Bloomberg – Sparx Group Co., Asia’s biggest hedge-fund manager, plans to start its first global macro fund, adding a strategy that was among the few winners in 2008 when an equities rout led to the only annual loss in its 20-year history.

The fund, which will wager on trends in stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide, will be sold to institutional investors in the next few months as Tokyo-based Sparx expands beyond equity- related offerings, President Shuhei Abe said. He declined to give the fund’s size, saying that and other details are still being worked out.

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Bloomberg - Sparx Group Co., Asia’s biggest hedge-fund manager, will likely miss its asset management target of 5 trillion yen ($57 billion) by March 2011 because of redemptions and losses amid the global market rout.

The firm has cut costs to counter the biggest market losses since the Great Depression, an effort that hasn’t prevented its total assets under management shrinking to 753 billion yen as of Dec. 31 on a preliminary basis, or about a third of the peak of 2 trillion yen in August 2006.

“Realistically, it’s going to be extremely tough” to meet the target, Shuhei Abe, the chief executive officer of the Tokyo- based firm, said in an interview on Jan. 23. “There is still room to cut more costs, while we also have to prepare for other unexpected events going forward.”

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