08/06/2011 Author: Elana Margulies

Newport launches its first FoHF offering

Newport Investment Management, a Newport, Rhode Island-based firm founded in mid-2009 to manage core strategies, has launched its first fund of hedge funds (FoHF).

According to a source familiar with the firm’s plans, the Newport Absolute Return offering will target “concentrated alpha” through investments in approximately ten global managers.

Approximately one-third of the new fund’s portfolio is dedicated to event-driven strategies, another one-third is in relative value arbitrage portfolios and the remainder is split between long/short and macro managers.

The new FoHF rolled out with less than $10m, with a commitment from a hospital endowment, along with internal capital and money from friends and family. It has a capacity of over $200m.

Matthew Lenehan is the FoHF’s portfolio manager. Before co-founding the firm with two others, he was an investment officer at Dartmouth College, where he managed the investment strategy for the endowment’s portfolio of private funds.

He previously worked on direct investments in real estate, private equity and distressed securities as a vice president for a MassMutual investment subsidiary and Starwood Capital Group, a global opportunity fund.
The fund has a 1.5% management fee and no performance fee.