“First class travel is not my style,” he says, noting that numerous hedge funds fail not because of flawed investment strategy but because of poor business management.
Providentia is different in other ways, too. Its forthcoming Strategema Global Perspectives Fund will seek to identify deviations from economic fundamentals and then find the most risk-effective ways of capitalising on them. In contrast to the popular image of hedge funds as short-term speculative players, Strategema will be taking strategic positions and holding them.
Quite separate from Strategema’s investment philosophy, Providentia will be giving up 20% of its profits for social investment projects in microfinance and education.
Mr Lakha is only 27 and he seems to represent a new generation of hedge fund managers interested in gaining the industry a better image. The industry badly needs this if it wants to be better understood and respected. Brian Caplen
