Freedom to perform
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| The three founders are Didem Gordon, Imregul Gencer and Okan Alpay |
Independence means freedom. For Libera Capital, that means freedom from the strictures that bind the traditional asset managers. It is what motivated the founders to set up the business: freedom from tied distribution channels, freedom from benchmarks and freedom from institutional bias. Founded in 2010, Libera aims to be one of the top-three independent asset managers in Turkey, running a mix of hedge funds and mutual funds as well as discretionary managed accounts for high-net-worth individuals. The three founders are Didem Gordon, Imregul Gencer and Okan Alpay. They are among the highest-profile members of Istanbul’s asset management community. Gordon and Alpay ran the asset management business of Yapi Kredi, while Gencer was a director of a Hong Kong hedge fund, Apex Capital, based in New York. She was previously a board member of Global Investment Holdings in Turkey. Together the three have nearly 65 years’ asset management experience.
What prompted them to set up the business was the sheer lack of competition. Turkey’s asset management market is very underdeveloped.