Pharo Management has emerged as one of the highest-profile hedge funds to have been wrongfooted by the Ukraine crisis, underscoring how many global investors were caught off-guard by Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour.
London-based Pharo, which has $11bn in assets under management and is one of the world’s biggest emerging-market hedge funds, held the debt of Russia and Ukraine as the conflict erupted last week, according to people familiar with its positions.
The firm’s $5.2bn Gaia fund lost 10.7 per cent last month, while its $4.3bn Macro fund lost 2.9 per cent, the people said. Gaia has suffered only one year of negative performance since it launched in 2008 and has annualised returns of nearly 11 per cent. Macro has been down just twice since 2005 and has annualised returns of 9.2 per cent.