Anima Star High Potential Europe

The Anima Star High Potential Europe is an equity long/short strategy investing in European mid and large caps using a discretionary, top-down, thematic approach. The fund has been managed by Lars Schickentanz since inception, with Lars gaining broad European fund management experience prior to Anima, and is currently head of Anima's alpha strategies division. The strategy aims to limit drawdowns in bear markets while achieving positive returns in bull markets through its dynamic net exposure, which ranges from -10% to +60%, with a typical value being 30%. The book is constructed from three sleeves with allocations based on the current market outlook and volatility, these are; core book, pair trading and dynamic hedging. The core book unsurprisingly gets the largest allocation and represent the highest conviction ideas across the long and short book. The pair trading book is used as an alpha generative strategy and looks to produce returns de-correlated from market trends. Finally, the dynamic hedging book is a tool used to actively manage the gross and net of the overall fund and is done via derivatives, typically index and sector futures. The process is driven by a top down macro approach where several macro factors (policy, politics, investment cycle, technicals, secular forces) are combined to create a "roadmap". The output of this is the identification of common / relevant investment themes which influence the core book, while also understanding the macro landscape helps determine the extent of the dynamic hedging book.