AZ Legan, the Brazilian partnership between Azimut Group and Legan Gestora de Recursos (“Legan”), have signed a partnership agreement with Latam specialist Lanin Partners to launch a Brazilian equity fund with a mandate to invest pan-regionally across the most important Latin America markets.
Legan is an asset management company specialized in low volatility strategies, with R$620mn AuM (equivalent to €193 mn) as at 30th November 2013. Legan’s flagship funds, Legan Low Vol and Legan Special, have been constantly ranked among the best Brazilian funds in their categories by Standard & Poor’s, Institutional Investor and Exame.
Lanin Partners is an independent asset manager specialized in Latam equities, with offices in Santiago, Chile, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and currently manages only non-Brazil based funds with US$95mn in AuM (€71mn). Since its launch in June 2008, Lanin Latam long/short strategy has accumulated a positive return. The strategy is currently invested in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
Lanin Partners will bring to the partnership the on-the-ground presence, key to conduct in-depth research throughout the region thanks to a team with extensive experience in managing portfolios of Latam stocks. In particular, Sonia Villalobos, CFA, managing partner, has more than 25 years of experience analyzing companies in Latin America. She has worked in Chile and in Brazil, in both research and fund management roles, including five years as Head of Research at Banco Garantia. Sonia was the first person to obtain the CFA Charter in Latin America.
Alessandro Citterio, Lanin’s other managing partner, has pioneered the hedge fund industry in Chile, after having worked 17 years in London in several financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Nomura and Bankers Trust.
The Brazilian fund, which will initially receive seed money from Azimut and Legan, will be structured as a “multimercado long and short” fund. It will be one of very few equity long/short funds in Brazil with exposure to the rest of the Latam region.
Sonia Villalobos says: “Expanding the geographical mandate of the fund doubles its investable universe, compared to investing in Brazil only. That creates many more investment opportunities and makes the return less dependent on the Brazilian market.”
Alessandro Citterio, founder of Lanin Partners, comments: “We expect this Brazilian fund to be only the first of many launched in partnership with AZ Legan. We are a Latam equity specialists, but AZ Legan’s knowledge of the Brazilian market is key for the success of our project together.”
For Elena Santiso
For Fórmate a Fondo