HAMILTON, Bermuda (HedgeWorld.com)–Focus Group's latest fund of funds offering is a strategy that hopes to benefit from market distress and corporate bankruptcies in a market that seems to be full of tales of woe.
The Focus Recovery Fund was launched on May 1, but is just now being marketed by Focus as a complement to its existing clients portfolios. The strategy was one that its clients have been asking for and initially is invested in six managers that focus on distressed and high-yield alternative investment funds in the United States and Europe, said Eugenio Verzili, managing director at Focus.
Special situations and capital structure arbitrage funds will also be included in the fund of funds. According to Focus, the number of companies filing for bankruptcy in 2001 was dramatically higher than ever before, with 255 publicly traded companies filing for bankruptcy. Comparing that figure to the last bankruptcy wave in 1991 that yielded only 123 filings, the market seems to be ripe for event-driven managers.
