Tradex Global Advisors, LLC, an alternative asset management company, announced that Dr. Ed Altman has joined the high yield team at Tradex in an alliance to help execute the firm's Short-Biased High Yield strategy. Dr. Altman is the Max L. Heine Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He is also the Director of Research in Credit and Debt Markets at the NYU Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions and a well-known high yield bankruptcy expert.
"We are fortunate to have Dr. Altman work with us to help execute and promote our Short-Biased High Yield Strategy. He is the preeminent authority on high yield credit and his Z-Score analytics have proven successful over a long time horizon," stated Michael Beattie, Tradex founder and Chief Investment Officer. "I found the Tradex philosophy of identifying specific opportunistic investments appropriate now and in the foreseeable future. Their specific strategy to short worst of breed high yield companies is timely given the overheated market in high yield credit," said Dr. Altman.
"We plan to incorporate and utilize the Z-Score metric as part of our risk management process," added Richard Travia, Head of Risk Management for the strategy. "The Z-Score attempts to predict the probability that a company will go into bankruptcy within two years of the analysis," added Travia.
The Tradex Global Short-Biased High Yield strategy is an actively managed, short-biased credit portfolio that attempts to provide an asymmetric return profile, using a proprietary liquid portfolio of cash bonds. The Fund expects to capitalize on current mispriced credits in the $1.5+ trillion high yield marketplace. Short positions are typically longer dated, unsecured/subordinated, fixed rate bonds.
Dr. Altman has an international reputation as an expert on corporate bankruptcy, high yield bonds, distressed debt and credit risk analysis. He was named Laureate in 1984 by the Hautes Etudes Commerciales Foundation in Paris for his accumulated works on corporate distress prediction models and procedures for firm financial rehabilitation and awarded the Graham & Dodd Scroll in 1985 by the Financial Analysts Federation for his work on Default Rates on High Yield Corporate Debt. He was named "Profesor Honorario" by the University of Buenos Aires in 1996 and is currently an advisor to the Centrale dei Bilanci in Italy and to several foreign central banks. Professor Altman is also the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the Turnaround Management Association. He received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame in 2001, President of the Financial Management Association (2003) and a FMA Fellow in 2004. In 2005, Professor Altman was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Finance" by Treasury & Risk Management magazine.
Tradex Global Advisors, LLC (TGA) is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. TGA manages opportunistic internal hedge funds and niche-focused fund of hedge funds. With its targeted focus, TGA seeks to identify very specific trading opportunities and to partner with highly experienced teams to execute the strategy. TGA was founded in 2004 and is managed by Jeffrey Trongone, Michael Beattie and Richard Travia. TGA was an affiliate and spinout of Tradex Capital Markets, a large and successful macro fund of managed accounts that launched in 1998, collectively with peak assets of more than $3 billion.