Hepta Preps FX Fund
Alberto Ferro-Villani and William Kerr, co-founders of Hepta Capital Partners, are preparing to launch a hedge fund on Jan. 4. They expect to raise $100 million for Hepta GFX Fund, an FX strategy. The Geneva-based firm is soon to set up an office in New York.
Hepta GFX focuses on the most liquid currency markets—euro/dollar, dollar/Swiss franc, the pound/dollar and the dollar/yen. Each trade is done via a set of algorithmic trading systems, which Ferro-Villani and Kerr designed.
“What sets us apart is the fact that we are using the study of Norbert Wiener,” Ferro-Willani said. Weiner, who passed away in 1964, was a famed mathematician credited with founding cybernetics, the study of regulatory systems. Of his many theorems is one that aims to measure the current velocity of randomly fluctuating fluid particles, which Hepta has applied to the calculation of stock market movements in a bid to predict what the best next trade would be in various scenarios.
Ferro-Villani and Kerr have been running the strategy in separately-managed accounts for several family offices. Through November, the strategy had gained 107.9%. “[Foreign exchange] has been an exciting asset class,” Ferro-Villani said.
Before co-founding the Geneva-based firm, Ferro-Villani worked at Credit Suisse in London for eight years, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and structured finance investments. Kerr, an electronics engineer, worked at various technology companies in Silicon Valley.