NEW YORK - Mark Schulze and Jason Vogt, veterans of Cargill and its Black River Asset Management unit, are preparing to launch their own commodity-focused hedge fund, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The two men set up Minneapolis-based Twin Harvest Capital Partners in August and plan to begin investing sometime next year with approximately $100 million, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information is private.
Schulze and Vogt will share portfolio management responsibilities, the person said. The strategy will focus on trading futures and options related to agricultural products such as corn, wheat and soybeans.
Both men spent their careers at Cargill, the Minnesota-based agricultural and food giant. They worked directly for the company and most recently for its Black River investment subsidiary until late 2015 as senior portfolio managers focused on commodities.
A punishing rout in commodities, including grains, has made it difficult for hedge funds focused on those markets. The benchmark Hedge Fund Intelligence Americas Commodities Index has produced an average annual return of 1.53 percent over the last three years compared to 4.1 percent from hedge funds across all strategies.
ADVERTISEMENT
In 2015, Black River shut some of its hedge funds, citing lack of investor demand, and earlier this year spun out three remaining strategies as Cargill closed the business.
The Black River Commodity Trading Fund fell 9.7 percent in 2013, gained 0.2 percent in 2014 and was down 0.7 percent in 2015 through June, according to private performance information seen by Reuters. Schulze and Vogt were part of a group of investment professionals feeding into the fund, which invested in commodities beyond their agricultural specialty.
