Pyrenees Capital Management, a Stamford, Conn.-based hedge fund which specializes in weather and natural gas trading, plans to start trading weather contracts referenced to Asia. Jeff Bortniker, managing partner, said it will likely start trading risk in Asia within three to five months. The fund's weather trading book has 40% of its positions in Europe and 60% in the U.S.
As part of its expansion plans, Pyrenees has hired Coi Dang, head weather trader at XL Weather & Energy. Dang joins as a managing partner alongside former XL Weather & Energy staffers Bortniker and Yu Li. Bortniker was a former ceo of XL Weather & Energy and also worked with Dang at Enron where Bortniker ran structured products marketing in the New York office and Dang traded weather in Houston. Li was a weather and energy researcher at XL.
In addition, Pyrenees also plans to launch an offshore fund, based in either Bermuda or Toronto, by year-end to trade emission and unscheduled turbine outages. The fund hopes to have USD100 million under management by April, according to Bortniker. He declined to say the firm's current assets. He added the fund's staff of three will double by year-end.