Independent – RAB Capital, the troubled London-based hedge fund, yesterday agreed to sell its Asian business as it tries to shore up its finances.

The fund manager, which on top of the general woes affecting the industry has made wrong calls including buying shares in now-nationalised lender Northern Rock, said it was selling the assets and business of its loss-making Northwest brand for £1m to its original owners, at a big book loss. As recently as last June, RAB valued Northwest at £20m. However, the sale will allow the fund manager to save between £3m and £4m in costs annually, and a spokesman said that after tax adjustments the writedown would be closer to £9m.

Northwest’s assets under management, held in three funds, were approximately $300m at the end of December. On a pro-forma basis, the business and assets it is selling generated pretax profit of around £9m in 2007, but analysts believe Northwest may have slipped into the red last year.

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Tags: 1m, 3m, 4m, asian business, assets-under-management, buying-shares, northwest, pretax profit, rab capital, spokesman said that, tax adjustments, woes

Irish Times – Seven international hedge funds have bet hundreds of millions of euro that Irish bank stocks will continue to fall.

Although it is normal stock market practice, since last Friday short-selling of the four Irish publicly quoted banks has been banned by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority. While the regulator banned investors from taking new short positions, existing positions can be maintained, reduced or closed.

By maintaining their positions, the hedge funds are betting that Irish bank stocks, already at record lows, are set to fall further. As it is not clear when the initial share trades took place, brokers said the actual monetary value of the bets is unclear.

However, using yesterday’s closing prices, the seven funds hold positions worth €279 million in the four quoted Irish banks.

Five US and two London-based funds have disclosed their short positions.

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Tags: 1m, bias, blue-jays, credit-losses, equity-fund, ethical-investment, lng, macdonald, medallion