Credit Suisse steps into hedge fund replication business, teams up with leading academics

Date: Monday, March 10, 2008
Author: FT.com

Credit Suisse will (today) unveil a plan to muscle in on the nascent, but potentially highly lucrative, hedge fund replication industry.

The Swiss bank has teamed up with three of the leading academics in the field, Professors William Fung and Narayan Naik of the London Business School and David Hsieh of Duke University, to create a suite of products designed to replicate mechanically the returns of the major hedge fund strategies.

Credit Suisse said its experience running the CS/Tremont family of hedge fund indices, allied to the link with messrs Fung, Naik and Hsieh, would give it an advantage over its rivals.

“They have been among the leading academics in the field going back to the 1990s. We felt it would be a strategic advantage to align ourselves with individuals of such knowledge and stature,” said Oliver Schupp, head of beta strategies at Credit Suisse.