Oppenheimer, Tremont Launch Tax-Exempt Hedge Funds

January 16, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - OppenheimerFunds, Inc and Tremont Advisers, Inc have announced the launch of two funds of hedge funds available to tax-exempt, institutional investors.

The SEC-registered funds, OFI Tremont Core Diversified Hedge Fund and OFI Tremont Market NeutralHedge Fund, opened for investment last week, based onstrategies that Tremont says are on a fully discretionarybasis. Each of the funds willinvest in approximately 15 managers.

Tremont says the Core Diversified Hedge Fund will seek annualized returns of 10% to 12% over a marketcycle with significantly lower volatility than the broad equitymarkets.  The Fund includes a mix of relative value and directionalstrategies such as long/short equity, event driven and global macro.

The Market Neutral Hedge Fund, Tremont says, is geared toward investors whoseek a return similar to those achieved in the fixed income markets. This Fund aims to earn an 8% to 10% annualized return over a market cycle.The component strategies will largely be arbitrage-based.
 

Both of the new funds are available totax-exempt institutions that qualify as accredited investors and qualifiedinstitutional clients.  According to Tremont, the new funds are structured as US regulated investment companies(RICs) under the Internal Revenue Code, avoiding unrelated businesstaxable income (UBTI). 

Both Tremont and OppenheimerFunds will market the new offerings. The funds require aminimum $1 million initial investment with additional investments in$100,000 increments.  Purchases may be made monthly, and there is a 1%fee for shares repurchased by the funds within 12 months of aninvestor’s initial investment. The first share repurchase by the Fundsis scheduled for December 31, 2003.

«