Euromoney reports the launch of London-based Alcantara Asset Management’s Russia and CIS Fixed Income Opportunities Fund, which will reportedly focus on relative value and long-only opportunities in the fixed income markets in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and which will be lead by the firm’s founders, former JPMorganers Sergey Grechishkin and Andrei Taskin.  “Relative value”, a strategy which aims to take advantage of temporary mispricings between two related and often correlated securities, came to into question during the latest economic crisis, as “Black Swan” events in practice tend to exacerbate rather than minimize such pricing anamolies between assets.  However, the dual-strategy fits the current economic climate nicely, explained Grechishkin, which had trended higher for months but is on the cusp of what many feel is an imminent correction: ”Our actively-managed long strategies take advantage of trending markets when associated with economic recovery, as well as market positioning. Our relative value strategies generally benefit from a high-volatility environment, when the relative mispricing between instruments is at its highest,” he said.

Interesingly enough, neither Grechishkin and Taskin seems partiuclarly bullish in the short term on the three economies driving their fund.  They express “cautiousness and scepticism about the end of the recession,” and say that “for now, we are staying away from Kazakhstan, and are sceptical about prospects for the Ukrainian economy in the longer term. We are actively managing our short-maturity positions in high-quality credits from Ukraine, the majority being foreign- or sovereign-owned, more than half of which will redeem within three months, and from Russia, where the majority of exposure is to well-performing and highly-liquid leading banks.”