Sparx credit team spins off to launch new hedge fund

The credit team of Sparx in Hong Kong (formerly known as PMA Advisors) is spinning off and says it will launch its own alternative investment product, branded as Double Haven.

Sparx has told AsianInvestor that Darryl Flint, head of the investments team, approached the firm with a spin-off proposal, and it was agreed that the new business would enter into arrangements for the management of the funds comprising the current credit business.

The agreement for this to take place is scheduled to close at the end of September. Sparx says that the spin-off won’t have a material impact on its financial results.

It notes that it intends to focus on its core business in future and broaden its investment product line.

Flint will be joined at Double Haven by Torquil McLeod, Thomas Doud, Richard McDade, Arun Vaswani and Kunal Saha. They plan to launch two products, firstly an investment grade and high-yield credit long/short fund and a private lending product.

The details of the new Double Haven product are yet to be resolved or are not being disclosed publicly. AsianInvestor sought the basic details of the target launch size, target volatility, target returns, redemption, liquidity, fees and service providers, but received only: "No comment."

Post crisis, Sparx's business was hit by performance and redemptions and total firm assets under management fell from $20 billion to $6 billion.

In Japan, AUM dropped from $15 billion to $6 billion. The business is long-only in tandem with hedge funds, the latter accounting for approximately $2.5 billion in assets. Its pan-Asia single manager hedge-fund business is spread across Asia from Sparx in Tokyo to Cosmo in Korea through to PMA in Hong Kong.