Alcantara Russia and CIS Fixed Income Opportunities Fund has been launched after eight months of running a managed account. Since inception in December 2008 through to the end of July 2009 the strategy has achieved over 40% annualised net growth.

The Cayman-based fund is managed by Alcantara Asset Management, a UK-based and Financial Services Authority-regulated company. Before launch Alcantara was managing the fund as a managed account

The fund is involved in active management of fixed income portfolio of debt issued by corporates and sovereigns from Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. It has a long bias and strict leverage restrictions combined with full transparency to investors.

Fund principals Sergey Grechishkin and Andrei Taskin have experience and knowledge of the emerging debt issuers and markets as well as experience in trading fixed income markets.

Grechishkin worked as the president and the head of the investment banking and brokerage of KIT Finance Investment Bank, one of the largest investment banking and specialised finance groups in Russia. Since 2004 and before co-founding Alcantara, Taskin was a team member of Capula Investment Management, a large fixed income investment fund in London with over $4 billion in assets under management. He was responsible for developing relative value strategies in commodities markets and trading index linked book.

Annualised return is targeted at 25%. The strategies focus on Russia and CIS fixed income markets using combination of actively managed long-only and relative value, the exact mix depending on the economic, political and market situation. The strategies are designed to profit from the managers' detailed knowledge of the issuers in the Russia and former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan that helps them identify investment opportunities in government and corporate bonds space, eurobonds and in the local currency issues.

Predominantly long-only, the fund expects to focus on managed long-only eurobonds with no leverage during the first year, gradually adding relative value, local bonds and distressed debt/restructuring opportunities, aiming to reach $500 million by the end of 2012. The fund launched at around $20 million. The fund can support up to $1 billion of assets under management.

Fund administrator for the fund is AIS Fund Administration and will be audited by Kinetic Partners Cayman. Redemption is quarterly with 45 days notice. The performance fee is 20% with a year management fee of 2% of net asset value.

The minimum investment is $500,000. Currency share classes are in dollar and euro.