Samena Capital expands investment team

The company, which recently announced the successful first close of its Samena Special Situations Fund at $200m and is targeting a $350m final close by 31 October 2008, has hired five experienced investment professionals to work alongside founder shareholder-managers Shirish Saraf, Ramiz Hasan and Simon Wong.

With a view to launching further close and open ended funds, and buying stakes in other asset management platforms across Asia and the Subcontinent, Samena's team now includes:

- Celia Farnon, who joins Samena from Polar Capital and brings with her 24 years of Japan experience through her career with Citicorp and Nomura. Ms Farnon will develop Samena's Japan business alongside Philip Young, himself a 19-year Japan veteran at Nikko, Fuji and Invicta Investment Management.
- Swaroop Patel, who boasts 15 years of experience in the Asian credit markets, underwriting, structuring and leading new issue transactions for JPMorgan, ABN Amro and most recently as head of Bank of America's Debt Capital Markets in Hong Kong.
- Robert Clements, an emerging markets specialist with 14 years experience who founded hedge fund GEAM in 2005, after spending more than6 years with Hermes Pension Fund (London)as head of emerging markets.
- Lien Ber Luen, who brings 12 years of Asian investment management experience through time spent with Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, Pinnakell Asset Management (a boutique asset manager focusing on Asia ex Japan) and most recently as a senior member of the investment team at Credit Suisse's Global Proprietary Trading business based in Hong Kong.

Commenting on the new hires, Shirish Saraf, President and founder of Samena Capital said, "Following the successful initial closing of our special situations fund and strong investor interest ahead of the final close, we have moved quickly to establish a top-tier investment team with expertise which spans our targeted region. We are already working on a number of potential transactions, and leveraging both the local market knowledge of our founding shareholders and the financial acumen of our expanded investment team."

Mr. Ramiz Hasan, Chief Investment Officer of Samena Capital, added, "We are delighted to announce the appointment of this group of experts, who bring to Samena Capital and our investors, unrivalled experience of the Asian markets. The addition of these individuals rounds out the experience of our management team and solidifies our ability to create value across each of our target regions, which also include the Subcontinent, Middle East and North Africa.

In spite of what remains a challenging global economic environment, we continue to see significant opportunity for investment in our markets of focus and are confident that our strategy and the experience of the management team we've assembled will allow us to effectively navigate the current climate and deliver value."