Former employees from BlackRock, Macquarie Group and Millennium Capital Management are planning a Hong Kong-based hedge fund that will use computer models to spot trading opportunities in 13 Asian stock markets.
Zentific Investment Management, led by Chief Investment Officer Christopher Lee, will start the market-neutral fund early next year, said H.S. Group, a Hong Kong-based provider of long-term capital to newer hedge funds, which will be one of its first investors, in an e-mailed statement. The other investors are Zentific partners and unidentified institutions, according to the statement.
Mr. Lee, who headed BlackRock's scientific active equity department in Hong Kong, will be joined by Burke Lau, head of research, who led Asia and Japan quantitative research at Macquarie Securities. Michael Friedlander, Zentific's chief operating officer, was head of a regional team at Millennium Capital whose responsibilities included risk, operations and technology matters, according to the statement.
Asia's hedge fund industry was until recently dominated by long-biased funds, which rely on market rallies for returns and can't generate profits in downturns. Funds that use computer models to process large volumes of information and promise to make money in both market conditions are rare in the region.
