10/02/2012 Author: Elana Margulies (New York)

Former Harvard Management Company duo set up maiden hedge fund manager

Steve Alperin and Sara Fleiss, previously of Harvard Management Company, have set up their maiden hedge fund manager, HFMWeek has learned.

According to an investor document, Boston-based Emeth Partners will roll out an event-driven volatility arbitrage offering focused on emerging markets in the third quarter the year.

Additional details were not available. An Emeth spokesperson failed to return phone calls seeking additional comment.

Alperin spent 21 years at Harvard as portfolio manager of its emerging market equities portfolio. Fleiss spent the past five years there as the lead analyst of the same team. Previously, she was on the equity derivatives desk at Citigroup.

The departures of Alperin and Fleiss follow others who have left the university endowment the last few years to manage hedge fund offerings.

HFMWeek previously reported that Robert Russell, who worked as a portfolio manager in the external management group at Harvard, joined Avenue Capital to launch its first fund of hedge fund.

Meanwhile, a few years prior in 2006, Jack Meyer, who also worked at Harvard’s endowment, launched Boston-based hedge fund manager Convexity Capital Management, one of the biggest debuts that year with around $5bn.