HEDGE FUND NEWS

Financial Times- Private equity and hedge funds risk suffering massive losses from a binge of investments in the troubled North American automotive industry.
Many of the funds saw turnround opportunities in the sector in 2005 and 2006 when suppliers were squeezed between rising commodity prices, cutbacks by the three Detroit carmakers, and customers’ demands for lower […]

Montreal Gazette- IndyMac Bank is under investigation by the FBI for possible fraud involving home loans made to risky borrowers, the Associated Press reported yesterday, citing an unnamed law enforcement official.
The report said it was not immediately clear how long the FBI’s probe of the bank has been ongoing but the probe is focused on […]

Reuters- Fund managers are gloomier about equities than at any time in at least the last 10 years and aversion to risk is close to what it was during the Bear Stearns crisis in March, a Merrill Lynch poll showed on Wednesday.
In its July poll of 191 global fund managers, the investment bank also found […]

Reuters UK- Major gold firms grappling with declining output and surging costs are being cold-shouldered by investors opting for exposure to bullion through exchange traded funds (ETFs) or high-growth junior firms.
A wave of money flowing into gold ETFs, which issue shares backed by physical stocks of bullion, touched a record last week as investors sought […]

Bloomberg- William Ackman, the activist hedge fund manager, increased his $2 billion bet on Target Corp. as shares of the second-largest U.S. discount retailer declined as much as 38 percent in the past year, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Pershing Square Capital Management LP, Ackman’s New York- based firm, added at least […]

Reuters UK- Spanish property firm Martinsa Fadesa’s demise is a sign hedge funds are pushing hard to make profits out of ailing companies and may cause insolvencies in Spain to speed up.
Hedge funds which bought Martinsa Fadesa debt at discounts of as much as 50 percent of its value could now profit from its administration […]

Business Day South Africa- There seems little doubt hedge funds have started to play an important role in any balanced investment strategy.
Novare Investments, which manages the Mayibentsha Fund of Funds, which was launched in April 2003 and has R1,7bn under management, says that hedge funds today represent about R35bn of investment in this […]

FINalternatives- Global hedge fund assets under management increased 30% in 2007 to a record $2.25 trillion, according to a new International Financial Services report.
Most of this growth was in the first three quarters, as market turbulence in the latter part of the year resulted in a slowdown in inflow of new funds and a decline […]

Bloomberg- William Ackman put more cash into the $2 billion hedge fund he started to invest in Target Corp. as shares of the second-largest U.S. discount retailer declined 38 percent in the past year, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Pershing Square Capital Management LP, Ackman’s New York- based firm, added at least […]

Bloomberg- South Korean life insurers are shunning U.S. and European corporate bonds because of a rising risk of default and plowing money into domestic debt.
Samsung Life Insurance Co., Korea’s biggest insurer, is diverting $500 million into 10-year government bonds, said Koo Sung Hoon, head of investments at the company. Kyobo Life Insurance Co., the third-largest, […]

Reuters- Former Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee, one of South Korea’s most powerful businessmen, was handed a 3-year suspended jail sentence on Wednesday for tax evasion, but was cleared of other charges.
The court also fined Lee 110 billion won ($109 million), more than double the amount of […]

Reuters- Melissa Ko, a former star trader at Bear Stearns, has formed a new hedge fund called Covepoint Capital with nearly $1 billion in assets, according to a letter the firm sent to investors on Monday.
Ko ran Bear’s Emerging Markets Macro Fund, which generated returns of more than 25 percent from 2005 to 2007 […]