Portfolio Manager:



Paul van Rensburg Ph.D (Finance) MCom (cum laude) Hons (Business Finance) is responsible for managing both of the SalientQuants hedge funds.



Academic/Model Building Background



Paul currently holds the Frank Robb Chair in Finance at the University of Cape Town and has won numerous academic awards (including the Economic Society’s Best PhD Award of 1997). He has published more than 25 articles on equity pricing and quantitative stock selection in local and international academic journals. Paul established the Finance Research Laboratory in the School of Management Studies at UCT and on an ongoing basis supervises a group of 8-12 MBusSci and PhD students all focussed on solving practical problems in the field of asset pricing. He has been developing quantitative stock selection models since 1998 and practically applying them in a formal manner since 2000.






Fund Management Background




Partly due to the pitiful stature of South African Academic salaries, since 1998 Paul has had a simultaneous career as an equity portfolio manager. He has over a seven year track record managing active quantitative funds.




Prior to starting Salient Quants on 1 July 2007 he, consulted as Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Equities at Kagiso Asset Management on a part-time basis (January 2004-June 2007). Previously, he was Head of Research at Futuregrowth Asset Management (January 2000- December 2003). At both places he set up and successfully applied quantitative investment processes based on the models that he had developed.




The Kagiso Active Quants fund was convincingly the best performing General Equity unit trust over the 2004.04-2007.06 period that he was the portfolio manager.




The SalientQuants SA Hedge Fund was nominated to the short-list for the Best SA long-short Fund award at the SA Hedge Funds World Awards of both 2007 and 2008.