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New York (HedgeCo.net) – GlobeOp Financial Services has added a hedge fund administration and data centre facility in Airoli in Mumbai. The new office is located in the same Airoli business complex as GlobeOp’s third Mumbai office, opened in 2009.
More than 1,675 of GlobeOp’s 2,000 global employees are based in Mumbai. Within that group are 154 product development professionals, nearly 78% of GlobeOp’s worldwide total. The newest Airoli facility will enable GlobeOp to grow its Mumbai headcount to 2000 employees, divided approximately equally between the two Airoli offices and two earlier offices in Malad.
The building’s design supports the environmental goals of the overall Airoli complex in seeking Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design (LEED) certification, and in reducing building operating costs. Green technology features range from variable air volume (VAV) air circulation and replacing fluorescent lights with energy efficient LED lighting and optimized natural light. Employee considerations included ergonomically designed work stations and a commercial-grade cafeteria.
The Private Equity Growth Capital Council (PEGCC) today announced that Steve Judge has been appointed president and chief executive officer. Judge succeeds Douglas Lowenstein, who stepped down last year. Since August 2011, Judge served as interim president and chief executive officer, prior to that he served as the Council’s vice president for government relations. The appointment is effective immediately.
Mark B. Tresnowski, chairman of the PEGCC and managing director and general counsel of Madison Dearborn Partners, a PEGCC member firm, said, “After a search and several months of Steve’s leadership, it became clear that Steve’s effective advocacy during a challenging and dynamic time for our industry make him the right person for this important role. With the full support of the PEGCC membership, we are confident that Steve and his team will succeed in their mission.”
Mr. Judge said, “I am extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished in just a few years since the founding of the PEGCC and I look forward to building on that record of success. Our goal is to engage policymakers, the media, and the public in a national dialogue about how private equity and growth capital firms drive economic growth, strengthen and improve businesses, and provide financial security for millions of Americans. The year is already off to an exciting start, and the Council is ready for the challenges to come.”
Judge has a long and distinguished career in Washington. Before joining the Council in March 2007, Judge was Senior Vice President, Government Affairs and Head of the Washington Office for the Securities Industry Association (SIA), now the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). Judge also served as a member of several congressional staffs. From 1987 to 1991 he was Deputy Staff Director of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives. Judge came to Washington, D.C. in 1978 with Congressman Bruce Vento (DFL-MN), eventually becoming the Congressman’s Legislative Director. He began his legislative career in the Minnesota State Legislature as Staff Assistant with the Senate Committee on Education. Judge holds a Bachelor of Science degree in government from St. John’s University in Minnesota.
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Reuters – Swiss fund of hedge funds manager Gottex GFMS.S said it would slash running costs by 15 percent in 2012 after assets fell by some $1 billion (637 million pounds) from a year earlier as some large clients pulled money in order to invest directly in hedge funds.
The fund’s assets under management have fallen to $7.34 billion, less than half the $15.6 billion the company had in June 2008 before the worst effects of the financial crisis hit.
Bloomberg – Hedge funds increased wagers on rising commodity prices to the most in two months and the rally in raw materials accelerated as the Federal Reserve pledged to keep borrowing costs low for three more years.
Money managers raised combined bullish positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 13 percent to 742,902 contracts in the week ended Jan. 24, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. The so-called net-long position in copper jumped 53 percent to the highest since August and in silver by 22 percent to the most since September. Speculators also expanded bullish bets in sugar, soybeans, cotton, gold, gasoline and crude oil.
Telegraph – BlueCrest, which manages assets of $28.6bn altogether, shot to fame when it part-relocated to Geneva for tax reasons in 2010.
BlueTrend will be the second fund the firm spins out into a second listing after its AllBlue business raised £350m with £1bn of assets under management.
CNBC – Hedge funds have mostly been exonerated in the typical narrative of the financial crisis, which concentrates blame on some combination of mortgage lenders, investment banks and government agencies.
A new paper by Yale professors Gary Gorton and Guillermo Ordonez, however, may indicate that hedge funds and other well-informed, aggressive traders played a much more important role in triggering the crises than is widely understood.
Philadelphia Inquirer – Over the summer, Alden Global Capital acquired 100 percent of the Yardley-based Journal Register Co. newspaper chain when it bought the shares owned by fellow hedge fund investors.
Now Alden Global may be looking to reduce or sell its stake in the publisher of The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, according to a report in the New York Post over the weekend.
Bloomberg – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a collateralized debt obligation transaction in which Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) allowed U.S. hedge fund Paulson & Co. to select mortgage-backed securities, Der Spiegel reported.
For a CDO called “START,” the bank allowed Paulson to bet against the securities without telling other investors, the German magazine said on its website. Goldman Sachs settled a suit by the SEC for $500 million over a similar transaction, according to Der Spiegel.
Investment Europe – BlueCrest Capital Management is to float a feeder into one of its most successful hedge funds on the London Stock Exchange before April, helping the listed hedge fund market return to levels of activity more typical before the financial crisis.
It will be the second listed fund for BlueCrest, which already has AllBlue, a fund that invests only in BlueCrest’s own hedge funds.
Seeking Alpha – As a specialist in understanding sources of business value and applying that to investing, I was interested to see how the Long/Short Hedge funds are doing. Running through some data from the EDHEC database, I created the charts below. The first chart is a visual showing the L/S hedge fund index vs. the S&P 500.
There isn’t a lot to see there. You would find that the L/S index outperformed the S&P 500 etc. There are of course back-fill, survivorship and other biases associated with any fund database which significantly lead to overstating performance. The L/S hedge fund index shows a .77 correlation with the S&P 500.
Royal Gazette – We often hear that hedge funds are run by the best and the brightest. Their strategies tend to give them ultimate flexibility and of course the highest fees. And most marketing materials claim they can offer investors absolute returns, with lower levels of risk than the market.
Unfortunately for many investors this is simply not the case. I don’t want to overgeneralise because there are many excellent hedge funds with great records but as a group they really have not delivered the goods. In fact their performance has been shockingly bad.
Reuters – Swiss fund of hedge funds manager Gottex said it would slash running costs by 15 percent in 2012 after assets fell by some $1 billion from a year earlier as some large clients pulled money in order to invest directly in hedge funds.
The fund’s assets under management have fallen to $7.34 billion, less than half the $15.6 billion the company had in June 2008 before the worst effects of the financial crisis hit.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – GlobeOp Financial Services has added a hedge fund administration and data centre facility in Airoli in Mumbai. The new office is located in the same Airoli business complex as GlobeOp’s third Mumbai office, opened in 2009.
