Industry Investment management Website www.sabacapital.com Founded 2009 Type of business Private | Products Hedge funds Founder Boaz Weinstein Headquarters New York City | |
Saba Capital Management is a credit relative value focused hedge fund, established in 2009. The New York City based company is a spin-out of a Deutsche Bank proprietary trading group founded by Boaz Weinstein in 1998.
Contents
History
The firm launched in August 2009 with $140 million and 15 members from Deutsche Bank. In March 2011, Saba was listed as the fastest growing hedge fund manager in 2010 by Absolute Return + Alpha Magazine. As of January 2011, Saba managed $2 billion in assets.
Strategies
Saba manages investments centered on three strategies:
Credit Relative Value
The relative value strategy focuses on identifying dislocations across the capital structure. It utilizes a long / short, market neutral approach in credit and equity markets.
Tail Hedge
The tail hedge strategy seeks to provide a cost effective portfolio hedge during periods of market stress and dislocation. This is implemented by investing primarily in credit default swaps (“CDS”) on a portfolio of low spread investment grade companies. In addition, Saba opportunistically buys CDS on indices and high yield companies, as well as equity puts and related instruments.
Closed-End Funds
The closed-end fund strategy focuses on securities that are trading at significant discounts to NAV, thereby offering more yield than their underlying fixed income instruments – predominately high yield bonds and loans.
Litigation
In March 2015, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (known as PSP), a pension fund for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Forces redeemed a $500 million investment it had made in Saba's flagship strategy in early 2012. In September 2015, PSP filed a lawsuit against Saba, claiming that Saba had mispriced a portion of the fund’s assets after the retirement plan asked that all its money be returned at the end of the first quarter.
As of May 2016, three of the four claims filed against Saba and Boaz Weinstein were dismissed. A breach of contract claim remains outstanding.