Saga Capital, LLC and Ginepri Capital Partners, New York Announce The Saga/Ginepri [SG] Alpha Fund

PARIS, and NEW YORK, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- A spokesperson for Ginepri Capital, the New York-based Fund of Hedge Funds [FoHF] and SAGA Capital, a New York-based alternative investments advisory firm, announced today a newly formed venture, the SAGA/Ginepri Alpha Fund that focuses on the structuring of complex film slates and debt portfolios in the motion picture space. SG Alpha Fund's activities will focus on the financing, analysis and securitization of mid to high budget independent films with committed distribution.

Ginepri and SAGA have contributed significant proprietary risk capital to the new venture and will structure both direct and syndicated debt for its own investments as well as the industry at large. SG Funds will be syndicating USD 400 million in debt, between a group of New York and European investment banks, to leverage committed capital. The company will only green-light investments using the proprietary Movie Alpha Model.

Ginepri was particularly attracted to SAGA based on its focus. Since its inception, SAGA has focused mainly on two areas: advising foreign corporations on nontraditional sources of funding such as Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) to give them access to affordable capital and risk transfer mechanisms to finance and expand their operations and secondly; advising financial institutions, hedge funds, and private individuals in the creation of financial structures to take advantage of opportunities to invest via "Synthetic Securitization" and "Synthetic Swap Funding".

With a strong emphasis in analyzing the risk/returns of intangible assets in developed economies, and risk/returns of commodity based enterprises in emerging markets, the management team of SAGA has accumulated significant expertise in financial modeling as well as in the evaluation of sound legal, accounting, and tax structures required to ensure successful execution. This experience includes the analysis and securitization of deals with embedded credit risk, market risk, and operational risk.

Ralf Voellmer, SAGA President stated "We are very enthusiastic about our association with Ginepri for the design, valuation, production and distribution of film portfolios and related acquisitions. The operational and financial infrastructure of Ginepri will allow us implement and exploit SAGA's intangible asset valuation models."

"Film investors will increasingly employ new techniques (Modern Portfolio Theory, stochastic simulations, value at risk, etc.) commonly used by investment banks, advisory firms and hedgers to analyze the risk/return profiles of potential securities investments. Both parties are bringing their expertise in the area to the table, and we are complementary," S.K. Dean, Managing Partner of Ginepri Capital added.

About Saga Capital:

SAGA was founded in 2005 by Ralf Voellmer and Luis M. Sanchez. Prior to that, both worked in various aspects of structuring and managing alternative investment vehicles at Deutsche Bank.

Ralf Voellmer, one of the founding members of SAGA and its lead analyst in the film area, has worked on all major aspects of domestic and offshore investments for more than ten years. Eight of those years were at Deutsche Bank in New York, where he was involved with the launch of Deutsche Bank's first hedge fund. Mr. Voellmer has developed novel structures and solutions in on- and off-shore regulatory environments around the world, and developed workarounds for a variety of contingencies. He has acted as consultant and advisor to clients ranging from large international financial institutions (both public and private), to small, innovative alternative investment funds.

SAGA Capital's proprietary model was created by Luis M Sanchez, drawing on over 18 years' experience of building models incorporating Monte Carlo simulations, Bayes Theorem, expert systems, and other techniques developed for risk/return evaluation for investment banks, hedge funds, and securities firms. These models are currently being used to price catastrophe bonds, weather options, operational risk, and intellectual property asset backed securities, among other instruments.

Many of the principles applied to the evaluation of films are based on work Mr. Sanchez has done which has been reviewed in publications like the Journal of Risk Finance, Risk Magazine, Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, and others. Working with a database covering over 50 years of filmmaking, SAGA has adapted some of these principles for valuing intangible assets with excellent results, attracting the attention of the most relevant practitioners of film securitization.

Luis M. Sanchez, the initial President of SAGA Capital, has recently joined Lehman Brothers Headquarters in New York as Senior Vice President.

About Ginepri Capital Partners:

Ginepri Capital Partners, LP is a Fund of Hedge Funds [FoHF], with a leveraged capacity of USD 4.6bn, based in New York that trades in the US and international futures, options on futures and forward contracts space, a diversified portfolio that includes currencies, interest rates and equities. Headed by S.K. Dean, the firm trades a portfolio that includes financial futures and forwards designed to hedge against changes in interest rates, currency, exchange rates and stock index values.

CONTACT: Borowsky & de Baecque, 33

Source: Ginepri Capital Partners

2008-05-20 23:21:43 0367234 PRNEWSWIRE