Women in Wealth Awards 2016

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 17 Best Hedge Fund CIO - New York Sancus Capital Management is a long/ short credit fund specialist focused on exploiting inefficiencies across credit markets. Founder Olga Chernova provides us with an absorbing overview of her career and how this has led her to fine tune the award winning investment process which has made Sancus the success it is today. Sancus Capital was established in 2009 by Olga Chernova, whose track record trading credit derivatives dates to 1999 and includes positive returns every year during the financial crisis. Prior to Sancus, Olga was a Managing Director at JPMorgan, serving as Head of North American Credit and Structured Credit for the Proprietary Positioning Business (PPB). At JPMorgan, Olga was responsible for building and managing a 12- person credit trading team, and also served as a member of the PPB Risk Committee. From August 2006 to July 2007, Olga was a Managing Director and Head of Correlation and Index Trading at Dillon Read Capital Management LLC. From 1999 to 2006, Olga worked at Goldman Sachs where she held a number of senior trading roles. This vast experience has helped her in running Sancus and she is most proud of her work at JPMorgan, as Olga outlines: “My best trades were made when I worked at JPMorgan. During my time there I was one of the few credit managers to avoid losses during the financial crisis in 2008. One of the positions I took was buying protection in sovereign CDS of the US and Western European governments. Sovereign CDS was a relatively new contract at that time. This position alone moved from 3 to 100 basis points as the US government bailed out and took on risk of the investment banks. I view this as an achievement not only because it generated great positive returns but also because this trade was very creative. It showcased my approach to investments: finding an obscure instrument to express a simple idea to avoid crowded trades and benefit from complexity premiums.” The fund has achieved an extraordinary year so far for 2016. As of September 2016 the Fund year to date is positive +41.56% and inception to date is positive +63.89%. This compares with HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index YTD return of +1.33% and HFRX Fixed Income- Credit Index YTD Return of +2.866%. In addition, Fund’s returns compare very favourably to the static credit benchmarks: The Barclays Aggregate Credit Total Return Index is +8.862% and the WWI60012 Company: Sancus Capital Management Address: 1325 Ave. of the Americas, 28th Floor, NY, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 277-8255 Fax: (646) 217-3710 Email: [email protected] Website: www.sancuscap.com Barclays US Corporate HY Index is +15.111. Out of the 735 credit hedge funds listed in BarclayHedge under any of the 11 Fixed Income strategies, Sancus Capital Select Master Fund Ltd. comes up as second best. Similarly, in the Preqin database Sancus Capital Select Master Fund Ltd. is ranked 3rd in year to date performance out of 202 Credit Strategy Funds. Recently Sancus Capital Management has been awarded Best Multi-Strategy Credit Fund Manager in the fifth annual Hedge Fund Awards, sponsored by BarclayHedge. In addition, HFMweek has recognized Sancus Capital Select Master Fund, Ltd. as Highly Commended during 2016. Olga talks us through the fund’s investment approach and how it differentiates Sancus from other, similar investment products on the market. “The fund’s investment approach combines fundamental analysis, a relative value framework and momentum trading. Credit markets continue to be highly bifurcated, resulting in similar cash flows being valued differently by various market participants. While many credit funds focus on one particular area, such as distressed, converts, or structured products, I feel it is our ability to look broadly cross-products and find relative value mispricing that gives Sancus a competitive edge. “While some competitors might shy away from more complex products, such as CLOs and synthetic credit baskets, it is my belief that there is often a complexity premium embedded in these instruments which offers attractive compensation. This approach stems from my unique experience as I started in the industry trading fundamental high yield and then moved to more macro credit products such as synthetic indices and tranches.” Ultimately there are very few female hedge fund money managers. While there are a number of women in senior hedge fund roles, there are very few who are responsible for founding and launching the business as Olga is, and this is what truly makes her insight so valuable to other women looking to succeed in the fund industry.