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Listed fund of hedge funds group Dexion Capital is planning to diversify its fund range, with single-manager infrastructure and special situations launches planned over the next year.
Robin Bowie, chairman of Dexion Capital, said several closed-end funds were in development, including FoFs and single-manager offerings.
The first to go live will be Dexion’s Global Farming fund, which will directly own and manage land in South America, Russia and Australia for farming.
Mr Bowie would not say which asset classes would follow, but said the firm is likely to launch another fund in the third or fourth quarter of this year and another in the first half of 2009.
Dexion currently runs four London-listed FoHFs, including the £1.5bn Dexion Absolute and £150m Dexion Trading funds.
Mr Bowie said infrastructure, special situations, distressed debt and high yield were all areas of interest.
"There are plenty of opportunities at the moment," he said. "The pressure is on banks to reduce direct lending, so how is the world going to get financing, where is the money going to come from?
"There are lots of opportunities in infrastructure, both in the developed and developing world, which need to be funded.
"Also, the forced selling of credit-linked securities in order to de-leverage balance sheets of financial institutions has led to a lot of dislocation in pricing."
Mr Bowie said with high-profile woes in global financial markets, investors were showing stronger interest in absolute returns-style alternative investments and assets that were less correlated with equity and bond markets.
The firm has already begun to break away from its FoHF mould, as it is in the advanced stages of launching its Global Farming fund.
Dexion said the fund would be positioned to exploit potential developments such as changes to Australian and Russian GM crop regulations and a continuation of the global soft commodity and agricultural land bull market.
The Global Farming fund is seeking to raise $270m (£142m) to kick start its investment programme using a private company structure domiciled in Guernsey.
It will aim to own and manage farms which are operating in largely unsubsidised farming countries.
Mr Bowie said the managers would target farms that have a well thought out water and climate strategies, and the ability for value to be added through the change of land use, consolidation and introduction of technology and management.
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