ICMA Centre Student Commended in Eurekahedge Prize

ICMA Centre MSc student Hong Hung Quach will have his winning dissertation published on the Eurekahedge website. Hung studied the MSc International Securities, Investment and Banking and, after working on a major project based on Eurekahedge data for his MSc, received the commendation of runner up for the Eurekahedge prize for the best paper on hedge funds.

Hung moved with his family to Germany from his native Vietnam, then decided to move to the UK for one year to study the MSc International Securities, Investment and Banking at the ICMA Centre. He graduated in July 2006 with a merit. During his MSc study he founded a company which specialised in organising music events for Asians and Asian lifestyle enthusiasts in Germany. In April 2007, he will start his International Management Traineeship at Fortis Group.

His project - supervised by Jacques Pezier, Visiting Professor at the ICMA Centre - is an empirical study of all existing hedge funds using different investment strategies. His paper is entitled ?Do Large Hedge Funds Perform Better Than Small Ones?'

This project is a significant commitment and is subject to a rigorous academic review. Students who focus their projects on hedge funds are able to access the Eurekahedge database of more than 7,000 hedge funds.

Hong Hung said: "I am pleased to achieve runner up for the Eurekahedge Prize, an award that recognised my efforts and disciplined hard work that was essential in completing my research project. The investigation in this project attempts to give an answer as to whether the performance of big hedge funds dominates the performance of smaller ones, as defined by assets under management. My special thanks go to both Eurekahedge for providing me with data and the ICMA Centre for teaching me valuable financial market knowledge, without which the research could not have been accomplished."

Eurekahedge became involved with the ICMA Centre in 2005, working on a joint initiative to develop working papers on the hedge fund industry. To assist their research the academic staff and students at the ICMA Centre now have access to the main Eurekahedge database. The motivating factor for this partnership is the combined desire to encourage an appropriate risk management approach to alternative investments while bridging the gap between academic research and applied finance.

Research at the ICMA Centre focuses on quantitative finance, market microstructure, fund management, risk management and regulation; hence the Eurekahedge papers will focus on topics ranging from statistical analysis to portfolio construction of hedge of funds. The collaboration is set to continue with Eurekahedge offering more free use of further databases to ICMA Centre staff and students. This is particularly relevant to the ICMA Centre's new MSc in Investment Management which has attracted a large number of applications for the forthcoming academic session.

Hong Hung's project will be mentioned in the next Eurekahedge newsletter as well as being published on their website, www.eurekahedge.com.