Houston-based Oxford Funding Corporation has launched a hedge fund, Delaware limited partnership Oxford Opportunistic Mortgage Fund, which will invest in discounted portfolios of residenti

Houston-based Oxford Funding Corporation has launched a hedge fund, Delaware limited partnership Oxford Opportunistic Mortgage Fund, which will invest in discounted portfolios of residential and commercial mortgages.

The fund will invest in performing, sub-performing and non-performing mortgages purchased on the secondary market at substantial discounts to face value. The fund's strategy will be to hold, modify if necessary, and ultimately liquidate the mortgage assets at significant gains.

The fund and its investors will participate in the yields generated during the holding period, and from gains on the sale or liquidation of the mortgage assets. Oxford Management Capital will manage the fund, receiving a management fee and a percentage of the profits that it generates.

Oxford Funding, a publicly-traded asset resolution company specialising in the purchase and management of bulk mortgage loan portfolios, recently announced that the 2007 annualised rate of return on its portfolio of loans exceeded 90 per cent.

'The fund gives Oxford Funding another vehicle and another opportunity to profit from disruptions in the current mortgage markets,' says the group's chief executive Ron Redd. 'There is presently so much opportunity in the market; we want to capitalise on as much as possible.'

Robert Dunn, president of Oxford Funding, adds: 'This will give us the ability to buy more and make more than we have done to date. The fund will take us to the next level in terms of the type and size of portfolios we can buy.

'With giant companies like Citigroup announcing a quarterly loss of USD9.8bn, Merrill Lynch writing down USD14.1bn last quarter and UBS warning of an estimated USD14bn loss, and Fidelity National announcing USD44.9m in fourth-quarter losses, we feel pretty good about the favourable returns we're experiencing.'