Dynamic asset allocation, affirmed and emerging talents, research conducted directly in London and New York, “because we have always believed that being where interesting new players are up and coming is what makes the difference”. Not to mention the meetings, countless meetings – over 2,500 alone in 2013, ten times the industry average – in which we learn more about managers and opportunities that we must often hunt for in the niches. Michele Gesualdi leads the Kairos Partners Multi-Manager team and although he is based in London, given the team’s global approach, more often than not he is traveling the world. “In ten years we have created a watertight network of contacts, and forging an ongoing relationship with managers has been the key to our success, in which experience plays a crucial role. All this leads to products that are an expression of our modus operandi – an MO that is also based on an approach that tends to be bottom up.
“Our objective? To create absolute return funds by picking the best teams capable of generating alphas. Although 2014 promises to be as slow as the year just ended and it is very likely that volatility will be higher, once again, I do not believe we should lower our expectations.” Gesualdi continues, “It could still be a good year for alphas, and we can see this in the fact that in January, despite the roller coaster ride on stock markets, we still generated positive returns”.
Indeed, these results were achieved in part by closely monitoring the underlying funds, which enabled Kairos to generate excellent returns with very low volatility. Gesualdi and his team’s track record, bolstered by a combination of experience and innovation, has made Kairos a first mover in the European UCITS sector.