Westpac Banking unit buys stake in Asia hedge fund

HONG KONG, March 27 (Reuters) - Ascalon Capital Managers, a unit of Australia's Westpac Banking Corp , has bought a 30 percent stake in Singapore-based hedge fund company RV Capital Management.

The acquisition includes an investment into RV Capital's Asia Opportunity Fund, Ascalon said in a statement on Wednesday. It did not disclose the amount invested.

RV Capital was founded in 2011 by Morgan Stanley's former head of fixed income for Asia-Pacific, Ranodeb Roy, and Vickram Mangalgiri, who earlier worked at PIMCO.

The fund, which focuses on long/short investing across Asian rates, credit and foreign exchange markets, returned 21 percent last year and is up about 5 percent so far this year, according to fund performance data seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Nishant Kumar; editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Keywords: WESTPAC HEDGEFUND/