Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Ravinder Mehra built a hedge-fund empire on smart trades and savvy marketing. But sudden losses are exposing deep cracks in that empire’s foundation.
The 48-year-old Mr. Mehra, for many years considered among the top traders in global bond and currency markets, launched Vega Asset Management in 1996 with just $25 million. Mr. Mehra and his team wooed the middlemen of the hedge-fund world, a rising group of professionals who represent wealthy investors and search for the next hot hedge fund. By 2004, Vega, with offices in Madrid, London and New York, was managing more than $12 billion, making it the largest fund in Europe and one of the biggest in the world.
A series of poor bets on global bonds by Mr. Mehra — and an unwillingness to change his bearish stance on fixed-income investments — have hurt returns. Vega’s biggest hedge fund, the Vega Select Opportunities Fund, which is run by Mr. Mehra, has lost about 17 percent so far this year, most of it during August and September.
“You’re only as good as your last trade in this business, and on that basis I am awful,” Mr. Mehra says. “We deserve to be punished if we don’t perform, we haven’t met our objectives for two years.”
