Morgan Stanley AIP raises $500 mln for SOF I

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners has secured $500 million in commitments for AIP Strategic Opportunities Fund I. The vehicle is a closed-end investment fund that will capitalize on medium-term opportunities in the hedge fund space.

PRESS RELEASE

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP) has obtained $500 million in commitments for AIP Strategic Opportunities Fund I (SOF I), a closed-end investment fund that seeks to capitalize on medium-term opportunities in the hedge fund space. SOF I will focus primarily on hedge fund secondaries, hedge fund co-investments and other opportunistic hedge fund strategies. Mark van der Zwan and Jarrod Quigley, Managing Directors, are SOF I’s primary portfolio managers.

“Our AIP Hedge Fund group is world-class, and this successful fundraising effort marks the latest in a long string of achievements”

“We are pleased that we have achieved our fundraising goal for SOF I,” said Mustafa Jama, Chief Investment Officer of the Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners Hedge Fund group. “We believe that the fund is well positioned to capture value by investing in opportunities with a two- to five-year duration. The withdrawal of traditional capital providers, such as banks and proprietary trading desks, from this segment of the market should, in our view, enable highly selective investors with patient capital to generate attractive returns.”

“Our AIP Hedge Fund group is world-class, and this successful fundraising effort marks the latest in a long string of achievements,” said Arthur Lev, Head of AIP. “The team is among the most experienced buyers of hedge fund secondaries and has access to a strong set of top-tier hedge fund managers pursuing niche opportunities in this area of the market.”

The AIP Hedge Fund group has over $20 billion in assets under management and advisement as of March 31, 2014.1 The group’s headquarters are located in West Conshohocken, Pa., with additional offices in New York and London.

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP), part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, specializes in assisting institutional and high net worth investors achieve their goals through the design and management of alternative investment programs. Our investment teams have broad expertise in fund investing, secondaries and co-investing across hedge fund, private equity, real estate and multi-asset class. Our solutions include custom alternative investment portfolios, completion strategies, diversified and opportunistic multi-manager strategies and fiduciary management. Established in 2000, AIP has approximately $35.8 billion in assets under management and advisement.2

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. The Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals from more than 1,200 offices in 43 countries. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.

All investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Alternative investments are intended for qualified investors only due to their limited liquidity, use of leverage, and speculative nature.

1 As of March 31, 2014, Morgan Stanley AIP’s total fund-of-hedge fund assets of approximately $20.2 billion comprises approximately $12.5 billion of assets under management and approximately $7.7 billion of assets under advisement.

2 As of March 31, 2014, Morgan Stanley AIP’s total assets of approximately $35.8 billion comprises approximately $28.0 billion of assets under management (AUM) and approximately $7.8 billion of assets under advisement. Approximately $1.5 billion of assets cross-invested across AIP product lines have been subtracted from the total so as to avoid double-counting. AUM is based on (i) total net asset value of its fund-of-hedge-funds managed investment vehicles and separate accounts; (ii) value of all partners’ capital accounts and investors’ invested capital, plus their respective unfunded commitments, of private equity funds of funds and private equity separate accounts; and (iii) value of all partners’ capital accounts and investors’ invested capital, plus their respective unfunded commitments, of real estate funds of funds and real estate separate accounts. The value of private equity and real estate assets under management in separate accounts not solely dedicated to private equity or real estate investments managed by the relevant team is defined as the carrying value of all private equity or real estate assets, plus unfunded private equity or real estate commitments.