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| Jeff Kushner |
BLUEMOUNTAIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
BlueMountain Capital Management is singled out for having steady performance across virtually all its funds, with mostly no flat or down months and only minor dips in months when it did suffer. It was proactive when accessing capital and prescient in repositioning its book as others reacted to shock losses in the credit market. The firm raised its total assets under management by 12% to $5.5 billion, of which roughly 80% is in credit strategies. And it showed its nimbleness by launching its fourth open-ended fund in May, the Global Value Fund, with USD100 million in seed capital to fund private financings and club deals in areas like project finance.
It stayed active in ABS index tranches of various vintages and pursued relative value strategies, arbitraging for example mezzanine tranches, with aplomb. Since the end of last summer, it also shifted its long/short credit strategy to be long more senior parts of the capital structure and short the junior, and was ahead of the pack in going long discretionary names and shorting cyclical sectors like construction, paper and retail.
BlueMountain recently added Derek Smith from Deutsche Bank as a senior portfolio manager and Scott Lessing from Citigroup to run corporate research. The firm is led by Andrew Feldstein, ceo and cio, who brought many Wall Street institutions together to raise funds to send medical supplies and food to Darfur in Africa.
Other Nominees:
* BlueMountain Capital Management * Citadel * Lion Global Investors
