Silk Road Awarded Hedge Fund “Oscar”

HedgeCo News - Silk Invest's Luxembourg SICAV hedge fund, the Silk Road Income Fund, has been awarded the 2009 ‘golden bull’ prize for innovation at the ‘Finanzen Nacht’ ceremony in Munich. Hailed by the German press as the “Oscar of the financial world”, the award is sponsored by Euro, Germany’s leading finance publication. The gala evening was attended by over 500 delegates.

The Silk Road Income Fund was launched in October 2009. It gives investors exposure to a range of frontier fixed income markets, previously inaccessible to mainstream European investors in the shape of a UCITS compliant fund.

The award winning hedge fund was launched to compliment Silk Invest’s equity offerings, namely the African Lions and Arab Falcons funds. As its name implies, the geographic remit of the fund is Africa, the Middle East and the Central Asia, leveraging of Silk Invest’s position as a market leader in these geographies

Zin Bekkali, CEO of Silk Invest, said “we are proud to have been recognized in this way. We launched the fund so that our clients could capture the unrivalled risk-return profile that we see in these markets. To be called innovative is icing on the cake and is especially nice in view of all the effort we have put into structuring access to these markets.”

Silk Invest believes that the frontier fixed income markets are often mispriced and overlooked by the mainstream. Daniel Broby, the Chief Investment Officer of Silk Invest, notes that ”investment in frontier markets today is now feasible. Risk is mispriced and with appropriate diversification our portfolio managers have constructed a robust investment grade portfolio with substantial yield pick-up.”

The Silk Road Income Fund aims to manage 60-80 holdings across 25 countries. The target portfolio is to achieve annual returns of 16.5% with a duration of 3.4 years and an average rating of “BB+”.

Silk Invest is headquartered in London with staff in the UAE, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and Cameroon. The Silk Invest team consists of highly experienced specialists from South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Morocco.