Hedge Fund Amia Looks to Raise $500 Million After Beating Peers
Hedge Fund Amia Looks to Raise $500 Million After Beating Peers
(Bloomberg) -- Amia Capital, a London-based hedge fund focused on emerging markets, is in talks to raise as much as $500 million, tapping renewed investor interest in the industry.
The fundraising will boost the firm’s assets to $2 billion, according to an investor letter sent to clients on Tuesday and seen by Bloomberg. It then intends to stop taking new cash. A spokesman for the firm co-founded by Antoine Estier, former chief investment officer at Grupo BTG Pactual SA’s hedge fund unit, declined to comment.
“After a period of low engagement on the fundraising side, we will be a little bit more active on this front over the next months,” the firm’s letter said. “With a number of interesting opportunities, both in emerging and developed markets, we believe we will be able to add another $500 million of [assets under management] without disturbing the balance and return-generating ability of the team.”
Amia is among the funds looking to take advantage of the increased flows that have driven industry assets to more $4 trillion. Investors have poured in $28 billion after pulling money the past two years, betting hedge funds will benefit from market volatility amid the pandemic.
Underscoring the turnaround, a record 1,144 hedge funds have stopped accepting new cash this year, the most since data tracker Preqin started compiling the information. Hedge funds often close to new money on fears managing too much limits their ability to get in and out of their bets and could harm returns.
“More than ever, we are in a world of differentiation (across sectors and countries, particularly so within EM) and being nimble is exactly what it takes here,” the firm told clients.
Estier started Amia with former BTG colleagues Alex Garrard, Marat Djafarov and Igor Hordiyevych in 2017 as one of the biggest hedge-fund startups in Europe that year. He initially raised $750 million, exceeding his target.
Amia Capital Macro Fund returned 8.7% through August this year, beating 0.6% gain in the Eurekahedge Emerging Markets Macro Hedge Fund Index and 4% gain in broader macro trading peers, the letter showed. Last year, the fund had tumbled 22% in March when the global pandemic sent shockwaves through global economies but recovered to end the year up 6.2%.
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