2014 International Hedge Fund Awards
Focused Niche Fund of Hedge Funds of the Year - USA
AC Investment Management, LLC AC Investment Management, LLC (ACIM) is a private New York based investment advisor specializing in focused, niche fund of hedge funds. It currently manages two vehicles with a particular emphasis on active commodity strategies on a global basis. These vehicles include one dedicated to commodities and another dedicated to global power trading.
Fact File
ACIM manages capital on behalf of institutional investors, family offices, and high net worth individuals, distinguishing itself via its experience, network, access to niche managers, and proven risk management in the commodities space.
lute and relative basis (particularly when compared to equities markets), and the fact that for each unit of performance longonly commodities investments are very expensive in terms of risk allocation.
Since inception, ACIM has had a consistent investment strategy that it believes will be successful in all market environments. ACIM operates with a flat team structure providing an open environment for idea generation and an abundance of responsibility overlap.
Many investors have allocated to commodities regardless, with the expectation that even in the event of underperformance at least the asset class would dampen volatility by providing diversification. This has clearly not been the case as long-only commodities’ correlation to equities (the largest component in many investors’ portfolios) increased sharply over the last several years. As long-only commodity performance continues to struggle it is reasonable to expect continued outflows in this space.
Looking back, 2013 proved to be a tough year for hedge funds due to the sharp and consistent rise in the equity indices. It was also a difficult year in commodities. One of the trends seen emerging is the passive long-only investor in commodities moving towards more of an active long/short approach. ACIM Founder and CEO Ernest Scalamandre said: “We anticipate the long/short approach to increase in the next couple of years as the correlation of commodities to other asset classes decreases and markets trade more in line with the fundamentals. “Despite 2013’s tough market environment ACIM was able to preserve capital, in part due to our proven risk management process. Winning this award feels great and is a testament to our hard work and dedication in the niche fund of hedge funds space.” In 2014 ACIM expects asset flows to decline in long-only, passively managed commodity investment vehicles. This is due to several factors, including underperformance on both an abso-
“Despite 2013’s tough market environment ACIM was able to preserve capital, in part due to our proven risk management process. Winning this award feels great and is a testament to our hard work and dedication in the niche fund of hedge funds space.” Company: AC Investment Management Name: Ernest Scalamandre Email: ernest@acimfunds.com jennifer@acimfunds.com Web: www.acimfunds.com Address: 1350 Ave of the Americas Suite 2300 NY, NY 10019 Telephone: 212-245-8200
The inflow of assets on the long side in recent years has had an impact on commodity prices themselves, artificially inflating the cost of many commodity products traded on the exchanges. Most discretionary commodity traders, who rely heavily on fundamental, bottom-up data like crop balance sheets and refining margins have been frustrated as inflows in this quantity cause market prices to be higher and also have a dampening effect on volatility. Additionally one could argue that at times markets have tended to respond to different catalysts as ‘buy and hold’ assets began to dwarf the traditional market players. If and when this scenario of significantly reduced long-only assets materializes ACIM believes this will be extremely positive for discretionary traders. Mr Scalamandre closes saying: “Going forward into 2014 we are optimistic about the trend in outflows that began in 2013.” www.acquisition-intl.com
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