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Whitebox Long Short Equity Fund (LIP)

Comments

  • Their investor stares have a big load and contingent deferred sales charge. Unless they offer their admin. shares to the investors at Fund Supermarket etc. it is non-starter.
  • edited August 2012
    Um, so that is three new funds for the fascinating Whitebox Advisor's team, led by Andrew Redleaf, in addition to their established hedge fund portfolio. Fees seem similar to other offerings. If it helps, WBMAX is a No Load, No Transaction Fee offering at Schwab.
  • edited August 2012
    Started a position in Tactical Opportunities (which can short - for example, the fund earlier in the year: "From early February through late April, we held equity put options notionally equivalent to about 60% of our long equity positions. (In other words, had the options come into play they would have effectively represented a short equity position equivalent to about 60% of our long equity position). The puts served as a hedge against extreme negative moves in either the high-yield market (at the time we held long positions in an Exchange-Traded Fund comprised of high-yield bonds) or equity markets.") There is more discussion in the quarterly letter and elsewhere, but I find the tactical approach of the tactical fund appealing.

    Additionally, the puts against extreme negative outcomes (which appears* to be a fairly common tool for this fund, given the discussion in the quarterly letter - attempting to protect against tornados and not just every blustery day) was of interest vs an outright long/short fund. (* - it remains to be seen the tools that will be used on the fund to hedge, but so far shorts seem to be either against extreme movements or theme/idea based, such as the fund's theory that small caps were too expensive, so short small cap/long large cap.) Tactical Opportunities seemed like a unique and interesting vehicle from management that I find particularly interesting and I find these funds (such as Marketfield) that can be looser with the definition of a long-short fund to be very appealing.

    Not sure if I will get into the new Long-Short Equity fund, but thank you for posting.
  • Reply to @scott: Me too scott after your original report. I'm in. Simply could not resist opportunity to invest with Redleaf. Current portfolio then, in order of %, high to low: RNSIX, FAAFX, WBMIX, SFGIX, DODBX. Just five sweet funds. Three first heard about on MFO. Oh, and a small stake in BAC.
  • Thanks Kevin. Gotta tell ya, I like it when an investment manager puts reputation on the line...puts themselves out there. Especially sweet when I agree, as in case of Redleaf, and Berkowitz of course.

    Ditto for financial reporters. For example, Morningstar's Bob Johnson, Kiplinger's Steven Goldberg, and InvesTech's newsletter publisher James Stack.
  • Reply to @Charles: Best of luck to the both of us!:-) What also impressed me about the fund was the history of both of the additional managers, as well. The Whitebox Selected Research website also provides both their insights and a number of other interesting pieces. I didn't agree with a couple of their views, but thought highly enough of management and the flexible style of the fund (and with 9.5M under management, I think it could be rather nimble) that I decided to start a position.
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