Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
New York (HedgeCo.net) - Sal Naro, former co-managing partner of hedge fund Sailfish Capital, a $4.4 billion asset management firm with approximately $2 billion in hedge fund assets, is announcing the launch of Coherence Capital Partners LLC.
“Coherence will look to capitalize on inefficiencies and thematic trends in the capital markets,” Naro said. “Quality research and experience are cornerstones of our business model. Coherence Capital’s primary thesis is to invest in companies that show strong performance in their balance sheets with earnings that meet and beat expectations while taking short positions in credits that miss earnings expectations and suffer continued weakness in their primary business metrics.”
Naro was most recently a shareholder in and Vice Chairman of Jefferson National Financial Corp. and Chief Executive Officer of Jefferson National Asset Management. The creation of Coherence Capital Partners LLC is the result of a management buyout of Jefferson National’s core insurance unit. He will now be Chief Executive Officer of Coherence Capital Partners LLC, which will be a registered investment adviser.
The management team will include Vincent Mistretta, former Head of Portfolio Management at Jefferson National Asset Management, Greg MacKay, its former Chief Operating Officer, and Robert Del Grande, its former Chief Financial Officer. David E. McClean, Ph.D., a regulatory compliance expert with over 25 years of experience and former Chief Compliance Officer of Sailfish Capital, will join Coherence and oversee regulatory matters.
Seward and Kissel LLP, the New York-based law firm, will be representing Mr. Naro and Coherence Capital.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Ader Investment Management (AIM) has launched the Accelerator Fund Partners LP, a funding platform for hedge funds looking to boost assets under management and enhance their distribution into family offices and fund of funds. Individual manager allocations are expected to range from $25 million up to $100 million.
“The last several years have been extremely challenging for raising capital for hedge funds and most of the allocations have gone to the very largest funds” Jason Ader, Chief Executive Officer of AIM, said. “There is a need in the market for a vehicle such as this to provide capital to smaller, proven managers. We have developed a product to invest in talented and experienced fund managers and have designed our platform to help accelerate their business growth and achieve their AUM goals.”
AIM is an SEC registered investment adviser, and is the investment manager to the Accelerator Fund. The fund will focus on liquid long/short equity strategies. It has no plans to pursue debt or credit strategies. While AIM expects its first capital allocations to be made to US based asset managers, the vehicle intends to consider portfolio managers and funds based in the UK, Europe, and Asia that fit the AIM vehicle’s due diligence criteria.
In addition to Jason Ader, who will also serve as Chief Investment Officer, key partners of this newly formed AIM vehicle include Andrew Nelson Chief Financial Officer, Daniel Silvers Managing Director, Alvarez Symonette Managing Director and Laura Conover-Ferchak Chief Compliance Officer. The bios for the fund principals and associates can be found on www.aderinv.com. AIM relies on the knowledge and support of its Advisory Board to enhance the quality of the managers on the platform. It is backed by Pacific Capital Group, a Los Angeles-based merchant bank founded in 1985 by financier and philanthropist Gary Winnick.
Goldman, Sachs & Co. will be the fund’s prime broker. Legal advisors are Bingham McCutchen LLP and Sadis & Goldberg LLP. The fund auditor is Rothstein Kass & Co. In addition to AIM’s internal Risk Team, Risk Management and Reporting is being provided by Risk Resources LLC.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – $627 billion global asset management firm, Legg Mason has launched Permal Hedge Strategies Fund, a fixed income focused multi-manager, multi strategy fund of hedge funds, on February 1, 2012.
“Given market volatility and investor demand for lower risk products, we have seen more desire for lower correlated, alternative investment strategies.” Matt Schiffman, Head of Global Marketing for Legg Mason, said. “We worked collaboratively to bring to market a product that would not only fit investors needs and would bring Permal’s expertise as one of the oldest fund of hedge funds to the retail market.”
The new fund invests in a broad range of fixed income strategies, employing flexible asset allocation and moving capital between credit and non credit strategies. Investments include developed as well as emerging market fixed income and long/short fixed income. There are also smaller allocations to event-driven strategies, such as risk arbitrage, distressed debt, special situations and activists, as well as global macro strategies, including both systematic and discretionary managers, which are intended to mitigate market volatility.
The new fund of hedge funds has been structured to provide investors with 1099 tax reporting and will be available to U.S. accredited investors. The minimum investment is $25,000 and liquidity is quarterly. Permal Hedge Strategies Fund has a high degree of overlap with a flagship Permal fixed income fund and invests in 20 to 40 underlying hedge funds.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Cayman Island based hedge fund Trinity Fund Administration (Cayman) Ltd. is expanding its global network with the opening of a new office in New York City.
“North America is a key market for us, and we are absolutely delighted to be opening up a New York office which will further support our existing clients in the region, as well as bring in new prospective investment managers to our global business.” John McCann, Managing Director of the Trinity Group said. ”We have no doubt that the opening of this office is a significant step in respect to Trinity’s presence within North America and its continued growth prospects”.
The New York office will be primarily a local contact point enabling the firm to better facilitate its North American clients and business partners. The Trinity Group provides a comprehensive range of hedge fund and managed account administration services to investment firms based around the globe, operating fund structures domiciled in several jurisdictions including Ireland, Cyprus, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda, BVI, Malta and the Channel Islands.
Trinity now operates globally from offices in Dublin, Cayman, Cyprus and New York.
Bloomberg: Albert Sohn, the former head of securitized products at Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), plans to start a hedge fund this year within the bank’s asset-management unit, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Sohn, 41, is planning to oversee money for the Swiss bank’s clients and will be joined by Gary Buchalter, Amar Sujanani and Alok Verma, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private. Steven Vames, a New York-based spokesman for Credit Suisse, declined to comment on the plans.
Sohn’s former division was among those that thrived in 2009 and 2010 as markets recovered from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and then struggled last year as Europe ’s sovereign debt woes curbed risk-taking, depressing prices and trading volumes. Sohn, who’s worked at Credit Suisse for 18 years, this month moved to the bank’s alternative investments unit within the asset-management group, reporting to Jonathan McHardy, according to a memo sent to employees.
Under Sohn, Credit Suisse underwrote the only two sales last year of bonds tied to new U.S. residential mortgages without government backing, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The firm also ranked as the second-largest packager of mortgage securities into new bonds in the first nine months of 2011, trailing Barclays Plc, according to newsletter Asset- Backed Alert.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund advisor Gemini Fund Services, LLC., has announced the expansion of the Northern Lights Variable Trust (NLVT) with the addition of nine funds throughout 2011, the NLVT now comprises 14 funds in total, with over $380 million in assets.
“Gemini is committed to providing our advisors with solutions to bring successful investment vehicles to the market and meet the evolving needs of investors,” said Andrew Rogers, President of Gemini Fund Services. “Gemini launched the NLVT to meet the needs of VIT funds, and the growth of the NLVT empowers advisors and funds with a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace.”
The funds comprising the NLVT are part of a variable insurance trust (VIT). A VIT, much like a mutual fund shared trust, is a single registered entity through which a series of funds can be registered with the SEC and the funds within the trust are advised by multiple advisors.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Gnip Inc announced a partnership with StockTwits, launching Gnip MarketStream, a product designed to incorporate the most relevant social media data streams into a single solution for hedge funds and high-frequency traders.
“While the use of social media data by the investment community has included news analysis and equity research, the primary adoption of social media across the last six months has been as a trading indicator,” said Seth McGuire, Gnip’s Director of Asset Management and Financial Technology. “Gnip MarketStream provides investment professionals access to valuable, realtime public social data at a time when social media has become an increasingly relevant news and sentiment channel.”
This latest expansion into financial services comes on the heels of increasing adoption of the use of micro-blogging data such as Twitter as a trading indicator. Within its current customer base, Gnip already serves a number of hedge funds – from niche firms to funds with assets under management of more than $5 billion– as well as financial signal providers in accessing data for exactly those purposes.
“Through targeted social media coverage, Gnip MarketStream provides financial industry clients with the “Voice of the Market,” including realtime streams of public data from Twitter and StockTwits. Designed for hedge fund managers, high-frequency traders, and signal providers, Gnip MarketStream solves the challenge of aggregating high-volume, low-latency new media into workable data for trend analysis and proprietary algorithmic development.” Gnip said.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Former President Bill Clinton is reportedly teaming up with two of his former aides, Declan Kelly and Douglas Band, starting a private equity fund and global hedge fund consulting company. Also said to be involved is former British PM Tony Blair.
The State has already approved Clinton’s involvement in the private equity fund Teneo Capital, The Huffingtom Post reports:
“President Clinton is involved purely in an advisory capacity, and his compensation is confidential,” Matt McKenna, a Clinton spokesman, told the Huffingtom Post. Kelly confirmed that Clinton will be compensated but declined to go into details.
The new venture is to be based in Northern Ireland and “Seems well-poised to build on its access to and knowledge of Irish government.” The paper reports.
“During a summit at Ireland’s Dublin Castle in October, the former president announced plans to hold a Global Irish Economic Forum in New York in 2012, to be sponsored by Teneo Capital. Gathered at the Dublin summit were Bono, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore.
Kelly, Teneo Capital’s cofounder, was named in 2009 by Secretary of State Clinton to be special economic envoy to Northern Ireland. Kelly had previously founded another hedge fund, Financial Dynamics, which he sold in 2006 to the company now known as FTI Consulting.
“We don’t have an equity fund, and we don’t have a hedge fund. We’re looking to establish one, but we haven’t done it yet,” Kelly said.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Swiss banking group SYZ & CO has launched the OYSTER Global High Yield, a new fund investing in high yield fixed income investments. OYSTER Global High Yield is managed by hedge fund, a high yield manager based in the US with an excellent track-record.
The fund, run by US group Seix Investment Advisors, will be registered shortly in several countries in Europe and Asia, and become available to the public like the other OYSTER sub-funds. The current environment is particularly favourable to high yield investing, which offers competitive risk-adjusted returns compared to equities.
“High yield bonds have historically generated highly competitive returns compared to equities on a risk-adjusted basis, without being strongly correlated to any other asset class within a portfolio, making them an important tool for diversification.” SYZ & CO said in a statement. “Moreover, the current market environment is favourable to high yield investing. The recent “flight to quality” has led to market sell-offs, which offer investors a good opportunity to invest in this attractive asset class. Indeed, many companies have taken strong measures to adapt to the environment and display solid balance sheets. As a result, current double-digit yields are inconsistent with the default rates forecast for the next two years. The implied default rate is nearly four times higher than the forecasts for company defaults (as measured by JP Morgan, one of the industry’s most followed benchmarks) and one-third higher than in a recessionary scenario. Finally, after downturns, high yield has typically delivered strong positive returns.”
Seix Advisors, founded in 1992 by Christina Seix, is a leading institutional fixed income manager. Today, Seix manages approximately $26.2 billion in fixed income assets for blue chip clients that include Corporations, Endowments, Foundations, Public Funds, Medical Centers, Taft Hartley Funds, Religious Organizations, Hedge Fund of Funds, and Family Offices.
With a strong focus on liquid issues and on minimising the downside by avoiding defaults, OYSTER Global High Yield consists of a portfolio of between 80 and 110 issues.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Citi’s Hedge Fund 1.0, saw the hedge fund industry as a niche business, with funds typically relying upon a single prime broker to support trading and reporting. In Hedge Fund 2.0, the next evolutionary phase, funds expanded to include more specialized arbitrage, event-driven, macro and credit-related strategies.
“The Hedge Fund 3.0 concept reflects the emergence of specialty providers who focus on the hedge fund industry, enabling fund managers to concentrate on key aspects of investment management while reducing their base of fixed costs,” Alan Pace, Head of Prime Finance in the Americas at Citi, said. “These experts have a keen understanding of the complexities of hedge fund management and can lift the burden of building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to handle complex trading strategies, as well as extensive regulatory and reporting demands.”
The Citi Prime Finance Hedge Fund 3.0 model proposes to help fund managers control the ratio of support staff to investment professionals, reduce the cost of the internal employees and remove the need for an extensive infrastructure and IT support function.
3.0 includes:
Business process outsourcing for middle-Office, collateral management, cash & treasury, and reference data management functions
Specialist HR and benefits brokers, including professional employee outsourcing (PEO) options.
Off-premise IT services, often leveraging cloud technologies
“While the Hedge Fund 3.0 model will benefit firms that are about to launch or are in the early stages of their development, the model is also useful for funds with established infrastructure and resources,” Sandy Kaul, US Head of Business Advisory at Citi, said. “Over time, many funds will move to a hybrid approach that combines in-house and outsourced resources.”
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Highland Funds Asset Management, L.P. has launched the Highland Alpha Trend Strategies Fund. Anchor Capital Management Group, Inc. will serve as the new fund’s sub-advisor.
“In a volatile global market, the addition of Anchor Capital’s strategy provides investors with a new international option,” said Joe Dougherty, President of Highland Funds. “We look forward to bringing Anchor Capital’s global long/short expertise to work for the benefit of our investors.”
The Highland Alpha Trend Strategies Fund is a long/short international strategy designed for more consistently positive returns along with low correlation and low volatility relative to regular equity indexes. It is expected to be classified in the Morningstar Multialternative category.
The fund’s strategy will be comprised of two components: rotating investment positions primarily among country- and region-specific exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and taking long and short positions in broad equity indexes to vary the fund’s net exposure over time.
Anchor Capital operates two distinct strategies on behalf of financial professionals, institutions and high-net-worth families. The firm’s investment professionals are technical analysts, and the Highland Alpha Trend Strategies Fund will make use of Anchor Capital’s proprietary quantitative methodology to assemble its investment portfolio.
“Global equity markets have become more correlated, increasing the need for a multi-strategy, long/short approach to international investing,” said Eric Leake, Anchor Capital Chief Investment Officer and Co-Portfolio Manager of the Highland Alpha Trend Strategies Fund. “With our focus on exploiting a variety of short-, intermediate- and long-term trends, we believe this is an ideal environment for a global long/short equity strategy.”
“Navigating global markets is extremely challenging right now, and this strategy will allow investors an opportunity to exploit both the positive and negative sentiment inherent in today’s markets,” said Garrett Waters, Anchor Capital Partner and Co-Portfolio Manager of the Highland Alpha Trend Strategies Fund. “The strategy is dynamic and nimble, designed to adjust to the macro environment and market momentum.”
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund administrator, the Conifer Group, LLC has launched the ‘Conifer iCon’, the first cloud-based solution delivering an entire suite of asset servicing processes, including a data repository and in-depth attribution reporting, from one customizable portal.
“As investors continue to clamor for enhanced performance reporting and transparency, accurate and timely risk and attribution reporting has become a top priority for hedge fund managers,” said Jack McDonald, President and CEO of The Conifer Group. “By bridging every investment support process that managers rely upon into a single cloud environment, Conifer iCon gives fund managers a better understanding of their risk and performance characteristics, enabling them to control their portfolios more effectively. This new technology draws upon our 24 years of experience successfully servicing a diverse range of asset managers, resulting in a powerful new product that didn’t exist before today.”
“Users will have ‘anywhere, anytime’ web access to Conifer iCon via PC and mobile devices, including iPhones and iPads via a custom app. This new architecture also addresses the disaster recovery requirements needed in today’s more robust and cost effective operating environment.” The press release explains.
Cloud technology enables functional enhancements to be completed at a fraction of the time and cost typically required by an enterprise-based system. Conifer iCon’s cloud-based infrastructure was developed by InvestCloud Solutions, LLC, the company’s joint venture with InvestCloud LLC. Core to this new venture is technology powered by Advent Software.
New York (HedgeCo.net) - Sal Naro, former co-managing partner of hedge fund Sailfish Capital, a $4.4 billion asset management firm with approximately $2 billion in hedge fund assets, is announcing the launch of Coherence Capital Partners LLC.
