Hedge Fund for all?

blueandsilver

I'm researching more imaginative ways to get a decent return and found a UK based retail hedge fund called Zeus Capital Wealth. It has no minimum buy in and is tax free, sounded kind of interesting. Of course with more returns comes more risk, but might be good for at least a small part of an investment strategy. Anyone know anything about it?

grey_gym_sock

blueandsilver wrote: »

I'm researching more imaginative ways to get a decent return and found a UK based retail hedge fund called Zeus Capital Wealth. It has no minimum buy in and is tax free, sounded kind of interesting. Of course with more returns comes more risk, but might be good for at least a small part of an investment strategy. Anyone know anything about it?

welcome to MSE!

i'm glad to see you're researching this potential investment so thoroughly. research ranging from creating a new account on msn money and asking (15 days ago):

Slightly off topic but I'm researching more imaginative ways to get a decent return and found the UK's first retail hedge fund called Zeus Capital Wealth. It has no minimum buy in and is tax free, sounded kind of interesting!

to creating a new account on citywire and asking twice about ZCW, including this (12 days ago):

I'm researching more imaginative ways to get a decent return as well and found the UK's first retail hedge fund called Zeus Capital Wealth. It has no minimum buy in and is tax free, sounded kind of interesting! Anyone know anything about it?

it's such a shame that your research doesn't seem to have progressed any further. i'm sure you'll have more luck on MSE. how much are they paying you, BTW?

planteria

blueandsilver wrote: »

tax free

is it tax free ????

bowlhead99

I have experience in the alternative asset sector working with institutional investors and fund managers in the hedge, private equity and real estate sectors. Clearly, as you say, the prospect of more returns carries risk but can be suitable for sophisticated investors.

However, what you are looking at here is far removed from the relative 'safety' of private funds set up for blue chip investors by well established managers. You, or anyone suckered by your post here or on similar sites, are looking at 'Zeus Capital Wealth', a 'trading program of Wallwood Consultants Ltd', in which you open up an account with a spreadbet firm and they try to make more money on it than they lose and charge you an unspecified fee. Yippee, you can buy in for little and pay no tax, because that's how spread betting works. Of course, tax is only relevant in any investment if you are actually getting a profit...

In terms of performance information to date, all they have published on their website is one quarterly report, the salient points being

"As the end of the 3rd quarter comes to a close we also celebrate the end of the first quarter for trading within Zeus Capital Wealth (ZCW)...

...As such, a solid footing within the market and creating core positions has been particularly awkward, however ZCW have overcome these challenges encouragingly and feel that we now have that strong foothold which all Funds require to create momentum and positive P/L.

There is more but I won't plagiarise their entire report.

The short version of their entire published track record, apparently in support of their goal of being a 'retail accessible hedge fund' is that they have been operating for one quarter, or part of a quarter. During that time, the FTSE moved in a range from 6200 to 6700 finishing at about 6450 plus some dividends. GBP went from $1.52 to $1.62. There were ample opportunities for a skilled hedge fund manager (or even a lucky spreadbet trader) to make money.

Unfortunately, these guys have not made any money for anyone yet, but feel that if they are able to master the challenge of raising money and winning on the markets (having recently welcomed to the team someone who has experience of trading forex), they will be well placed to make some positive profits going forwards...

Well, I'm sure I would say the same if my first quarter of gambling with other peoples money did not result in a positive return.

Maybe they would make more money if they gambled more of other peoples money? The OP tells us there is no minimum buyin, but Wallwood's main site refers to running accounts with minimum size of 10k+. Either OP is embellishing the truth to drum up business, or these guys have genuinely decided to buck the trend and shake up the industry by profitably managing my fiver within their "retail hedge fund" as OP calls it. If the latter is the case, it is indeed a revolutionary business model but you would assume the fiver would get immediately eaten by fees which is why no other credible fund manager offers such small ticket sizes.

I look at the Wallwood page on the FCA register and see that the company, which appears to serve as back office/umbrella company for a numer of affiliates/ tied agents, does indeed have permissions to advise or manage accounts (restricted to contract-based assets and without holding client money). And I can see that the one named Zeus director and the one trader are indeed registered as individuals under the regulatory regime (although despite a glittering CV, the director's history shows a large gap with FSA/FCA registration for only ~3 months of the last 60; since June 2013, coincidentally being the time since the zeuscapitalwealth website has existed).

But the existence of such registrations, even if sparkling clean, do not provide any comfort to the casual investor that these guys are competent and will make more than their fees, if anything, and will not lose the lot. All we have to go on, performance wise, is one quarter of operations, during which it sounds like no profits were made and the level of losses are unpublished.

How contactable are they when things go wrong? I should probably look at Wallwood, the FCA registered and regulated entity - rather than the slick frontmen at ZeusCapitalWealth, right? Well, Wallwood has been established for nearly 15 years apparently and has two registered offices. Great! Oh, the London one appears to operate from the same place as many other businesses, a serviced office near Green Park; the other is an address in Seville, Spain. Either of them can be contacted at an @gmail address? Hmm, seems legit.

Any other links of interest on the Wallwood site? Aside from their other affiliates/tied agents and a list of spreadbet/CFD websites as long as your arm, I was intrigued by the inclusion on all their page footers of a link to a random small accounting practice in Ilford, Essex and also links to Stop Child Abuse Now! (stopitnow.org.uk) and also alzheimers.org.uk. Without any accompanying explanation why these links exist, I can only presume they were left by a poor web designer - or are deliberately hosting more unrelated links on their web pages in an attempt to appear higher in search engine rankings (an old search engine optimisation trick).

On reflection, perhaps I am doing the company a disservice by looking at it negatively, though to the OP, I wouldn't touch it with your bargepole let alone my own. I'm sure we're all very grateful for the introduction to this marvellous opportunity which might be good for a small part of any portfolio, as the OP says. I think Grey Gym Sock is being a bit of an old cynic in suggesting that a new joiner to our community whose first post is an innocent enquiry about a great opportunity he's just found, is somehow on the payroll

Hopefully the OP and others finding this thread will be enlightened by the results of the research above. Then they won't need to keep going around financial websites smiling sweetly and innocently asking if anyone knows about this great opportunity. Yes thanks we know enough about it and similar ones to not accidentally let our paycheques go anywhere near it.:rotfl:

Ifts

blueandsilver wrote: »

Anyone know anything about it?

No I didn't know anything about it until I read posts by grey gym sock & bowlhead99 but now know enough to stay well away from it.

I suppose I should thank you [STRIKE]for the[/STRIKE] B&S informing people about this, with a little luck this thread will come up when others search about this outfit on the net and act as a warning.

Bit of an own goal, but.... :T

blueandsilver

Thanks for all your thoughts - mainly the informative non-vitriolic ones though!

magpiecottage

Only just noticed this.

I had an unsolicited call from them recently.

The people who spoke to me did not seem to be on the Financial Services Register.

Maybe that is why they did not provide the correct initial disclosure documentation that the FCA requires.

Maybe that is why their "Fact Find" amounted to "are you a low, medium or high risk investor?" and "how much have you got to invest?".

They have no idea what I do for a living.

I am not averse to taking the odd risk with my investments but a business which totally ignores the regulations presents a risk that I find unacceptable.

jimjames

blueandsilver wrote: »

Thanks for all your thoughts - mainly the informative non-vitriolic ones though!

Were you aware of how they operated before being told here?

Any reason why you are only looking at one, unregulated investment company? A trading programme can hardly be compared to a proper hedge fund

magpiecottage

jimjames wrote: »

Any reason why you are only looking at one, unregulated investment company? A trading programme can hardly be compared to a proper hedge fund

Actually, Wallwood is regulated.

However if you look here there is a link saying "Ceased to carry on regulated activities" - click that link for more details.

John_the_Banker

ZCW London should be avoided at all costs, if you want to gamble with your money take it to the bookies, at least they won't charge you extra even if you lose! Have a look at the citywire.co.uk forum for more information.

The director, Kris McGuire - who likes to call himself Magic (everything you need to know about him is summed up here) - fancies himself as a bit of a trader...he's not, his dad was pretty good, but the genes haven't been passed on. ZCW London have moved (or been moved) out of their Regus digs in Victoria, and set up their stall in the suburbs, somewhere west of Harrow. Obviously not doing very well with other people's money. If you are in the area looking to invest, you might as well walk up the road to William Hill....

7blokes

I shudder to say it, but John the Banker is in the money. Companies House now indicates that a strike off application with respect to ZCW London was submitted on 01.07.14. The notice about gazetting on 08.07.14 seems to have been removed. Any ZCW London creditors need to move fast if they want to retrieve anything from Mr Kris McGuire.