Lion Fairfield launches two funds

Singapore-based alternatives strategy manager Lion Fairfield Capital Management has launched its sixth and seventh funds since August 2005 - the Fairfield Falcon Pacific Japan Equity Fund and the Fairfield Lion Investment Fund (Asia).

The Japan fund is a long/short equity fund sub-advised by Falcon Pacific Capital Management based in Tokyo and Corvallis, Oregon. Its principals are Steven Weiler, Falcon Pacific's CIO and director of research Nicholas Smith, both veterans of Jardine Fleming in Japan and Penta Investment Advisers.

"Our long positions were up 70% in 2005, but our short positions didn't do so well," said Steven Weiler. " There will be better opportunities for stock selection in 2006, and I expect the market to rise, but not across the board. REITS and capital spending sectors both look attractive. The targets we set are principally related to liquidity. We want to be able to liquidate a position in less than ten days, without accounting for more than 20% of daily stock turnover." Falcon Pacific is the manager of the Falcon Pacific Japan Master Unit Trust and the new equity fund will invest nearly all of its assets in that fund. The fund will be administrated by CITCO Fund Services and audited by KPMG, Schulte Roth and Zabel.

The Fairfield Lion Investment Fund (Asia) is a fund of funds whose assets will comprise of holdings in the Lion Fairfield single manager funds already in existence, such as their Korea, China and Singapore funds. Initial capacity will be around $400-500 million for this multi-manager, multi-strategy fund.

"We see the issue being capacity rather than demand. Investors have heightened interest in Asian managers as many good US and European focused managers are now closed or are reaching capacity," says Debra Ng, Fairfield's regional business director." One of the advantages of our strategic alliances with our underlying single-strategy managers is a capacity commitment for our Asian multi manager, multi-strategy fund."

And she adds, "Many investors also expect the best global opportunities to come from Asia over the next two to five years."

Lion Fairfield currently has approximately $80 million in its Asian funds. The firm was incorporated in March 2004 as an Asian hedge fund management and distribution platform. It is a joint venture between Fairfield Greenwich Group, a privately-owned asset management company principally based in London, New York and Bermuda, and Singapore-domiciled Lion Capital Management, whose parent is owned by Great Eastern Holdings Ltd and Orient Holdings Private Ltd, a subsidiary of OCBC Bank.