A team of credit market veterans from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and GLG Partners have launched the Northlight European Fundamental Credit Fund, long/short credit fund.

The team behind the fund have worked together previously and have a strong record in credit investments, trading and of managing funds with similar strategies.

Cyril Armleder and Charles-Henri Lorthioir worked at Goldman Sachs and then at GLG Partners in the capacity of co-manager and credit research analyst for the Credit Fund and various long/short credit, event driven and special situations portfolios in excess of USD1.5bn.

Shahar Zer spent ten years at Lehman Brothers where he headed the leveraged loan trading desk and helped build out the European high yield platform.

The Cayman-based Northlight European Fundamental Credit Fund mainly focuses on high yield investment opportunities in Europe. The team believes that the European High Yield market is poised for significant growth over the next five years. This is driven by capital constrained banks reducing their lending, the continued closure of securitisation markets and companies’ desire to diversify their funding sources.

The fund employs a 3WayNAV mechanism, which deals in a bid, mid and offer NAV struck independently by Citco Fund Services using market prices. The fund deals monthly on a bid NAV for the outflow and the offer NAV for the inflow and allows matching inflows and outflows at the traditional mid NAV.

Dan Page, Managing Director of BRT’s business development, says: “The global economic events of 2008 triggered a global paradigm shift in the funds industry. Many managers have taken steps to beef up their corporate governance and operational infrastructure. However, while many existing managers have battled outmoded infrastructure and re-organisation, the door has been opened wide for new managers and platforms to explore a blank sheet approach to operating in the new paradigm.

“Northlight is one such company. It has worked with BRT, Citco, JPMorgan and KPMG to address the issues of investor alignment, manager to investor alignment, risk control and transparency. At the same time it has retained an operational structure than enables it to fulfil its investment objectives and deliver in its alpha-generating sphere.”

The minimum initial investment is EUR1,000,000 and the minimum subsequent investment is EUR75,000.