LTCM co-founder launches online investing for world's wealthy
LONDON (Reuters) - Victor Haghani, co-founder of defunct hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, has launched an online fund management service aimed at the world's wealthy.
Elm Partners, which has $400 million in assets, will invest using low-cost products such as exchange-traded funds and charge an annual management fee of just 0.12 percent a year, it said.
Rather than relying solely on passive index-following products, however, it will also use simple aspects of active management, such as assessing an asset's relative cheapness.
Elm will target U.S. taxable investors with at least $300,000 to invest and keep their money in separate accounts with U.S. fund house Fidelity, it said.
It is targeting $500 million in assets in early 2016 and will look to get to $1 billion "as quick as we can", said Haghani.
Originally set up in 2011 as a family office, Elm Partners now has just over 100 clients, more than 80 percent of whom are financial industry professionals.
Haghani was one of the founders of hedge fund LTCM, which blew-up in the late 1990s after its highly leveraged bets went sour during the Asian and Russian financial crises.
(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Mark Potter)
