W&F December 2017

www.wealthandfinance-news.com 40 Wealth & Finance International - December 2017 Founded in 2014, Runestone Capital was originally established to identify unique investment opportunities with superior risk-adjusted performance and is a systematic quantitative long/short, absolute return fund. Today, the strategy aims to deliver in excess of 20 percent net annualized returns over a cycle, regardless of market conditions. The fund is non-correlated to both equity market and volatility itself. The strategy has been back- tested since 2005 and the fund went live that same year, generating a 25 percent return since launch. The fund is part of the CBOE Eurekahedge Volatility Hedge Fund indices, which consists of 66 funds and where Runestone Capital is a top-performer. In the live period, the fund has outperformed its peer group of volatility funds, CTA’s, global hedge funds, the equity market, and the bond market. Rune outlines the fund’s strategy in more detail and explores how this helps it to achieve excellence for its valued investors. “Here at Runestone Capital, our proprietary active management models are designed for institutional and qualified investors seeking alpha-driven returns. Our investment strategy aims to profit from capturing movements in volatility, primarily related to the Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index (VIX) futures. It is a dedicated pure volatility strategy, i.e. it will take long or short positions in volatility, based on quantitative models and statistical probabilities. “The fund is not a tail-event fund and will hence take advantage of markets with both increasing and decreasing volatility. Additionally, our fund is denominated in USD and has a monthly investment cycle. The management team has over 28 years of investment experience (previously at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse) and have been trading volatility for clients and with their own money since 2009.” Drawing on his experience in the hedge fund space, Rune has a strong insight into the developments that are occurring currently and is eager to explore how they will affect his firm. “Within the wider financial market, on aggregate, hedge fund performance has been sub-par in recent years, which is unfortunate for the industry as whole and has made capital raising more challenging for most funds, including ours. However, we believe the combination of our investment approach, combined with the fact we operate in a less crowded strategy space, places us in an attractive position, which will continue to generate attractive returns. The fund has also managed to outperform our peer group of volatility funds, CTAs and global hedge funds since inception. “To stay at the forefront of emerging developments in this constantly evolving space, at Runestone Capital we implement quantitative driven models and are constantly researching the existing framework, as well as analysing ways to improve our performance. Our focus is on short-term strategies that are adaptable to a wide range of scenarios, and hence these are optimally placed to perform well over the cycle. We are convinced that by employing a systematic approach we are removing ego and emotions from the process, which has shown improved risk/return characteristic over time.” Looking to the future, Rune foresees exciting opportunities ahead for Runestone Capital as it seeks to build upon its current success and grow even further, as he is proud to conclude. Runestone Capital is a global, top-performing, systematic volatility hedge fund managed in London. We invited Rune Madsen to provide us with a fascinating insight into the firm, which was awarded Most Trusted Asset Management Services in our prestigious 2017 Global Excellence Awards. Success is Carved in Stone for Runestone Capital 1711WF28 Company: Runestone Capital Name: Rune Madsen Address: Runestone Capital, 239 Kensington High Street, W8 6SN, London, UK Telephone: +44 207 316 3084 Email: [email protected] Web Address: http://runestonecap.com/ “Overall, 2017 has been an exhilarating year for Runestone Capital, as our team has grown from two to five people in the last six months and our assets has grown 500 percent this year. This has occurred as more investors have started to realise the value in our offering. We aim to grown even further by four to six times next year based on investor interest and an ever-expanding pipeline. Our main goal is solid risk adjusted return and this will be our most important marketing tool. The process behind our strategy is always been tested and questioned and we aim to further improve it over the year ahead.”