TORONTO, Jan. 26 /CNW/ - The SciVest Group of Companies is pleased to
announce the launch of the Cayman Islands based SciVest Global Net Short
Equity Fund (the "Offshore Fund"). SciVest, a leading quantitative Global
investment manager that specializes in developing unique and innovative hedge
fund portfolios, has created an offshore version of its top performing
Canadian-based SciVest Net Short Equity Fund (the "Onshore Fund"). This
Offshore Fund is the sister fund to the Onshore Fund which was launched in
July 2004 and has consistently been ranked as one of the top performing equity
short biased funds in the world.
"We have decided to create an offshore version of our SciVest Net Short
Equity Fund to capitalize upon the success of the Onshore Fund and to meet the
overwhelming offshore demand for our net short equity investment strategy,"
says Dr. John J. Schmitz, CFA, Portfolio Manager for both the Onshore and
Offshore net short equity Funds. "We use the same quantitative investment
models and risk management processes for both our Onshore and Offshore Funds.
The primary enhancements in the Offshore Fund relative to the Onshore Fund is
first, the Offshore Fund has a lower target equity market beta of -0.75,
versus -0.50 for the Onshore Fund, to provide investors with a stronger equity
market hedge per dollar invested. Second, the Offshore Fund has a global
mandate investing in 14 of the largest developed markets, versus the North
American mandate of the Onshore Fund, to provide investors with better alpha
diversification. Finally, the Offshore Fund has a higher long-term leverage
factor of 4:1, versus 3:1 for the Onshore Fund, to provide investors with a
higher absolute level of alpha."
The investment objective of the SciVest Global Net Short Equity Fund is
to provide investors with a strong, predictable hedge to the Global equity
markets that will, over an entire economic cycle, generate returns that are
competitive with other investments of similar volatility risk. "Assuming the
investment objective is met, the Offshore Fund will provide a significant
risk-return contribution to literally any portfolio which has any equity
market exposure whatsoever," says Dr. Schmitz. SciVest's net short equity
strategy takes a different approach than most traditional short biased funds
in that it is highly risk controlled and diversified, attempts to add alpha on
both the long and the short sides of the portfolio, and has a fixed target
beta or market exposure. Unlike simply shorting a stock index, the SciVest
Global Net Short Equity Fund is designed to add significant, risk controlled
alpha which effectively gives investors equity market "insurance" that more
than pays for itself.
The SciVest Global Net Short Equity Fund is designed for fund of funds,
pension funds, endowment funds and other sophisticated investors, and is
currently open to new investment.
About SciVest
Founded in 1999, SciVest is a quantitative Global investment manager that
specializes in developing unique, innovative hedge fund portfolios. SciVest's
completely disciplined and systematic investment processes focus strictly on
creating diversified, risk controlled, fundamentally sound portfolios.
SciVest's quantitative models evaluate the expected returns, risks and trading
costs of every stock in the stock selection universe of over 7,000
publicly-traded, liquid, Global equities from 14 developed countries. The
stock selection models are dynamic in the sense that they adapt to changing
market conditions and changing stock characteristics, and are comprehensive in
the sense that they incorporate over one hundred fundamental, technical and
sentiment-based stock selection factors. SciVest was awarded the Top
Performing Emerging and Mid-Stage Equity Market Neutral Fund in the world for
2003 at the Global Alternative Investment Management Forum in Switzerland. In
2004, SciVest won the Canadian Investment Award for the Best Relative Value
Hedge Fund. In 2006, SciVest Net Short Equity Fund was ranked the Top
Performing Equity Short Biased Hedge Fund globally for the months of April,
September and October by the Barclay Trading Group, Ltd. SciVest Offshore
Alternative Strategies Inc. is responsible for the distribution of the SciVest
offshore funds.
For further information: Media Contact: Lily Van, Tel: (416) 304-6801,Toll Free: 866-599-2400, Email:
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, Website:
www.SciVest.com