John McPherson, a former energy trader for Société Générale, has formed Sequoia Financial Advisory Services, a Portland, Ore.-based commodity trading adviser, and is prepping an energy hedge fund that will launch later this year.
 
The new vehicle, the Homestake Trading Fund, will trade exotic energy options and spreads in crude oil, natural gas, gasoline and heating oil. It will initially start trading with $25 million and is scalable up to $1.5 billion.

The firm has hired AUM Advisory to help raise funds for the new vehicle, and AUM is making the rounds with family offices and funds of hedge funds to drum up support.
 
“Since leaving SocGen, I've traded for my own account and finished research culminating in the creation of three systematic trading programs, a blend of which is available for investment as the Commodity Multi-System Program,” said McPherson, explaining that it is a systematic futures and futures options trading program that launched last December.
 
McPherson has assembled a team, which includes a senior proprietary options trader from a well-known investment bank in London who will join the firm in July, a chief operating officer, an analyst, and a third senior energy options trader who will join the firm soon after the fund launches.