The Carpe Diem Group is making no bones about its intent to seize the opportunity to cash in on the burgeoning hedge fund market. The Bermuda-based group has launched CDG Holdings, a bank that plans to raise a minimum of $250 million London’s Alternative Investment Market by year’s end for the exclusive purpose of catering to hedge funds. CDG plans to dip into bank deposits to provide hedge fund investors with margin loans as well as to finance structure products that are linked to hedge funds and invest directly into hedge funds. Among other CDG offerings will be distribution of hedge fund products to its clients and investors as well as banking and administration services to HF managers on a fee basis. The new venture intends to play in every nook and cranny of the sector, including acquiring capacity rights and stakes in the future fee earnings of borrowing hedge funds, and creating and marketing funds of hedge funds products for a wide range of institutional and high net worth investors. CDG has put together a team of some of the top hedge fund and other financial talent that appear well-suited for the task, including CEO Peter Lusk, formerly of W.L. Ross and Co., and Paul Wright of Man Investments. The new bank, says Lusk, is “a major sea change in the hedge fund industry.” Lusk added, “The key to this is to get a cooperative of hedge fund managers and a group that will be dedicate to them...The aim will be to grow the asset of affiliate firms and have a broadly diversified group.”
