Bruce-Lipnick's  Instablog

Asset Alliance Corp launches two sales and distribution companies, Hedge Harbor, in New York and London, sees MENA markets as next focus for investors

Investment management firm Asset Alliance Corporation, has expanded their initial foray into the investment placement and research arena with the launch of two sales and distribution companies. Asset Alliance, which launched Capintro Partners Limited in Dubai last year, will now have additional teams in both New York and London with companies Hedge Harbor Inc. and Hedge Harbor Limited. The three companies, which will work to cover opportunities in the largest global investment markets in the world, will be known collectively as Hedge Harbor.

Hedge Harbor, designed as an investment placement company, will "represent best of breed managers across many strategies," Arnold Mintz, Co-Founder and COO of Asset Alliance and Global Head of Hedge Harbor said. The company takes a consultant approach to the investment placement business. "We are involved in providing detailed analysis of the investment process, manager infrastructure, and the risk management profile. We provide a complete turnkey analysis of a managers skill set, capability, and performance. We only seek to represent a select few managers and work with them to achieve their goals of raising substantial assets from long-term investors."

Up and coming focus: MENA markets
In a Deutsche Bank study released earlier this year, the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region was deemed by those surveyed to be the likely top performing region in 2008 (Source). Mintz and Bob Stearns, Senior Managing Director of Hedge Harbor NY, echoed this opinion as they spoke with Opalesque. "Last year that region had very high, double digit returns and this year, while off from that performance, the region is still growth oriented and opportunistic, and benefits from the substantial wealth generated from oil exploration and oil wealth," Mintz said.

Stearns commented, "One of the interesting things about the MENA region is that it is much like the Gold Rush in the United States during the 1800's". "In the gold rush days a lot of money was made by the guys selling picks and shovels, it was an infrastructure play. A similar situation exists in the MENA region now - where you have a lot of oil money being reinvested into construction projects and technology and various other industries. It is an interesting play, without having the downside correlations of oil you have the benefit of the boom of the region."

Hedge Harbor currently represents a MENA fund. The manager, with approximately $100m in assets, runs a long/short equity fund, dedicated to the region. "They invest in a wide range of instruments including listed and unlisted equities, debt securities, options, warrants and other derivative instruments".

Expanding reach
Hedge Harbor's relationship with parent company Asset Alliance, which, together with its affiliate managers, has approximately $3.5bln under management and has been taking equity stakes in hedge funds since 1996, will also provide the opportunity of cross promotion between the two platforms. As Asset Alliance seeds new managers, Hedge Harbor will have the opportunity to review and evaluate them for possible early client investments, and those managers which Hedge Harbor finds may be evaluated by Asset Alliance for equity stakes.

The Hedge Harbor team begins representing hedge funds, but expects to expand their business distribution capabilities into venture capital, private equity and real estate. Contact information: contact: Info@Hharbor.com