Another Prize for Star Finance Student

A student at the University of Reading's ICMA Centre has won a prestigious investment banking prize. Aleksandar Petreski, an MSc student studying Financial Risk Management at the ICMA Centre, University of Reading, has won the Eurekahedge Prize for the best paper on hedge funds after working on a major project for his MSc.

Mr. Petreski is leading a research study which is sponsored by the British Foreign Office and administered by the British Council. He holds a BA in Economics from the State University in Skopje and is now Head of the Cash Management Unit in the Treasury Department of the Ministry of Finance, Republic of Macedonia. Aleksandar - who was among the top performing students in his cohort - was also nominated by Prof. Carol Alexander to receive the Professional Risk Manager's International Association (PRMIA) higher standards award.

His project is an empirical study of the effects of smoothing hedge fund returns. His research was supervised by Dr. Jacques Pezier and the paper is entitled ?Hedge Funds: Influence of Autocorrelation on Risk Underestimation and Relationship with Hedge Fund Features'

This project is a significant commitment and is subject to a rigorous academic review. Students who focus their projects on hedge funds are able to access the Eurekahedge database of more than 7,000 hedge funds.

Aleksandar said: "I am really honoured to have received Eurekahedge Prize as a motivation for conducting further research. The access to the Eurekahedge database provided for ICMA Centre students was crucial for performing of my project, since the database provides good ground for serious research and enables the implementing of ideas without restrictions."

The motive behind the Project was the issue of autocorrelation of the hedge fund returns and its influence on risk underestimation. In this context, it was examined whether separate features (attributes) of the hedge funds, such as strategy, size, investment geography, cash management policy or remuneration policy are connected with exhibited autocorrelation."

Eurekahedge became involved with the ICMA Centre in 2005, working on a joint initiative to develop working papers on the hedge fund industry. The motivating factor for this partnership is the combined desire to encourage an appropriate risk management approach to alternative investments while bridging the gap between academic research and applied finance.

Research at the ICMA Centre focuses on quantitative finance, market microstructure, fund management, risk management and regulation; hence papers will focus on topics ranging from statistical analysis to portfolio construction of hedge of funds. To assist their research the academic staff and students at the ICMA Centre now have access the Eurekahedge database.

The collaboration is set to continue with Eurekahedge offering more free use of further databases to ICMA Centre staff and students. Last years prize winner was also supervised by Dr. Pezier. Diana Cailin's project was an empirical study of Asian hedge funds employing a Long/Short Equity Strategy. Her paper is entitled ?Is there an optimal mix between alpha and beta benefits in hedge fund returns?' and it may be downloaded from http://www.eurekahedge.com/news/06_nov_EH_ICMA_press_release.asp

Aleksander's project will be mentioned in the Eurekahedge newsletter and he will also receive a copy of Eurekahedge's ?Asset Growth Guide', a resource aimed at helping emerging fund managers as well as established fund managers to develop their businesses. Another student on Aleksander's course, Afua Addae was also highly commended for her work.