Turkey's Leading Alternative Investment Firm
NEWS and EVENTS
15.06.10
Turkey's leading independent brokerage house Gedik Yatirim launches Kronos Alpha A-Type Variable Fund, a market-neutral Turkish equities based strategy. Kronos Alpha Fund will be managed by Kronos, the leading quantitative investment manager of Turkey.
© 2008-2010 Kronos
ABOUT US
Kronos is an independent investment management firm based in Istanbul serving institutions and high-net-worth individuals. The Firm was founded in 2008, by Hilmi Cenan Çivi with the purpose of providing independent and prudent investment services for investors.
Kronos' investment processes are powered by sound academic research, measured risk taking, and cost and tax efficiency for long-term wealth creation to investors.
Kronos distinguishes itself from the competition by its research foundation. The investment team continuously carries out original internal research to detect anomalies and analyze behavior of the Turkish stock market for alpha generation, trading efficiency and risk management. The research also includes the application and testing of externally published research by globally renowned academics and practitioners to the Turkish market.
This research is used in a disciplined process encompassing alpha forecasts, risk management and cost management to add value for clients.
The Firm derives all its revenue from management fees and has no soft dollar or similar revenue streams detrimental to its investors' wealth.
MANAGEMENT
Hilmi Cenan Çivi, CFA CAIA FRM
Founding Manager
Kronos is founded by Hilmi Cenan Çivi, who has several years of high-level investment experience in Turkey and the United States. Previously, Cenan was the Search & Selection Manager for Endeavor Turkey, a global non-profit venture-catalyst organization supporting entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Before Endeavor, Cenan was an Associate Portfolio Manager at Standard Ünlü Asset Management, a multinational investment house in Istanbul and a subsidiary of Standard Bank Group of South Africa. Prior to that, Cenan worked in Chicago at the investment department of Kinship Trust Company, one of the United States' most prestigious and largest ultra-high-net-worth single family offices. At Kinship, he took an active role in managing a portfolio of several billion dollars invested heavily in venture capital, private equity funds, hedge funds and emerging markets equities. Before Kinship, Cenan consulted to several multi-billion dollar institutional clients during his tenure at Ennis Knupp + Associates, an independent institutional consulting firm advising 160 clients with aggregate assets over one trillion USD, which has recently been acquired by Hewitt Associates.
Cenan has also carried out freelance consulting assignments for Bain & Co. and Mercer Oliver Wyman on fund-of-funds management and family office investment processes. Additionally, he delivered lectures on investing and finance basics in entrepreneurship events for university students and wrote for the nationally circulated Ekonomist magazine.
Cenan is a graduate of the prestigious Robert College in Istanbul, after which he has completed his B.S. Degree in Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences and Economics from Northwestern University in the United States. Cenan is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). He is a member of the CFA Institute's Chicago and Istanbul Chapters, the CAIA Association and the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He serves on the Membership Committee of CFA Institutes Istanbul Chapter and had also served on the grading committee of the CAIA Association.
STRATEGIES
Our flagship product is our Turkish equities based market-neutral strategy. We manage this strategy in managed accounts according to client customization, as well as through the recently launched Gedik Yatirim - Kronos Alpha A-Type Variable Fund, which is a daily valued, Turkish Capital Markets Board regulated mutual fund with favorable tax-exemptions for foreign institutions and individual investors.
Kronos Market-Neutral Strategy
Investment Objective:
Kronos Alpha Fund aims to deliver absolute returns by investing a long portfolio of stocks and hedging against market exposure by shorting index futures contracts. Stocks are chosen utilizing advanced valuation and risk modeling processes based on rigorous academic research.
Investment Strategy:
Kronos Alpha Strategy is built on several underlying models that invest in liquid Turkish stocks traded on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). The Strategy combines various valuation, quality, liquidity and behavioral models, built on sound academic research on topics varying from valuation and neural nets to behavioral models and risk management. The research is a combination of proprietary in-house efforts and academically recognized publications that have been tested and verified by the Kronos team for the Turkish market. The models' return forecasts are combined and overlayed by a proprietary risk management model that monitors liquidity and active risk levels. Due to the current difficulty of shorting stocks, a long portfolio of 20-30 stocks with strict risk controls against the ISE 30 Index (a free-float weighted Turkish stock index of the 30 largest stocks) is created. Finally, the strategy is beta-hedged shorting index futures to arrive at a target zero-beta portfolio with annual risk of approximately 10% volatility.
Investment Risks:
Main risk in investment strategy is the potential performance deterioration of back-tested valuation models. Another risk factor is liquidity risk in hedging instruments which leads to higher potential costs. These risks are monitored regularly by the risk management team under the monitoring of the firms compliance department.
CAREERS
Kronos derives its strength from the quality of its team. We are always striving to enpower our Firm by seeking the best talent.
If you believe you are such an individual, feel free to send us your resume.
CONTACT US
TELEPHONE: + 90 (212) 351 9859
FAX: + 90 (212) 351 9337
ADDRESS: Zeytinoglu Cad. No 41/1 34335 Akatlar - Istanbul TURKEY
E-MAIL: invest_kronos-holdings.com
