PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following its spin-off from the Louis Dreyfus group last summer, Eiffel Investment Group (EIG), an emerging alternative investor and asset manager headed by Fabrice Dumonteil, has reorganized its range of investment strategies to accelerate its development.
- In “credit”, EIG makes investments in corporate credit assets with long-term holding periods, a strategy initiated in early 2009. In a context of accelerated deleveraging and heightened capital and liquidity requirements for the financial sector, EIG notably continues to work with financial institutions on “capital relief” transactions. These transactions typically consist in EIG buying tailored exposure to portfolios of corporate credit sitting on banks’ balance sheets, allowing the banks to reduce their risk exposure and amounts of regulatory capital needed in connection with the portfolios. EIG invested in several large capital relief transactions since 2009 in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and expects to complete more transactions in 2012.
- In “credit”, EIG also runs a long-short strategy focused on liquid European corporate and financial issuers. This strategy is positioned in a context of deleveraging of the developed economies, of reshuffling of the traditional credit hierarchy between borrowers and of regulatory changes impacting credit investors.
Credit strategies are led by Emmanuel Weyd, who has 20 years of experience of credit markets, in research, structuring and investment.
- In “equities”, EIG runs a long-short stock-picking strategy focused on liquid issuers in the telecom-media-technology and energy sectors, capitalizing on EIG’s unique insight into these two sectors. The strategy is managed by Pierre-Antoine Machelon, who, in 16 years, has developed a dual expertise as an equity analyst and in management roles in telecommunications and commodities companies.
- The “derivatives” strategy implements arbitrages in higher order variables of financial instruments (e.g., volatility, correlation, skew) by trading derivatives in a broad array of asset classes (equities, credit, rates, currencies, commodities…). It is run by Yann Le Garrec, who has a detailed expertise of derivatives across asset classes, acquired during his 20 years at leading investment banks.
At the end of 2011, assets managed by EIG in the four strategies already total €300 million. This number includes more than €100 million of capital invested by EIG itself, allowing a very strong alignment of interest with third party investors (institutional investors, family offices and high net worth individuals).
EIG was formed with an ordinary capital of €18 000 three years ago and has made nearly €100 million of net profit since then, giving it a solid equity base for its future growth.
About Eiffel Investment Group
Eiffel Investment Group is an alternative investor and asset manager.
It was founded end 2008 by Jacques Veyrat and Fabrice Dumonteil. As a division of the Louis Dreyfus group, the firm initially focused on asset management in commodities before expanding into credit, equities and derivatives. Mid-2011, EIG disposed of its interest in its USD 2 billion commodity hedge fund to Louis Dreyfus and was bought out by Jacques Veyrat’s entrepreneurial holding IMPALA.
Today, EIG invests for its own account and for third party investors in four core strategies: corporate credit with a long-term holding period, long-short credit, long-short equity and multi-asset class derivatives arbitrage.
EIG has offices in Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Paris and employs a team of close to 20 seasoned professionals:
- Fabrice Dumonteil, the former CFO of listed telecommunications operator Neuf Cegetel, founded EIG and runs the company since 2008.
- Jan Carel Kingma, who has close to 40 years of experience in general management, corporate finance and private equity, is a managing director and the general counsel of Eiffel Investment Group B.V.
- Olivier Villedey, the former deputy CFO of Neuf Cegetel, is EIG’s CFO. He is in charge of risk control, with two risk analysts.
- Pierre-Antoine Machelon is in charge of EIG’s equity investments since end 2008. Previously, he had spent 16 years as a sell-side analyst with Exane BNP Paribas and in senior management positions in telecommunications and commodities companies.
- Emmanuel Weyd runs the credit strategies of EIG since early 2009. Emmanuel brings an in-depth expertise of the European credit market, acquired during his nearly 20 years at JP Morgan, successively as co-head of European credit research, head of debt capital markets for France, Benelux and Switzerland and managing director in credit team of the proprietary trading division, and previously at S&P as a credit analyst.
- Yann Le Garrec leads the derivatives strategy. Yann is a specialist of derivatives who spent 20 years at Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. He is assisted by Denis Sédès, an expert in rates and currency derivatives who previously worked for Merrill Lynch, and by Henri Laurent, an experienced trader who co-founded New York based volatility hedge fund Onyx Capital Management after 7 years at JP Morgan where he headed European and US equity derivatives’ trading.
- EIG’s investment team also includes Nicolas Sobczak, the former CIO of the 34 billion Euros French public pension fund and previously a senior European economist at Goldman Sachs, and Raoul Saada, an experienced specialist in financial intermediation and structuring who notably participated to the creation of equity broker Finacor. The portfolio managers are supported by four analysts.
- Guillaume Panié, an experienced business development executive who also held positions at the French Treasury, heads the firm’s marketing and development.
- Claire Atassi, a lawyer admitted to the Paris Bar, is the firm’s compliance officer.