Bucking Industry Trends, Emerging Distressed Fund Simran Capital Announces Expansion

April 14, 2009 - PRLog -- Simran Capital Management, a “Pre-Event Driven™” Activist investment manager ("Simran") focusing on stressed and distressed credit markets, is continuing to grow and expand to take advantage of a volatility in debt security prices.  Since the opportunity to proactively and profitably interact with company managements to implement win-win restructurings has never been greater, Simran is adding two key new hires intended to expand its existing non-investment grade fixed income portfolio management expertise.  Simran announced that two Senior Portfolio Managers, Steve Cooke and Shawn Groves, have joined the firm and will assume portfolio management responsibilities with regards to the firm’s existing and new funds.  With these hires, Simran will also be expanding its presence by opening an office in Dallas, Texas, to supplement its existing base in Chicago, Illinois.
Mr. Cooke was most recently at SMH Capital Advisors LP, where he was part of the high yield bond portfolio management team overseeing over $2 billion of funds and separately managed accounts.  At SMH, Mr. Cooke was instrumental in numerous in- and out-of-court restructurings and served on and chaired many official and ad-hoc creditors’ committees.  He has been in the investment business for over 15 years gaining valuable experience at firms such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Loomis Sayles, among others.  
Mr. Groves recently joined Simran from Highland Capital Management, LP as a Portfolio Manager covering the Cable, Media, and Communications sectors and overseeing $6 billion of domestic and international high yield bonds, leveraged loans, equities, and derivatives.  At Highland, Mr. Groves originated and structured several leveraged corporate transactions, led corporate restructurings for various firms, and co-established a European fund platform.  He has over 11 years of industry experience at firms such as Citigroup and Verizon, among others.
Commenting on the two hires, Mesh Tandon, Managing Partner and President of Simran, stated “both have extensive experience in the high yield and distressed space and come to us with proven track records and hands on experience in our field of recovery value driven valuation.  We are confident their backgrounds will benefit the performance of our existing and new hedge funds and separately managed accounts.”  Mr. Tandon believes that the recent credit crunch has created the most opportunistic time for stressed and distressed investing.  Simran recently trademarked its one-of-a-kind “Pre-Event Driven™” strategy as the firm is distinctly positioned to capitalize on many of the opportunities that have arisen from volatility in credit markets and targets investment in debt prior to a capital structure event taking place.   Mr. Tandon notes that “as the discrepancy between recovery value and market price of bond prices widens, our niche universe has expanded and we are growing our firm and funds to take advantage of this opportunity.”

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About Simran Capital Management, LLC
Launched in 2005, Simran Capital Management is a leading alternative investment firm that employs a unique investment process which includes a multi-tiered credit research approach to successfully identify bonds as rich or cheap. Simran coined the phrase “Pre-Event Driven Strategy” from their tendency to invest in debt prior to a capital structure event occurring. Simran takes an early “Activist” role by bringing stakeholders together across the capital structure to accomplish some kind of restructuring. The strategy won the firm “Emerging Manager of the Year” in 2007 and “Hedge Fund of the Year” in 2008 at the Emerging Manager Summit Annual Awards. The firm provides asset management solutions to a broad range of institutional and high-net-worth investors and offers onshore and offshore funds as well as managed accounts. For more information, please visit www.simrancapital.com, call (312) 523-2180 or email info@simrancapital.com.