HEDGE FUND NEWS

HedgeCo.Net (West Palm Beach) Once a premier hedge fund in Australia, Basis Yield Alpha has just been valued at 2 cents on the dollar, by its former sister fund Sydney-based Basis Capital.  This latest set-back is just another blow in a series of events that have rocked investments backed by sub-prime mortgages.  Earlier this month, a […]

HedgeCo.Net (West Palm Beach) The FBI has targeted 14 corporations in a blitz of investigations on improper subprime mortgage lending, officials said Thursday. The crackdown, which includes mortgage lenders, investment banks, and subprime lenders, was initiated to sniff out fraud amongst loan originators.
“Some of the loan origination cases are spurred by individuals lying to qualify […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- Russia’s strong economic growth, rapidly expanding domestic market and increasing financial market liquidity has been fuel for rapidly expanding hedge funds and specialist investors in Russia and the former Soviet Union (FSU).
One such company is the Pharos Financial Group, which now runs three hedge funds, the Pharos Russia Fund, the Pharos […]

BusinessWeek- Few industry watchers were shocked when word came on Jan. 28 that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) wants to snap up the New York Mercantile Exchange (NMX), the big energy and precious-metals bourse, for $11 billion. With complementary product lines, shared technology, and the ongoing drive to consolidate exchanges around the world, the announcement […]

Reuters- International investors are raising exposure to Russia after it lagged China and India in 2007 and see Russia’s new-found political stability and low subprime exposure as strengths in current market volatility.
"I’m extremely positive about Russia. Growth is under-priced and companies are doing better than expected," said Robin Geffen, managing director and chief investment officer […]

- While many big-name hedge funds prospered in 2007, one notable group struggled: funds run by large Wall Street firms and traditional money managers.
As a group, hedge funds returned 12.5% last year, beating annual returns in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of 5.5%, according to the Credit Suisse Tremont Hedge Fund Index. Despite difficult […]

Guardian Unlimited- The cost of insuring Spanish banks’ debt against default has leapt by at least a third this year, as hedge funds use credit derivatives to short Spain’s fragile property market, market participants say.
Jackie Ineke, a banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, told Reuters that hedge funds were "phoning up every day" asking how to […]

Houston Chronicle- A group of hedge funds is fighting to unravel Tousa Inc.s’ July 2007 refinancing, saying that would allow the homebuilder to pay unsecured creditors of its subsidiaries in full.
The investor group, which holds nearly a quarter of Tousa’s $1 billion in unsecured notes, contend the company "forced" its subsidiaries to guarantee first- and […]

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Scion Capital LLC, a $1 billion hedge fund firm run by Michael Burry, is shutting its Asian funds to focus on opportunities that will be created by a U.S. economic slowdown.
Scion’s Asian funds oversaw about $200 million in assets and returned between 80% and 116% since they started in early […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said of Daniel Marino, the former finance chief of the bankrupt hedge-fund firm Bayou Group LLC, "You are as much a career criminal as any mobster or any drug kingpin." The Judge then sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
His prison time will be followed by […]

Reuters- The global share sell-off may have wiped up to $1.5 trillion off the value of global institutional pension fund assets since the start of this year, consulting firm Watson Wyatt said on Wednesday.
With the average allocation to equities within pension funds in the 11 largest pension markets at 56 percent, they have felt the […]

Forbes- Two prominent hedge fund managers owning a 5.3 percent stake in Dillard’s Inc Tuesday demanded the retailer run its business better to help boost its long-sinking share price.
James Mitarotonda, who heads hedge fund Barington Capital Group, and hedge fund Clinton Group Inc’s Michael Popson, in a letter to Dillard’s board of directors, said the […]