Zurich, Switzerland-based Kraus Partner Investment Solutions last month launched its first hedge fund with US$20 million from a pair of seed investors.
 
altea Global One, a global macro offering which began trading as a managed account in January 2007, is a quantitative strategy with a weekly to monthly time horizon. The fund’s quant team shifts its risk budget across several strategies within the currencies, bonds, commodities and equities asset classes but explicitly excludes credit trades because it is an area the firm is not familiar with, according to Silvio Halsig, an account executive.
 
“We try to limit the downside deviation so most of the risk management is devoted to that,” said Halsig. “As a global macro fund we’re not doing 100% into two or three strategies. We’ll always make sure our risk budget is adequate and in addition we strictly limit certain positions such as shorting too much gold, Swiss francs or T-Bills.”
 
The altea Global One fund charges a 1.5% management fee and a 20% incentive fee for share class A investors and 0.75% and 20% for share class B investors.
 
Kraus Partner Investment Solutions AG was founded in 2001 and currently advises or manages some US$800 million in assets for institutional investors.