Investors and Industry Experts Hear the Views of Canadian Hedge Fund Award Winners

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 13, 2017) - The main room was full at the Albany Club last Wednesday as Canada's top investment industry experts joined a group of investment advisors and sophisticated investors to hear from three particularly interesting winners of 2016 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards (CHFAs).

The keynote address was delivered by Benjamin Tal, Deputy Chief Economist, CIBC Capital Markets, who kept the attention of this high-powered audience with his insightful, compelling and entertaining presentation entitled 'Alternative Facts'.

The unpredictability of today's financial markets has investment advisors and their high net worth clients increasingly turning to alternative strategies as they seek new ways to reduce the impact of market volatility and improve the performance of their investment portfolios. As Brian D'Costa, Founding Partner & President of Algonquin Capital, pointed out,  "Alternative strategies can provide tremendous value in a portfolio, through diversification, less variability in returns and through access to return streams not available by traditional asset classes." On average, over the long term, hedging strategies in Canada have offered equity-like returns with less risk and have significantly outperformed during Canadian market downturns.

Annually, Alternative IQ produces the CHFA Winners Showcase event as an opportunity for investors and their advisors to hear from some of Canada's brightest and best hedge fund managers.

"We are very pleased to have participated in this event." commented Benjamin Tal. "There is impressive talent in Canada's hedge fund industry, and CIBC Capital Markets welcomes the opportunity to support this investment community." CIBC Prime Services was voted Top Canadian Prime Broker at the 2016 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards.

The MC for this exclusive, by invitation only, event was Dennis MacPherson, Senior Vice President of SGGG Fund Services, also a 2016 CHFA award-winner, having been voted Top Canadian Hedge Fund Administrator. Presentations were made by:

• Barry Allan, Founding Partner of Marret Asset Management, whose Investment Grade Hedged Strategies Fund won a 2016 Canadian Hedge Fund Award for best 5-year Sharpe ratio in the credit focused category. The Fund is an actively managed long/short strategy in a highly liquid and diversified portfolio of North American investment grade bonds, designed to seek yield and capital appreciation. The Fund invests predominantly in investment grade corporate debt, with an Average Credit Rating of BBB- and above, with tactical access to opportunities in non-investment grade BBB rated bonds and the ability to hedge, including interest rate risk and credit risk using actively traded credit indices. Discover more here: http://marret.ca/marret-investment-grade-hedged-strategies.html
• Raj Tandon, Founding Partner & COO of Algonquin Capital which was the 2016 CHFA 1st place winner in the credit focused category for best 1-year return. The Algonquin Debt Strategies Fund was launched to help investors and portfolio managers with the challenges of the low-interest rate environment. The fund offers access to fixed income strategies that can generate strong returns irrespective of what happens to rates. The core of the approach is to treat corporate credit as a distinct asset class while hedging and managing the portfolio's interest rate exposure. The fund targets absolute returns of 6-9% with an emphasis on capital preservation and disciplined risk management. You can find out more about the Algonquin Debt Strategies Fund here: http://www.algonquincap.com/
• Jason Landau, Portfolio Manager, Waratah Capital Advisors, whose Energy Fund won a 2016 CHFA in the market neutral category for best 1-year return. WARATAH Energy is a low net exposure, long/short equity portfolio of North American energy securities. Fundamental research, dynamic portfolio construction and active factor management combine to produce compounded returns with significantly lower volatility and drawdowns than the S&P 500 Energy and S&P/TSX Energy Indices ("North American Energy Indices"). Waratah manages this strategy to go long higher quality securities and short lower quality securities while hedging out commodity, sub-sector and other factor exposures. This strategy has demonstrated a very low beta to North American Energy Indices. The fund was up 18.2% in 2016 and has an average annual return of 8.3% with a 6.1% volatility. Check here for more information about Waratah: http://www.waratahadvisors.com

Together with Brian D'Costa, the award-winning hedge fund managers participated on a panel moderated by Brooke Biscoe, Vice President, Fundata to address the key issues on the minds of today's discerning investors.

"When we go into a market correction," Barry Allan pointed out, "that's when investors really value capital preservation and when hedging strategies really demonstrate their role and value in a portfolio."

For more information about these award-winning hedge funds, please contact:

Kathleen Cooney
Chief Operating Officer
Marret Asset Management
kcooney@marret.com
416-640-0520

Ron Lloyd
Executive Vice President
Waratah Capital Advisors
ron@waratah.com
416 637 5647
 
Raj Tandon
Chief Operating Officer
Algonquin Capital
raj.tandon@algonquincap.com
416-214-3493

The CHFA Winners Showcase 2017 event would not have been possible without the generous support of its sponsors: CIBC Prime Services, Fundata Canada and SGGG Fund Services and its media partner, Newsfile.

For more information about this event, please contact:

Julie Makepeace
Managing Director, Alternative IQ
jmakepeace@alliancesalesandmarketing.com
416-906-3782

and visit:
http://alternativeiq.com/winners-showcase-conferences/2017-winners-showcase-conference/

About Alternative IQ: Alternative IQ is the producer of the annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards, held in Toronto each October (performance as at June 30th), the Winners Showcase events which present Managers of the award-winning hedge funds to investors, and various other programs and publications serving the hedge fund industry in Canada. Alternative IQ is a division of Alliance Sales and Marketing, Inc.

About the Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards: The Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards were first held in 2008 and have a two-fold objective: First, to celebrate the talent and accomplishments of Canada's hedge fund industry, and second, to draw attention to Canada's hedge funds by raising the awareness of that expertise in the media and among the wider investment community. 2017 is the 10th anniversary of the CHFAs.