Arini has hired Mehdi Kashani, a senior structured credit
trader who joined in August from BNP Paribas, while Rishi Patel
and Emeric Faith joined as research analysts from Lazard and
Triton Partners respectively, the letter said, bringing the
fund's headcount to 21.
Arini declined to comment.
(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie; editing by Dhara Ranasinghe,
Kirsten Donovan)
By Nell Mackenzie
LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Arini, the $2.3 billion hedge
fund run by a former Credit Suisse banker, will launch two new
funds this year aiming to profit from uncertainty over how a
recession might hit European corporate debt, a letter to
investors seen by Reuters shows.
One fund will ask investors to commit capital for a longer
period to buy stressed and distressed bonds and other debt
instruments, according to the letter.
The second will focus on the riskiest tranches of debt
products and may also trade derivatives meant to hedge against
the possibility of a company default.
Credit-focused Arini's main fund was launched by
London-based Hamza Lemssouguer in January 2022. Now it is
following other specialist hedge funds seeking to take advantage
of market uncertainty and the flight of investors less familiar
with European credit, the letter said.
Amid the energy crisis and rising interest rates, Europe had
its second-highest default count since 2009 last year, according
to S&P, with a default rate of 1.4%, which the rating agency
expects to reach 3.25% this year.
In its letter, Arini said it planned to take advantage of
the price difference between the highest- and lowest-rated
European bonds and, depending on the firm, would take both buy
and sell positions.
It also sees a disconnect between how a company's debt and
stock prices signal potential liquidity problems and plans to
use long and short positions to take advantage of this as
markets grow more volatile.
Arini's flagship Master Fund returned 14% in January, a
source familiar with the matter said, after an annual return of
almost 6% in its first full year of trading.
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