Thursday April 24, 10:47 AM
BlackRock misses $500 mln target for fund of hedge funds feeder vehicle
LONDON (Thomson IM) - BlackRock Inc (NYSE: BLK - news) . said on Thursday that it raised $275 million from the London listing of a fund of hedge funds feeder, short of the $500 million target it set in March.
BlackRock Absolute Return Strategies Ltd (BARS) is a closed-ended vehicle that provides access to the $11 billion BlackRock Alternative Advisors' Appreciation Strategy. This is the firm's flagship fund of hedge funds strategy which has delivered positive annual returns to investors every year since its launch over 12 years ago.
The amount raised from the listing of Jersey-domiciled BARS could increase to $284.5 million if an over-allotment option granted to UBS (Virt-X: UBSN.VX - news) , the global coordinator and stabilising manager of the share placing is exercised. This option is is exercisable until May 24.
The debut of BARS on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: LSE.L - news) is the first listing of an investment vehicle by BlackRock following its $1.7 billion purchase last June of fund of hedge funds firm Quellos Group, which was combined with BlackRock's existing absolute return and private equity fund of funds business to form BlackRock Alternative Advisors.
BARS' investment objective is to generate absolute returns in excess of the yields on short-term LIBOR securities while minimising the corresponding level of volatility, BlackRock said.
The firm added that BARS will seek to generate these returns irrespective of the performance of any particular sector of the global capital markets, focusing on market neutral strategies and avoiding pure macro, futures and unidirectional strategies.
Colin Maltby, chairman of BARS, said: 'In an uncertain market we have attracted investors from across the UK and Europe, including a range of institutional investors and wealth managers. This shows that even in the current investment climate well-founded IPOs will attract solid support.'
BlackRock Alternative Advisors has over $30 billion in discretionary assets under management as at Jan. 1, 2008 with investment teams in Seattle, New York, Princeton, Durham, London and Hong Kong.
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