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Money Manager Interview Excerpt
MERGER ARBITRAGE & OTHER ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES - THOMAS F. KIRCHNER - THE PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE FUNDS
Full article published: 6/18/2007    


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TWST: Please start by telling us about Pennsylvania Avenue Advisers and your Event-Driven Fund.
Mr. Kirchner: The advisory firm manages the Pennsylvania Avenue Event-Driven Fund, which is the only Fund that we manage at the moment. The Fund was launched three and a half years ago, and it uses a number of alternative strategies, primarily merger arbitrage, a bit of distressed securities investing, and also piggybacking on proxy fight investments. We have the ability to do capital structure arbitrage, but so far we have not used that strategy. The idea behind this Fund came from the observation that there is a large number of hedge funds in the market that are using these strategies, but hedge funds are not available in the retail markets. A mutual fund would open those strategies up to retail investors that may not qualify for hedge funds or other investors who may qualify for hedge funds, but prefer the regulatory scrutiny that the mutual funds are subjected to, as opposed to hedge funds, which lack transparency.

TWST: How has the Event-Driven Fund performed over the last year? Have you been growing in assets?
Mr. Kirchner: Yes, we are now at $4.3 million in assets. So we have almost tripled since when we last spoke. That has primarily been driven by improving availability through brokerage platforms - we are now available through Fidelity and E*TRADE. Secondly, we obtained a ticker symbol and Morningstar rating late last year. Before that, it was very difficult for investors to actually find the Fund without a ticker and without being in the Morningstar database, so that has helped the Fund grow as well.

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For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.

 

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