October 24, 2018 New Products Boost Assets of Credit Manager Fixed-income fund operator Bramshill Investments has launched two funds in the space of four months, marking a substantial increase in the firm’s offerings and assets.
The Hackensack, N.J. firm, led by former Man GLG portfolio manager Art DeGaetano, began trading Bramshill Structured Products Fund this month with $9 million. The portfolio is managed by DeGaetano and Paul van Lingen, who joined Bramshill last year and previously managed structured-product investments at Rimrock Capital. Bramshill Tactical Fixed Income Fund debuted in July with $400 million from a single investor. The vehicle trades three types of debt securities Bramshill views as largely uncorrelated: corporate bonds, municipal bonds and preferred stock.
The back-to-back launches boosted Bramshill’s assets to $1.5 billion, up from $600 million in the first quarter of 2017.
The firm’s core offering is a $255 million alternative mutual fund called Bramshill Income Performance Fund. Bramshill also runs money for European investors via a UCITS vehicle.
In addition to its funds, Bramshill manages a $100 million separate account for a U.S. pension plan. The rest of the firm’s assets are spread among a couple of hundred separate accounts for clients of Fidelity Investments, J.P. Morgan, RBC and UBS. Most of the separate-account money appears to be managed via an “all weather” strategy that invests in a range of liquid assets including preferred shares, REITs, master limited partnerships and closed-end funds.
Bramshill Structured Products Fund invests opportunistically in asset-backed securities, residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations and whole loans, with a focus on short-duration securities. It employs a mix of fundamental analysis and relative-value tactics, applying 1-2 times leverage.
The fund is accessible via two share classes — one that imposes a one-year lockup and permits quarterly redemptions thereafter, and one that imposes a two-year lockup, then allows investors to withdraw once a year.
Van Lingen is a veteran mortgage-bond trader whose resume includes senior positions at RBS Greenwich, where he headed non-agency MBS trading, and Bear Stearns, where he oversaw trading of adjustable-rate mortgages. At Rimrock, van Lingen co-headed structured-product investing with Chris Chester, overseeing portfolios that accounted for a substantial portion of the firm’s $4.2 billion of assets.
Bramshill’s mutual fund, which launched in April 2016, has generated a 2.7% annualized return. DeGaetano, Bramshill’s chief investment officer, began running the strategy while at GLG. Including the earlier track record, the annualized return would be 7.4%.
DeGaetano founded Bramshill in 2012 after about five years at GLG, where he was a senior portfolio manager. Before that, he oversaw U.S. credit trading at RBS Greenwich and earlier worked at Bear. During his final years at Bear, from 2000 to 2004, he was a senior managing director and head trader on the high-yield desk.
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