After seeing his fund shrink from $2 billion to $150 million, Morgan Sze has finally caught a break.
Sze, a former Goldman Sachs rock star infamous for making $100 million back in 2006, initially launched Azentus amidst great fanfare back in 2011. Weak returns however lead to massive redemptions in the following years, culminating in a $500 million withdrawal this spring.
According to the WSJ however, things are starting to look up for him again. Azentus has just posted 5.6% gains in the second quarter, handily beating the MSCI All-Country Asia Pacific (MXAP) stock index’s 0.6% and bringing his annual performance up to a new normal-respectable 11%.
That’s still below the mid-teens performance his fund initially advertised though, highlighting the problems former bank traders have coming off a VaR-calculated P&L to one based off AUM.
That aside, he does seem optimistic in his latest investor letter:
“We would like to thank all of our investors who chose to stay invested and, in some cases, increase their investments with us,” Mr. Sze said in a letter sent to investors this week and seen by The Wall Street Journal. “We think that the current selloff in the Chinese markets is presenting us with very compelling value on a long-term basis and have been positioning to take advantage of some of these opportunities.”
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