INVESTOR PROFILE-Violinist CEO aims to finetune UK's Amati

* Amati CEO is classically trained violinist

* Studied at Cambridge, wrote PhD on composer Mendelssohn

* Amati has 50 mln stg in assets under management

* Aims to launch new futures fund

By Sudip Kar-Gupta

LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Paul Jourdan, chief executive of Amati Global Investors and one-time concert violinist, is hoping his investments in the natural resources sector will hit the right notes for the fledgling British asset manager.

"Natural resources are one of the key ways of investing in the Far East by proxy," he told Reuters on Wednesday.

Amati LP71001113, which invests purely in UK-listed small cap companies, was born out of a management buyout of businesses from British investment bank Execution Noble this year.

The company itself is named after Italy's Amati family, an historic clan of violin makers.

Amati, which is based in Edinburgh, launched in January with 30 million pounds of assets under management and Jourdan said this had now risen to 50 million pounds ($78.7 million).

Amati's performance received a fillip when it won a mandate to run the 19 million pound ViCTory Venture Capital Trust earlier this year.

Its recent investments in the natural resources sector include New Britain Palm Oil (NBPO.L), which is Papua New Guinea's largest oil palm plantation operator, Circle Oil (COPU.L) and Gulfsands Petroleum (GPX.L).

Other top picks include China Food Company (CFC.L) and Chinese orange plantation operator Asian Citrus Holdings (ACHLA.L).

Jourdan said he was also keeping a close eye on potential liquidity risks surrounding companies, having been slightly caught out during the credit crisis.

Amati does not invest in companies which it estimates to have a market capitalisation of below 15 million pounds.

"We just think that markets are not set up to deal with companies that are smaller than that," he said.

He added that the company's flagship Amati VCT fund was up 7 percent so far this year. By comparison, the FTSE Aim All Share index .FTAIE has risen nearly 16 percent since January.

NEW FUTURES FUND PLANNED

Earlier this month, Amati named James Ferguson as its new chairman. The appointment of Ferguson, a former chairman of Stewart Ivory, means Amati currently has six employees, who have ownership stakes in the company.

Jourdan said he was looking to hire another two or three people to set up a new futures fund for the company -- an area which gave Jourdan his first exposure to financial markets.

Jourdan had initially started out as a professional violinist, performing with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra after studying music at Cambridge University, where he had spent much of his doctorate writing about composer Felix Mendelssohn.

He started dabbling in markets in 1992 as an amateur day-trader, during his spare time with the orchestra.

He then got in touch with financial adviser and trader David Fuller, and tried to hone his part-time trading techniques.

"I spent most of the next six years finding out what worked and what didn't -- often the hard way."

Jourdan eventually decided to turn his day-time hobby into a profession and joined investment company Stewart Ivory in Edinburgh in 1998.

He said he had no regrets about leaving the bohemian world of classical music for the more cut-throat world of finance.

"People say 'How can you get involved in investing - it's boring.' But there's a real human element involved behind investing -- it's a microcosm of the whole world." ($1=.6350 Pound)

(Editing by Joel Dimmock)