Och-Ziff hedge fund CEO sees opportunities in distressed cycle, long-short equities

By Jennifer Lanning Drey

Portland, Ore., Nov. 3 - Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC's chief executive officer Daniel Och said Tuesday that the firm sees attractive opportunities for investing in the distressed cycle and long-short equities going forward.

"As we have for several quarters, we view the investment environment as an excellent one in which to generate strong performance," he said.

Speaking during the company's third-quarter earnings conference call, Och also said he believes that redemptions have returned to normal, and investors are now beginning to return to the hedge fund industry.

"We view redemptions as now having normalized to historical levels for the industry as a whole, as market conditions have further improved and investor confidence has increased," Och said.

"We believe that investors continue to see the value of allocating capital to hedge funds, both in terms of portfolio diversification as well as the opportunity for yield enhancement, and they are beginning to return to the industry."

Och said he continues to believe that institutional investors have substantial capital to invest, a portion of which will be allocated to alternative asset managers. That allocation is likely to grow over time, he added.

The decision process on capital allocation is relatively advanced compared to where it was in the summer, he also noted.

Also during the call, Och-Ziff reported that year-to-date through October 31, its master fund was up 21.3% net, while its Europe master fund was up 15.6% net, and the Asia master fund was up 28% net. The global special investments fund was up 7.2% net.

Och said the results were driven by long-short equities, which were profitable in every geographic region, convertible arbitrage across all geographies, credit in U.S. and European distressed, and structured credit, mostly in the United States.

Och-Ziff is an institutional alternative asset manager based in New York.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.