VietNamNet Bridge – PXP Viet Nam Asset Management plans to start a hedge fund on the Vietnamese stock exchange early next year, said PXP co-founder Kevin Snowball at a press briefing marking the launch of the company's third investment fund last week.

A hedge fund is an aggressively managed portfolio of investments that uses advanced investment strategies such as leverage and long, short and derivative positions on both domestic and international markets with the goal of generating high returns.

The PXP Viet Nam Value Fund would initially raise US$20 million from the existing clients of PXP Viet Nam Asset Management, said Snowball, and would eventually raise as much as $200 million to invest in about 20 major firms on the Vietnamese stock market assessed as having good management and promising future development.

"There are some stocks now on your market with both attractive prices and prospects for growth even though the global credit crunch is having an impact on them," Snowball said, although he also expressed concerns over the quality of management of some firms that appeared to neglect the interests of smaller shareholders.

If such firms, he said, concentrated more on improving management, the Vietnamese equity market could soon become a top choice of overseas investors.

PXP Viet Nam Asset Management was co-founded by Snowball, with Jonathan Waugh in October 2002. It currently manages three funds with a total capital of $250 million as of August 2008.

(Source: Viet Nam News)