors: Why shouldn't everyone have access to best-of-breed managers, wrap them in a format where you can mark to market and have very good liquidity?" he added. The company had net assets of £512 million at 30 September 2005.
