16/02/2012 Author: Elana Margulies (New York)

EXCLUSIVE: Open Door Capital Group hedge fund set for March launch

Open Door Capital Group, a $400m Shanghai and San Francisco-based asset manager, plans to launch its first hedge fund next month, HFMWeek has learned.

The offering, China Absolute Return Fund, a long-hedged strategy focused on the country, is likely to roll out with $75m of internal capital and commitments from investors in the team’s earlier products.

Chris Ruffle, CEO of Open Door Capital Group, said he decided to ready a hedge fund to take advantage of the markets in the region.

“The benefits of running a hedge fund in China are the inefficient markets,” he said. “We have a large team on the ground to exploit them.”

Specifically, the fund will employ a fundamentally driven and bottom-up approach to investing, looking at entrepreneurial companies. It will soft-close once it hits $250m AuM.

Ruffle and Ke Shifeng are the fund’s portfolio managers. Before the duo founded Open Door, they built up Martin Currie Investment Management’s China business, including managing the Martin Currie China Hedge Fund from its inception in December 2002 until December 2010.

To prepare for Open Door’s China Absolute Return Fund launch, the firm formed a team in San Francisco to handle the trading, legal and compliance operations.

The fund will have a $1m investment minimum and investors can redeem monthly with 90 days’ notice. It will offer a founders’ share class with 1.25/12.5 fees and subsequent to that, 1.5/15 fees.