Given the increasingly bleak scenario for new fund launches, Maarten Petermann’s offering will be swimming against the tide

Maarten Petermann spent twenty years at JPMorgan before departing earlier this year.

But Petermann’s last-held position at JPM, that of European head of special situations, should be valuable experience when he runs his proposed Merlyn Advisors fund.

Merlyn is targeting $500 million in assets when it commences trading, with deployment across special situations such as M&A, spinoffs, and bankruptcies.

Maarten Petermann seeks investors

Potential investors include pension funds, family offices, foundations and sovereign wealth funds.

Tough environment

Though hedge funds have performed well during the first half of the year, the long term trend shows that more funds have closed than started every year over the last three years.

Investors are resisting high fees while costs are going up for hedge funds. Funds have faced $44.6 billion in redemptions during the first half of this year.

That said, the first half saw an uptick in new funds.

The number of new hedge funds launched in Q1 of 2019 were 136 compared to 111 in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the HFR Market Microstructure Report.