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.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Viathon Capital, LP has officially launched the Whitewater Master Fund, LP, a credit opportunity fund focused on non-correlated absolute returns.
Employing a fundamental, credit-intensive research process in order to identify long and short investment opportunities in the United States and Europe, the hedge fund’s objective is to seek long term capital appreciation by investing in high yield and investment grade corporate bonds and bank debt.
As part of this launch, Viathon Capital has affiliates of Citigroup Alternative Investments, LLC (CAI) as its seed investor in this new fund. The fund launched in May of 2009 with $50 million in capital and had a net return of +0.92 % for the month of May and estimates +2.10% for June bringing it’s inception to date return to approximately +3.02%.
Viathon Capital’s team includes four investment professionals and two trade support/back office personnel with backgrounds from Marathon Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Neuberger Berman, SAC/Sigma, Providence Investment Management and Lehman Brothers.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge funds gained 1.37 percent in March, according to data compiled by the Hennessee Group LLC. It was a successful month for the equity markets at well, with the S&P advancing 8.54 percent, the NASDAQ climbing 10.94 percent, and the Dow Jones advancing 7.73 percent.
"Hedge funds with a focus on the financial sector may potentially outperform in 2009," said Co-Founder of Hennessee Group Charles Gradante. "Not only did Citigroup and Bank of America announce a profitable January and February, but the borrowings at the Fed discount window have been steadily declining. It is possible that the banking crisis of confidence can unwind as quickly as it unfolded."
According to the data, the long/short equity index advanced 1.6 percent, thanks to programs launched by the U.S. government aimed at helping the banking sector. The arbitrage/event driven index gained 1.34 percent, with credit opportunities aplenty and many managers increasing stakes in bank debt, high yield and convertible bonds.
The global macro index saw a steady increase of .74 percent. The Hennessee Group pointed to the fact that many macro managers posted losses on their short-term Treasuries trade after the Fed announced they would buy $300 billion in U.S. Treasuries, which prompted buying and drove down yields.
This puts the YTD gain for hedge funds at just over 1 percent.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds! Be sure to check out our sister sites. www.hedgefundlounge.com, www.hedgefundtools.com, and www.hedgefundemployment.com
Free Internet Press – George Soros, 78, has made billions as a hedge-fund manager and investor. Germany’s Spiegel magazine spoke with him about the current financial crisis, how he expect President-elect Barack Obama to respond to the economic disaster and the responsibilities borne by speculators.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Soros, in spite of massive interventions by governments and federal banks the financial crisis is getting worse. The stock markets are in free fall, millions of people could lose their jobs. More and more companies are in trouble, from General Motors in Detroit to BASF in Ludwigshafen. Have you ever seen anything like it?
Soros: Never. I find the present situation dramatic and overwhelming. In my latest book, “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008”, I predicted the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. But to tell you the truth: I did not actually anticipate that it would get as bad as it did. It has gone beyond my wildest imagination.
Bloomberg – At 5-foot-4 and 48 years, Nissim “The Miracle” Tse is the shortest and oldest of 34 boxers signed up for this year’s Hong Kong Hedge Fund Fight Nite.
Calling himself “a financial warrior,” Tse likens boxing to his daytime job as a co-founder and head of trading for Hong Kong-based Pi Investment Management Ltd., a unit of London hedge fund manager RAB Capital Plc.
“It’s mental, it’s physical, it’s crazy, it’s stressful,” Tse said in an interview. “But it all happens very quickly, just like you are managing a hedge fund.”
The annual charity fight tonight, in its second year, takes place amid the most severe financial crisis since the 1930s and with the hedge fund industry bracing for its biggest annual loss since Hedge Fund Research Inc. started to keep data in 1990.
The fight night aims to raise HK$1 million ($129,000) to repair children’s facial deformities and combat crime and juvenile delinquency in low-income and immigrant communities. The event beat the same target last year.
AlterNet – Jack Nash, a key pioneer of the global hedge fund industry, passed away this past summer. Much of the rest of the industry may soon join him six feet under. The industry, one insider told the Financial Times last week, has embarked on "a sort of death march."
Hedge funds now appear to be the next chunk of high finance headed for meltdown. They may actually do their melting before most Americans even know what they are.
A quick primer: Hedge funds have been operating in the financial world’s immensely lucrative shadows ever since Jack Nash co-founded Odyssey Partners, the granddaddy of the modern hedge fund, in 1982, just one year after Ronald Reagan slashed tax rates on America’s highest incomes.
The new tax rates — the lowest the rich had seen since the early 1930s — meant that wealthy Americans suddenly had plenty of new cash sloshing in their pockets. Nash promised these affluents high annual returns if they gave him their money to invest — and then delivered. Over the next 14 years, Odyssey delighted investors with a 24 percent average annual return.
