Launch Nanes Balkany Starts One-Time Activist Fund
Nanes Balkany Partners LLC, the New York-based hedge fund co-founded and run by Julien Balkany and Daryl Nanes, started a single-stock fund to invest in an unidentified publicly-traded oil and gas company. The fund, Nanes Balkany International Partners I LP, “will seek to create one or more potential catalysts that could unlock the inherent value of the targeted company,” according to an offering memorandum that was obtained by Bloomberg. The company is a “publicly traded oil and gas company listed in Scandinavia,” the document says. The fund’s objective is to “take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity during the European debt crisis.” Balkany and Nanes aim to raise about $50 million for the fund, which will close after the trade is completed. The Scandinavian oil and gas company has between $500 million and $2 billion in assets. The fund aims to effect change at the company by influencing the board of directors or management to implement changes to its organization, business, operations or capital structure. Nanes Balkany will not disclose the name of the company to investors before and possibly even after they sign up for the fund. The fund has a 24-month lock-up, quarterly redemption, a 2 percent management fee and 20 percent performance fee that will be taken when the fund is liquidated, the document said. The minimum investment is $500,000. The firm’s Nanes Balkany Partners I fund, which focuses on event-driven investments in domestic oil and gas companies, returned 43 percent last year, 48 percent in 2009 and 23 percent in 2008, the document said. —Kelly Bit