Charter Launches London Hedge Fund

HedgeCo News - Charter Group has teamed up with Brian Taitz to launch a new hedge fund administration firm, Charter Group Fund Administration Ltd. The firm is based in London and focuses primarily on offshore funds managed by boutique fund managers.

Taitz founded and successfully managed an award-winning fund administration operation in Sydney, Australia before relocating to the UK. In Taitz’s previous firm, clients included regional Hedge Fund of the Year winners, Best Market Neutral Fund winners, other alternatives including electricity and power hedge funds, as well as established and distinguished long only boutiques.

Taitz says that the UK market is fragmented with larger administrators turning away smaller funds and relying more on their size than their service levels to win clients. This leads to clients having to look to foreign providers to fill the gap and then having to deal with a plethora of issues such as time zones and language or cultural differences. Taitz says it is re-assuring for a fund manager to know that they can deal directly with the principals of the business whose office is around the corner.

The boutique offers full service fund administration to offshore funds and caters for a wide variety of strategies including equity long/short, long only, market neutral, arbitrage, global macro, private equity, fund-of-hedge funds and others. For more traditional funds, the firm offers an attribution/ performance analysis reporting service.

The firm sees its differentiating factors as being: an unrelenting focus on service quality; having the best technology available; hiring properly qualified staff; and being based in London, in close proximity to intended clients. “Our clients are not just one of hundreds fighting for management’s attention which may be the case at the larger shops” says Taitz.

The firm also has the distinct technological advantage that all its administrative services are carried out through a single integrated system - investor registry, fund accounting, investing and complex performance fees – reducing risk and leading to greater efficiencies.

“Our key strategic differentiator, however, is to pace our growth.” Taitz continues, “As a result we will position ourselves as a premier provider of fund administration services to boutiques. We will soft close periodically to ensure that service levels are never compromised.”