Start-up Chater Capital to launch event-driven strategy

Newly formed hedge-fund group Chater Capital Advisors will launch the Chater Asia-Pacific Event-Driven Fund next month, to be managed by the firm's founder Kevin Chan.

Chan was previously head of Asia-Pacific at Scoggin Capital Management, a $4 billion US-based global event-driven fund. He established Scoggin's Asian event-driven presence and opened the firm's office in Hong Kong.

Before Scoggin, he worked at Thaddeus Capital in Hong Kong, and prior to that had worked on the event-driven prop-trading desk at Credit Suisse. Earlier in his career, he worked at Citi, Lehman Brothers and ING Barings.

Peter Chang will head business development and investor relations at Chater Capital, while Matthew Lau, previously a director of prime brokerage at Credit Suisse, is chief operating officer. Set to join in late March as a principal is Ed Chung, a former prop trader at Citi, who was also previously responsible for the event-driven portfolio as head of Asia at Redbrick Capital Management, a US-based multi-strategy fund.

The strategy will encapsulate the usual event-driven spheres of interest, such as pre-deal, post-deal M&A restructurings, asset sales and acquisitions. The geographical coverage will be Asia-Pacific including Japan and Australia. The fund will only trade liquid instruments and will not get into private deals, PIPEs or small-caps.

The new fund will have a management fee of 2% and a performance fee of 20%. Redemptions will be quarterly with 45 days' notice. Morgan Stanley is the prime broker, with Citibank the administrator.