[ by Howard Haykin ]

Edoma Partners LLP, a hedge fund, was launched in 2010 with $2 billion in investor funds by former Goldman Sachs prop trader Pierre-Henri Flamand.  However, the event-driven fund has a losing track record and investors pulled their money, leaving the fund with $850 million today.   It's time to close.

Flamand, 42, said in an e-mailed statement today: "Considering the unprecedented market conditions, we felt the most responsible course of action was to return money to investors and cease investment activity."

Departs Goldman, Starts Edoma. Flamand stepped down as head of Goldman Sachs’s biggest proprietary-trading unit amid calls from government for banks to end betting on the markets.

Flamand was expected to continue his success as a hedge- fund manager, but in a little less than 2 years, the fund had lost 7% from inception.  With investors leaving, Edoma today manages about $850 million, and the process of returning money to clients and closing down the hedge fund is expected to take 3-4 months.

Event-Driven. Flamand’s fund focuses on so-called event-driven investing in which traders try to predict triggers for stocks and bonds such as corporate restructurings, mergers, management changes, and share sales. 

Rival event-driven funds climbed nearly 5% on average since Edoma started trading in November 2010.  Investor concern over Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis led to periods of high correlation between asset prices, making it difficult to predict price moves for individual companies, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc.

For further details, go to:  [Traders Magazine, 11/2/12].