In what has been a dead IPO market, a small money manager has filed for a small public offering.

Royal Capital Management Corp. is seeking a minimum of $350,000 and a maximum of $ 1 million in an offering of between 70,000 and 200,000 class A common shares at $5 per share.

The offering is being handled by Refco Futures (Canada) Ltd. Upon completion of the offering, the two senior officers of the company, Mark Shoom and Stephen Rider, will own all of the outstanding non-voting shares and outstanding preferred shares and approximately 69% of the outstanding common shares.

In the company’s preliminary prospectus, it notes that it “exploits arbitrage opportunities across multiple securities markets and related derivative instruments worldwide while employing sophisticated hedging techniques in order to enhance returns and reduce the risk of capital loss”.

RoyCap manages money only for its own account, about $170 million worth, not on behalf of clients. It notes that it may expand its operations to include offering of fee based services, such as business assessment evaluations, which make use of RoyCap’s developed quantitative analysis skills.

RoyCap employs a variety of trading strategies, including merger arbitrage, market-neutral equity strategy, convertible arbitrage, capital structure arbitrage, private placements, distressed securities/discounted bank debt, high-yield bond arbitrage, fixed income arbitrage, mortgage-backed securities arbitrage, and others. It does not have a set strategy mix.

Mark Shoom is the firm’s chairman, chief investment officer and CFO. Before establishing RoyCap in March 2000, Shoom worked as a financial advisor for CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto. He was a founding shareholder of Queensway Financial Holdings Ltd. and Patriot Equities Corporation.

Stephen Rider is president, CEO and secretary. Rider started his trading career in 1990 at Scotia Capital Markets. Between 1992 and 1997 he was with Wood Gundy, and since then was executive vice president of HSBC Securities Canada Inc.