Vicente Zaragoza

Swiss hedge fund firm Pentium Fund launched a new fund of funds on May 1, investing in a combination of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and single-manager funds. The Pentium Alabaster Index Fund has been designed to take advantage of market cycles by "rotating" its investments between various ETFs to benefit from the strength of different asset classes at different times, explained Vicente Zaragoza, ceo. He perceived that investing via ETFs means a fund of funds manager can decide which asset classes the fund has exposure to: "otherwise you depend on the [underlying] manager to make changes; here we have control over the changes." The fund is currently overweight real estate and energy; it also has exposure to the Standard & Poor's 500 index and can invest in hedge fund indices such as those provided by MSCI and HFR Asset Management, said Zaragoza. The fund launched with E10 million of proprietary capital. JPMorgan is the prime broker and will offer the Pentium fund via its private banking channels, said Zaragoza. The fund charges a 1.5% management fee and a 15% performance fee.