Singaporean Firm Heads for New Frontier with Fund Launch

Tom Burroughes

1 July 2008

Singapore's Wittenham Investment Management has launched a fund of hedge funds to invest in frontier capital markets such as Africa, Middle East and countries in the former Soviet Union, continuing a recent trend of fund launches targeting such parts of the world, according to media reports.

The MENA Plus fund is to start with at least $7 million seed capital and has a capacity to take as much as $300 million of funds from investors.

High prices of oil and commodities have boosted economic growth and wealth in the Middle East and in Africa, encouraging fund managers such as Franklin Templeton and Pictet to invest in these so-called frontier markets.

Last year MSCI Barra, a unit of Morgan Stanley launched the MSCI Frontier Markets Indices, covering 19 countries in central and eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.