PaR Asset Management is setting up a non-trend rule based foreign exchange hedge fund. The asset manager is waiting for Financial Services Authority approval, but expects to receive its license and start trading in March for managed accounts and will launch a hedge fund within six months, according to Chris Attfield, senior investment officer in London. Attfield's co-founder is Mel Mayne, ceo. Mayne and Attfield met when Mayne was the head of the dealing room at First Chicago, now Bank One, where Attfield was a strategic analyst at the firm.
The fund will start trading with seed capital, but Attfield expects to raise around USD50 million in the first year. Once the fund has a track record it will carry out another round of fund raising and close the fund at about USD500 million. At the fund's inception it will mainly use fx spot and forward contracts, however, as it grows in assets it will start examining the fixed income markets and may use interest rate swaps.
