Macquarie reshapes hedges
Macquarie Bank will amalgamate its separate hedge fund businesses under the name MQ Specialist Investment Management (MQ).
At this stage, MQ will bring together Macquarie’s single fund manager activities, formerly known as Macquarie Newton Specialist Funds Management, and its fund of hedge funds business, previously known as MQ International Capital, now called MQ Capital.
The main advantage the group hopes to garner from the reshuffle is a stronger identity and clear market differentiation as a boutique-style business coupled with the Macquarie brand.
“MQ combines the Equity Markets Group’s boutique approach to absolute return and specialist equity style funds management with Macquarie’s institutional risk management and operational framework,” said Greg Mackay, head of MQ and an executive director of Macquarie Bank.
Marketing to domestic and offshore investors is a key part of MQ’s push to create new opportunities.
Cathy Kovacs, division director of Macquarie’s Equity Markets Group, explained that they have three marketers — one based in the US and two in Australia.
“[They will be] attracting offshore investors, using Australia as a gateway to Asia,” she said.
From the fund manager perspective, Kovacs is confident Macquarie’s strong experience in the region will enable it to overcome the Asian market’s considerable barriers to entry. MQ Capital has seven investment professionals based in the Asia-Pacific region to supervise the distribution of clients’ funds to external fund managers.
Speaking about the potential risks posed by such reliance on Asia, Kovacs said they are not overly concerned because its domestic-based managers in the region are far less reliant on global markets.
“Our stocks and managers are focusing on domestic investment in the Asian economies of China, India, Korea and Japan — while it’s not without risk, very little economic risk is foreseen.”
Kovacs also flagged the possibility it will incorporate some other closed-ended funds, such as the MQ Comets Discretionary Trading Fund, at a later date.
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