York Capital and Merrill Lynch team up for Ucits fund
Investment management company York Capital has launched an events-driven fund using the Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Ucits-compliant platform. The fund was launched on July 29 this year and has raised $100 million in assets under management (AUM) to date.
It is the third fund to use Merrill Lynch's Ucits-compliant Luxembourg SICAV vehicle, Merrill Lynch Investment Solutions, as a sponsor.
York UK Advisors' chief executive Christophe Aurand said the fund would use a similar multi-strategy approach to its flagship global hedge fund, which was launched in 1991 and currently has over $3.1 billion AUM.
It would concentrate on listed equities and liquid corporate bonds from larger capital issuers. The corporate bond issues would be limited to 10% of the portfolio's net asset value.
Aurand said York Capital had chosen a Ucits structure and the Merrill Lynch platform in order to target a wider range of institutional investors.
"We think after the events of the last few years there's an increased demand for transparency and liquidity and regulated products," Aurand said.
He said Merrill Lynch's sponsorship of the fund would enable York Capital to use the bank's larger client base as well as attract investors that might be unable to invest in offshore funds.
Aurand said he could see the fund's AUM exceeding $1 billion in the future.
The event-driven Ucits fund will be co-managed by York Capital founder Jamie Dinan and chief investment officer Dan Schwartz.
It is currently available to institutional and retail investors in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy and Spain. Regulatory approval is being sought for Germany.
The minimum institutional investment is $1 million, 1 million or 1 million. Accumulation shares are available in US dollars, euro and sterling, and income shares are also available in sterling.
Redemption is weekly. The fund's investment management fee is 1.5% for A and B shares and 1% for D shares. Performance fees are 25% for A shares, 15% for B shares and 10% for D shares. D shares are available for institutional investors only until the net asset value of the fund reaches $100 million.
The fund's custodian is Socit Gnrale and Euro-VL Luxembourg is the fund administrator.
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