(Bloomberg) -- Astignes Capital Asia Pte is opening the new Astignes Systematic RV Macro Fund to outside investors starting in April, seeking potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, said people with knowledge of the matter.

With that, the near $3.3 billion Singapore-based firm is venturing into global managed futures trading, broadening its investment scope and tapping into a new pool of money, said the people, requesting not to be identified because the matter is private. An Astignes representative declined to comment.

The fund trades futures contracts in equity, fixed income, currency and commodity markets. It uses computer algorithms, along with direct access to the electronic facilities and order books of exchanges, known as direct market access. It has returned more than 15% since it started in October with money from Astignes and its partners. 

Astignes founder Bart Broadman co-founded Alphadyne Asset Management LP in 2005 with former JPMorgan Chase & Co. colleague Philippe Khuong-Huu. He led Alphadyne’s Asia team to form Astignes 12 years later. The firm’s assets have more than doubled since January 2019. That makes its original business, which focuses on Asian currencies and rates, one of the biggest and longest-running macro hedge funds in the region. 

The Astignes macro hedge fund has returned an annualized 6.5% from its February 2007 inception at Alphadyne to February 2024, outperforming the 5.5% of a Eurekahedge index tracking performances of similar funds. 

Hedge fund firms sitting in or focused on Asia typically oversee smaller amounts of assets than their US and UK peers. The ones that have allowed their funds to balloon too much, too quickly often end up with slipping performances and investor redemptions. Overseeing $4.5 billion of assets as early as March 2016, fellow Singapore-based Graticule Asset Management Asia Pte saw its flagship Asia macro hedge fund suffer double-digit losses in March 2023, when the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank triggered wild swings in the bond markets. 

Large regional alternative asset managers that cater to institutional clients, such as PAG, have instead found success expanding into different asset classes or investment strategies.

Astignes early last year recruited Aimad Taleb, who honed his skills at firms including John Meriwether’s JWM Partners LLC and Deutsche Bank AG, to lead the new strategy. 

The addition allows Astignes to stay close to its roots of liquid investments, while venturing into a new strategy and broader sets of markets, the people said. The new fund’s algorithm processes both price and non-price signals, the latter mainly macro-economic-related analyses, the person added.

Taleb leads a three-person team and has been named chief investment officer of the systematic strategy. Lye Shiang Hue took over the baton from Broadman as CIO of the discretionary macro strategy at the start of 2022, completing a succession that is rarely managed successfully in an industry where funds often fizzle out with the retirement or departure of their founders. 

Astignes’s macro fund returned more than 2.6% in the first two months of this year, making money from China and Japan wagers. It gained 7.6% in 2023. The systematic strategy, by contrast, gained from commodity rallies this year.

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