Business
$500m complex strategies investment fund close
$500m complex strategies investment fund close.
About this update from Burford Capital Limited
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 8170J Burford Capital 03 July 2017 \n\nThis announcement contains inside information.\n \n3 July 2017\n \nBURFORD CAPITAL CLOSES $500 MILLION COMPLEX STRATEGIES INVESTMENT FUND\n \nBurford Capital Limited (\"Burford\"), a leading global finance firm focused on law, announces that on 30 June 2017 its affiliate Burford Capital Investment Management LLC closed a new $500 million fund to invest in litigation-related complex strategies.\n \nThe new fund will invest in assets that Burford believes are mispriced and where value can be realized through recourse to litigation and regulatory processes. As such, Burford, through this new fund, generally will act as a principal as opposed to financier. The fund has already invested more than $100 million contemporaneous with its closing. Burford regards its investment strategies as proprietary and will not release information about its underlying investment strategies.\n \nBurford will rely on its existing team of litigation and financial talent in connection with its investing activities in the new fund. It also has expanded the team by hiring a dedicated portfolio manager, Matthew Schoenfeld. Mr. Schoenfeld was most recently with Driehaus Capital and Morgan Stanley's Special Situations Group and is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.\n \nThe new fund is structured as an evergreen fund with a perpetual life based on continued LP commitments. Investors in the fund will pay Burford a management fee of 2% per annum on drawn capital and a performance fee of 20% of fund profits on each resolved investment, subject to a 5% per annum priority return to investors, after which the Burford performance fee will receive a traditional general partner catch-up. \n \nBurford is enthusiastic about the opportunities in litigation-related complex strategies, and is attracted to a greater level of exposure to those investments than it would achieve simply through performance fee income. As a result, Burford has committed $150 million to the new fund from its own balance sheet (a commitment on which it will not pay fees). Burford's employees and directors are similarly positive and have personally invested more than $5 million in the new fund. Thus, the amount raised from third-party investors on which fees will be paid is nearly...