Reuters – New York state’s pension fund has cut its so-called fund of funds investments to about $500 million from $5 billion since January 2008, after deciding direct investments were preferable, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Fund of funds invest money in hedge funds on behalf of their investors, and they helped the state gain access to "blue chip" funds when former Comptroller Alan Hevesi began using them in 2005, said Robert Whalen, a spokesman for the current Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

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Tags: alan hevesi, blue chip, comptroller, hedge funds, investments, investors, money, new-york-state, pension-fund, reuters, spokesman, whalen

Boston Globe – He is a close political ally and prodigious fund-raiser for state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill. When a blue-chip New York financial firm was trying to persuade Cahill and his staff to award it a lucrative contract to manage state pension money, it hired Anthony S. Rust to push their cause.

In the end, the payday was a big one for everyone involved. Ivy Asset Management was awarded the contract in 2004 to manage $393 million in state pension funds, a deal that would net it about $18.3 million in fees, according to state records. Ivy paid Rust an estimated $2.3 million for brokering the deal, according to the records.

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Tags: blue chip, boston globe, cahill, fund raiser, ivy asset management, lucrative contract, pension money, political ally, rust, state pension funds, state treasurer

CNBC – Shares in Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm, slid on Wednesday after it said funds under management fell 21 percent and that it would sue over its exposure to the Madoff scandal.

Man said its assets totalled $53.3 billion at the end of last year, below Citi analysts’ expectations and down from $67.6 billion at the end of September. Part of the drop was due to net redemptions, which reached $3.2 billion in the three months to December.

Man Group’s shares were down 5 percent at 214 pence at 1014 GMT, up from a trough of 200 pence earlier. The blue chip FTSE 100 Index was 1.6 percent lower

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Tags: assets, blue chip, cnbc, gmt, man-group, pence, redemptions, scandal, three months, trough