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.
Reuters – UBS has named Alastair Sclater to the new post of head of its Singapore prime brokerage, as the Swiss bank aims to build that business in Asia’s second-biggest centre for hedge funds.
Singapore, which competes with rival Asian financial centre Hong Kong, has attracted asset managers, private banks and hedge funds in recent years with tax incentives and strict secrecy rules.
The city-state also provides investors the opportunity to manage part of the more than $300 billion in assets held by its sovereign wealth funds GIC and Temasek.
Reuters – The UK Railways Pension Schemes, one of the UK’s largest plans, has invested 65 million pounds in London-based asset manager Goodhart Partners’ global long-short equity fund of hedge funds.
Railpen Investments, the fund manager of the industry-wide scheme with assets of over 15 billion pounds, has some 8 percent of its assets in hedge fund strategies.
”Goodhart’s Long-Short fund offers large institutions exposure to small and specialist hedge fund managers, with the degree of governance and due diligence these allocations require,” said Paul Jeffries, an investment analyst at Railpen.
Evening Standard – A prominent hedge fund manager has claimed that gold investment is proving popular in the US over fears about inflation.
Moonraker, a London-based independent firm, has managed over $330 million worth of assets at BDO Stoy Hayward Investment Management since September 2003.
The company carried out a survey of 22 US hedge fund managers and found that 20 have bought gold bullion because they expect quantitative easing to push prices higher. Read Complete Article
Commodity Online – A prominent hedge fund manager has claimed that gold investment is proving popular in the US over fears about inflation.
Moonraker, a London-based independent firm, has managed over $330 million worth of assets at BDO Stoy Hayward Investment Management since September 2003.
The company carried out a survey of 22 US hedge fund managers and found that 20 have bought gold bullion because they expect quantitative easing to push prices higher.
Bloomberg – Brazilian hedge funds lured about 8.2 billion reais ($4.52 billion) in July, the biggest monthly inflow this year, as a rebounding economy and record low interest rates increased demand for stocks and other higher- yielding assets.
The investment helped the funds recoup their 2009 losses, according to data through July 30 released by the National Association of Investment Banks. Hedge funds, known as multimercados, received 3.5 billion reais this year through July 30 as the industry began to lure back some of the record 54.6 billion reais of redemptions in 2008, according to the agency.
Bloomberg – Massachusetts will cut investments in hedge funds after its public pension plan lost a record 24 percent on all assets in the fiscal year ended June 30.
The state pension plan’s board of trustees voted today to lower the amount of money invested in hedge funds to 8 percent, or about $3 billion of the $37.7 billion it oversaw at the end of June, from 12 percent, which is about $4.5 billion. The vote reversed a five-year effort by the pension system to boost returns by expanding such alternative investments.
”We all have to understand we’re making a bet on what assets will do well,” said state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, chairman of Massachusetts’s pension reserve investment management board. “Ultimately, we don’t make decisions based on the short-term, but we get measured on the short-term.”
Reuters – Rumours of an acquisition spree by Fortress Investment Group are greatly exaggerated and may disappoint investors who jumped into the stock during the past week.
The private equity and hedge fund giant last week named director and former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel Mudd as its new CEO. The move frees co-founder Wesley Edens and his partners to focus on buying assets and companies made cheap by what he calls the "Great Deleveraging" of the past year.
Last week, the Financial Times reported Edens told employees during a meeting that Mudd would spearhead the firm’s acquisition efforts.
Charity Times – Putting it into perspective, at January 1 2008 there was $9.7trn of hedge funds assets invested, at the end of 2008 it was $3trn, a massive loss in capital.
This year, hedge funds gained 2.41 per cent in March, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The index is now up 0.82 per cent in 2009. ”After an eight per cent sell-off in early March, the S&P 500 Index bounced back to gain 17 per cent from 9 March to 31 March, its largest three-week rally since 1987” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. Overall, 15 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices gained ground in March. Hedge funds took modest advantage of March’s upswings in the global equity and credit markets, according to Morningstar’s hedge fund performance summary for the first quarter of 2009.
Highbridge Capital Management, once the world’s biggest hedge fund, was a big winner, with $1bn of net inflows this year, including $225m from majority owner JPMorgan. It ended the quarter with $20bn under management.
Bloomberg – Larry Powell, deputy investment chief for the $16 billion Utah Retirement Systems, was convinced in January that hedge funds finally would buckle under the pressure of record losses in 2008 and lower their fees.
He figured it was appropriate to insist on a reduction in the standard industry charge of 2 percent of assets and 20 percent of gains on investments as low as $25 million, according to a memo Powell circulated with hedge funds and investors. Performance fees should be assessed only after a minimum return is exceeded and paid over several years rather than annually, he said.
Bloomberg – Hedge fund manager Mark Bloom pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that he stole at least $20 million from clients and lied to them, and that he helped sell illegal tax shelters while working earlier at BDO Seidman LLP.
Bloom, who lives in New York City, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Manhattan to five charges including securities fraud. He admitted he stole millions from investors in North Hills Fund, an investment partnership with more than $30 million in assets that he managed. He agreed to forfeit as much as $20 million and to cooperate with prosecutors in their continuing investigation.
A prominent hedge fund manager has claimed that gold investment is proving popular in the US over fears about inflation.
Moonraker, a London-based independent firm, has managed over $330 million worth of assets at BDO Stoy Hayward Investment Management since September 2003.
The company carried out a survey of 22 US hedge fund managers and found that 20 have bought gold bullion because they expect quantitative easing to push prices higher.
Reuters UK – Hedge fund firm RAB Capital said on Wednesday that clients had started putting money back into some of its funds helped by a recent upturn in performance, adding to signs the industry may be recovering.
The firm, some of whose funds have been hit by poor performance and illiquid markets during the credit crisis, posted a 32 percent drop in overall assets. However, it said it saw positive net flows into its single strategy funds in the second quarter and into July, excluding the effects of recent disposals.
