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.
Washington Observer Reporter – Wall Street’s initial enthusiasm about a $586 billion Chinese stimulus package fizzled Monday, as investors succumbed to anxieties about how U.S. companies will survive a severe pullback in spending.
Stocks got a short-lived boost from China’s plans to boost its economy through a mix of spending, subsidies, looser credit policies and tax cuts. The package could benefit multinational companies with business in China such as General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Inc.
But Wall Street’s optimism quickly waned, as it has tended to do since the mid-September downfall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and government takeover of the troubled insurance giant American International Group. Market participants realized that while China’s stimulus is a positive sign that governments around the world are working to fix the global economy, the stimulus itself will likely have only a limited effect in the United States.
Reuters – Lasair Capital, a hedge fund industry newcomer that boasts General Electric Co as its blue-chip backer, said on Tuesday that it has hired a senior investment officer to help put $180 million to work.
Carrie McCabe, who founded Lasair as a "next generation" hedge fund firm earlier this year, told investors that Jennifer Coffey will now help select hedge funds as well as infrastructure and timber assets for clients.
"Jennifer will report directly to me and I will continue to oversee all investment decisions," McCabe, who cemented her reputation in the hedge fund industry while running Blackstone Alternative Asset Management and FRM Americas, told clients.
Bloomberg – U.S. regulators are investigating whether investors manipulated end-of-day stock prices to avoid being forced by their brokers to sell holdings.
These gaps, which caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to swing as much as 104 points this month in the final minute of trading, suggest investment firms faced with client redemptions and plunging markets may be gaming the closing-auction system. The discrepancies spurred the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees 5,000 brokerages, to look for evidence that investors are improperly swaying prices.
General Electric Co., McDonald’s Corp. and the 28 other Dow companies swung 0.6 percent on average at the close the last two weeks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s almost eight times greater than the average three months ago. Because of the swings, the New York Stock Exchange plans to distribute information on the closing auction more often to help mitigate volatility.
Reuters – General Electric Co plans to raise $15 billion through stock sales — including $3 billion from Warren Buffett — to improve liquidity and give it the option of more acquisitions at a time of intense market turmoil, the U.S. conglomerate said on Wednesday.
The news helped to erase some of the day’s slide in GE shares, which fell more than 9 percent earlier, but was not enough to push them into positive territory. Investors remained worried about the troubles at GE’s vast finance arm — which has businesses ranging from loans to mid-sized business to investing in real estate.
It was the second big strategic investment by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc in the battered finance sector in as many weeks. Last week Berkshire said it would invest $5 billion in Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Bloomberg – Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, bought New York-based Asset Management Finance Corp. for $384 million to provide financing to investment firms.
Credit Suisse paid stock for more than 80 percent of the firm, founded by former Putnam Investments chief Norton Reamer in 2003, from a unit of National Bank of Canada. Reamer, 72, who also ran Boston-based United Asset Management Corp., will stay on, the bank said today in a statement.
AMF, which provides capital to money managers in exchange for a slice of revenue, will benefit from Credit Suisse’s global reach, said Brian Finn, chairman of the Zurich-based company’s alternative-asset business. The unit, which manages $167 billion, holds a minority stake in hedge-fund firm Ospraie Management LLC and has started joint investing ventures with Abu Dhabi and General Electric Co.
AMF “is a platform with a leadership team and an investment approach in which we see enormous growth opportunities,” Finn said in an interview.
Reamer targets independent money managers looking to expand or buy out a founder who wants to retire. In exchange for up- front cash, it gets a share of future revenue. It doesn’t acquire an ownership stake.
Turkish Daily News – Hedge funds, which have reached an estimated asset volume of $2 trillion globally by attracting investor’s interest with their rapidly changing asset allocation and high risk appetite, are about to be accessible to investors in Turkey.
Oyak Securities, Garanti Bank, the Turkish lender co-owned by General Electric Co., and İş Investment are the first institutions that have obtained approval to establish hedge funds since the introduction of the permit in March.
Preparations for the necessary infrastructure are now complete and hedge funds will be available to investors in Turkey this autumn, said Emrah Yücel, fund manager at İş Investment. Fluctuation of global markets for the past year will not have a negative impact on hedge funds, Yücel added, noting that the current economic situation makes such funds even more attractive to investors.
Bloomberg- When Blackstone Group LP, the world’s biggest buyout firm, was pursuing the takeover of the Weather Channel cable network earlier this month with General Electric Co. and Bain Capital LLC, Wall Street balked at providing financing.
So the New York-based company turned to GSO Capital Partners LP, the hedge-fund manager it acquired in March, to pull off the largest U.S. leveraged buyout this year.
Blackstone can’t wait for banks, stuck with almost $100 billion of debt from earlier LBOs, to start lending again. Instead, it’s pushing deeper into deal financing with GSO. The strategy may hurt the hedge-fund unit’s returns — some approaching 40 percent — if slowing economies lead companies taken private by Blackstone to default on their debt.
