Vision raises $55 mln for fund incubator

By Jeffrey Hodgson

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian fund of hedge funds manager Vision Investment Management has so far raised about $55 million for its new vehicle which will seed and incubate hedge fund start-ups, a senior Vision executive said on Wednesday.

The firm's Vision Angel Fund is likely to invest with its first two managers within 30 to 45 days, added Julius Wang, a managing director with the Hong Kong-based firm.

"We officially launched in February. Our target size is going to be $100 million to $150 million," he told the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit in Hong Kong.

"We see that the portfolio will probably be 10 managers, plus or minus two on either side."

Wang said one of the target firms is a long/short equity fund manager and the other a market neutral equity fund.

With $1.5 billion in assets under management at the end of last year, Vision is one of Asia's largest home-grown fund of hedge funds managers. The firm was one of the first chosen by CalPERS after the biggest U.S. public pension fund began investing in Asian funds of hedge funds in late 2005.

The class A shares of its flagship $800 million Vision Asia Maximus Fund had an annualized return of 12.61 percent from its launch in March 2002 to the end of February.

Wang joined Vision last year with a mandate to launch the angel-investing platform. He said the fund would be similar to a private equity vehicle in that it focus on multi-year investments. The fee structure would also be similar to that of a private equity fund, though he declined to give details.  Continued...