Tiburon, California-based Hovan Capital Management has announced that Ajim A.

Tiburon, California-based Hovan Capital Management has announced that Ajim A. Tamboli, former senior small biotechnology analyst at Lehman Brothers in San Francisco, will become senior portfolio manager for the firm's HCM Market Neutral Fund.

Lisa J. Lee-Hwong, previously with SAC Capital Advisors in Greenwich, Connecticut, will be supporting Ajim's efforts as a portfolio manager focused on emerging science. Current HCM analyst Mikael M. van Loon will be promoted to portfolio manager in charge of top-down quantitative portfolio risk management.

'We are pleased to place such an experienced and fundamentally strong research team with the HCM Market Neutral Healthcare Fund as it approaches completion of a three-year track record in April,' says the firm's president and chief investment officer Kurt Hovan.

'Ajim's experience and interaction with the management teams of portfolio companies coupled with Dr Lee-Hwong's scientific research experience will provide a strong positive environment in the public equity healthcare research department. Mikael has mastered the short portfolio quantitative process and is ready to assume the role of portfolio manager in the fund.'

The HCM Market Neutral Fund is a US healthcare-focused long/short public equity hedge fund with zero portfolio net dollar exposure. Assets are allocated in fixed ratios across four healthcare industry sub-groups, small biotechnology, medical devices, therapeutics and healthcare services.

Portfolio net dollar exposure, sector weightings, and gross position and portfolio sizes are monitored continuously. All share classes of the fund are available offshore through the HCM Offshore Market Neutral Fund, a British Virgin Islands master-feeder structure.

Hovan Capital Management is a healthcare-focused alternative investment adviser established in 1998 to serve clients including institutional investors, family foundations and high net worth individuals.