The decision to close his flagship $2 billion Ospraie Fund isn’t the only recent setback for Dwight Anderson, founder of Ospraie Management, the $9 billion-in-assets New York-based firm. The Ospraie Wingspan fund, it seems, is going through some seriously tough times too. Wingspan was launched in 2005 as a joint project by Anderson and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers Holdings, which at the time had just acquired a minority stake in Ospraie Management.
Wingspan’s mission, though perhaps risky, was straightforward enough: to provide seed capital and an operational platform for start-up hedge fund managers focused on the notoriously volatile commodities-trading sector. At its height Wingspan had close to $1 billion in assets under management. Today, assets are down to $400 million.
In addition to placing its money with fledgling fund managers, Wingspan had invested in the Ospraie Fund, which was off by 40 percent on the year when Anderson announced this month that he would be winding it down.
This arrangement -- Wingspan’s committing capital to its parent fund -- was intended as an incentive to draw investors in based on Anderson’s track record and experience, first as a well-regarded analyst with Tiger Management Corp. in New York and then as a successful portfolio manager with Greenwich, Connecticut-based Tudor Investment Corp.
Partly as a result of its parent’s faltering performance -- as much as 20 percent of its capital was in the Ospraie Fund -- Wingspan has also suffered redemptions in recent months.
