Eton Park’s Latin Moves

没有人能指责环球旅行的投资者德克·多纳思（Dirk Donath）随波逐流。2000年，在阿根廷陷入危机，最终导致历史上最大的主权债务违约前不到一年，他在布宜诺斯艾利斯与人共同创建了私募股权公司Pegasus Capital。随着阿根廷比索的崩溃，投资于陷入困境的公司和扭亏为盈的Pegasus能够以低廉的价格获得资产。如今，41岁的多纳思正加速在对冲基金伊顿公园资本管理公司（Eton Park Capital Management）工作，他14个月前来到伊顿公园管理公司，负责管理该公司在新兴市场的非流动性投资。在这段时间里，他的团队领导了10宗交易，动用了公司5亿美元的资本。最近一次是在10月份，该公司斥资5400万美元从巴西石油巨头巴西国家石油公司（Petrobras）手中收购了阿根廷电力公司Transener 26%的股份。

Eton Park, which manages $5.3 billion, is used to making headlines. The firm was founded in 2004 by Eric Mindich, a star trader from Goldman, Sachs & Co. who burst onto the scene a decade earlier at age 27, when he became the youngest partner in that firm’s history. Today, Eton Park is one of a handful of multistrategy hedge funds run by ex-Goldman traders whose principals scour the globe for private equity deals. With offices in New York, London and Hong Kong, the firm has close to 90 employees and also specializes in event-driven, long-short and capital-structure-arbitrage strategies.

Donath has been friends with Mindich since they went to high school together in a suburb of New York City and is well connected in Latin America. Before launching Pegasus, he was a partner at McKinsey & Co., where he ran the management consulting firm’s Latin American consumer goods and corporate finance practices. Donath is also an entrepreneur: In 1995 he founded FarmaCity, a leading retail pharmacy chain in Buenos Aires, where he has strong family ties.

Although private equity investors are known for being deliberate, the frenetic speed of hedge fund investing seems to suit Donath well. “The breadth this platform provides for my activities was a compelling reason to come to Eton Park,” he says, referring to the fund’s global reach and flexible investment mandate.

It didn’t take long for the deals to start flowing. In February, Donath joined two other investor groups to buy Commercial International Bank of Egypt for $231.5 million. In May his firm bought a 20 percent stake in Enron Corp.’s Houston-based holding company, Prisma Energy International, which has an enterprise value of $2.9 billion and controls several major power and gas assets in Latin America and Eastern Europe. In October, Eton Park and a Mexican investor acquired a 60 percent interest in paper products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark de Mexico for $434 million.

同一个月，伊顿公学公园（Eton Park）收购了Transener的股份，这凸显了多纳斯交易的逆向性。阿根廷的电网自2002年以来一直没有吸引任何私人投资，当时总统内斯托基什内尔的政府拒绝允许加息，甚至拒绝制定明确的监管计划。

穆迪投资服务公司（Moody's Investors Service）驻布宜诺斯艾利斯的能源分析师冈萨洛•阿尔扎克（Gonzalo Arzac）表示：“电力行业正处于危机之中。”。阿根廷7月份用电量达到17395兆瓦，创历史新高，比上年同期增长17%。随着用电高峰月份的到来，电力行业的发电量已经达到94%。

多纳思没有动摇。他表示，在拉美投资的关键之一是寻找与经济长期增长前景挂钩的资产，而不必过于担心短期的起伏。”他说：“我们只是认为，考虑到伴随经济增长而来的能源网络的扩张，Transener具有巨大的增长潜力。”如果我从现在开始回顾7到10年，这些正是我们希望拥有的资产类型。”

Transener的交易正在接受阿根廷政府的审查，多纳思希望阿根廷政府能在今年年底前获得监管部门的批准。

Ricardo Torres, CEO of Pampa Holding, a Buenos Aires–based energy investment vehicle and Eton Park’s co-investor in the Transener deal, emphasizes the attractive valuation. “The uncertainty around the regulatory environment results in a very big discount on the price of these assets,” he says. Although comparable companies, such as Brazil’s Companhia de Transmissão de Energia Elétrica Paulista, Colombia’s Interconexión Eléctrica and Chile’s Transelec, are valued at $150,000 to $210,000 per kilometer of transmission line, he says, the Transener stakes were purchased for about $40,000 per kilometer.

如果Transener的估值区间与其他拉美电力公司相似，可能需要几年时间（或者根本不会发生），那么伊顿公园5400万美元的股份价值将达到2亿美元。

与关系良好的当地人的紧密联系是多纳斯交易能力的关键。潘帕就是一个很好的例子：它是一家由总部位于布宜诺斯艾利斯的私人股本公司Dolphin Capital运营的能源投资工具。Dolphin的首席执行官马塞洛·明德林（Marcelo Mindlin）是多纳思的朋友，也是阿根廷为数不多与基什内尔总统关系密切的高管之一。今年9月，明德林是总统随行人员中的一员，前往纽约市与投资者和高管会面，希望把他们拉回阿根廷。

“There is a very valuable role to be played by the local partner, and Dolphin is a great local partner to have,” says Donath.

Although Eton Park has excelled at keeping good company in Latin America, the firm has had far greater difficulty hanging on to its own executives. In October chief operating officer Stuart Hendel returned to former employer Morgan Stanley. Scott Prince, head of trading and derivatives; Nagi Bedwani, head of European derivatives trading; and Chris Perez, chief risk officer, have also left in the past four months. Donath wouldn’t comment on the departures.

With returns across the hedge fund sector coming in below expectations, some observers are predicting a more somber period. This year through September, Eton Park has returned only about 7 percent. Still, the firm is busy raising about $500 million for additional illiquid private equity investments in emerging markets. It will soon get a read on how investors are feeling about its prospects: The first redemption period in Eton Park’s short history arrives this December.