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.
Bloomberg – Alberto Micalizzi, founder of the hedge fund firm Dynamic Decisions Capital Management Ltd., said allegations that he invested in worthless bonds are unfounded and investors will recover close to 100 percent of their money.
The firm’s main hedge fund, with a net asset value of $550 million as of Dec. 31, is being liquidated in the Cayman Islands after investors raised questions about some of its holdings. The U.K. Serious Fraud Office, which prosecutes white-collar crime, opened a probe into the London-based firm last week after the matter was referred to it by the Financial Services Authority.
Guardian – RCM, Allianz’s equity fund management unit, is launching two new hedge fund products aimed at increasing its assets under management in the sector by more than 50 percent, its Chief Investment Officer said. Andreas Utermann told Reuters that RCM will launch, in the next few weeks, a new Luxembourg-domiciled cross-border UCITS equity fund, and will launch a new vehicle which invests across its existing long-short funds within the next two quarters.
He said RCM found that clients — including family offices and private wealth managers — were happier with a Luxembourg UCITS structure than with Cayman Islands-based funds.
Caribbean Net News – The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s business told a judge that two Cayman Islands and Bermuda hedge-fund firms accused of profiting from the fraud are ignoring his lawsuits seeking a total of $230.7 million in damages.
Trustee Irving Picard on Wednesday asked the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to file default notices against the Cayman Islands-based Primeo Fund and Bermuda-based Alpha Prime Fund Ltd., court papers show. Two offshore firms sued earlier for a total of $1.2 billion also have ignored Picard’s lawsuits.
Caymen Net News – The CAYS Foundation is continuing its work with the Cayman Islands’ youth, raising awareness and addressing the issues of child abuse and neglect, through funding from a Hedge Funds Care Cayman (HFCC) grant.
Among the many projects the CAYS Foundation has developed is the Family Reunification Programme (FRP), which is designed to strengthen vulnerable families during the period when a child is preparing to return home after a stay at one of CAYS Foundation’s two residential homes. The programme has been in existence since the CAYS Foundation’s inception in 2003.
Reuters – Carl Icahn and other investors who failed to block Steel Partners’ plan to convert a hedge fund into a listed partnership in Delaware court, continue to fight the plan in the Cayman Islands, Steel Partners said on Thursday.
The New York-based fund manager announced it completed the controversial merger of Steel Partners II into a pink sheets portfolio company, WebFinancial. Yet a spokesman acknowledged that the deal, which will create an exchange-listed investment partnership later this year, is only partially consummated.
Herald Tribune – At a bail hearing in which Arthur G. Nadel was sent back to his cell to come up with better co-signers, a federal judge heard from the receiver in the case about a previously unknown multimillion-dollar hedge fund account controlled by Nadel in the Cayman Islands.
Receiver Burton Wiand, a Tampa lawyer, testified that he had discovered a hedge fund in the Caymans that at one point contained $15 million. He was able to follow $5 million back to one of the six funds at Nadel’s Scoop Management in Sarasota. The whereabouts of the remaining $10 million is unclear.
Caymen Net News – Hedge funds and financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have been pulling their money out of Britain as they are hit by the credit crunch, according to figures from the Bank of England. The low-tax regime and limited regulation of the Cayman Islands – with a population of 52,000 – has attracted 80% of the world’s $1.3tn (£790bn) hedge fund industry.
The drop in Cayman Islands’ deposits comes as hedge funds are being forced to return money to investors who have made big losses from the financial crisis. Loans from UK banks to Cayman institutions also fell, but at a lower pace. Outstanding loans from UK banks to Cayman institutions outweighed Cayman deposits in UK banks by $124bn in the first quarter, a sharp increase from $12bn in the last quarter of last year, the data shows.
Hedge funds and financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have been pulling their money out of Britain as they are hit by the credit crunch, according to figures from the Bank of England.
The low-tax regime and limited regulation of the Cayman Islands – with a population of 52,000 – has attracted 80% of the world’s $1.3tn (£790bn) hedge fund industry.
Those institutions have almost halved their deposits in UK banks over the past 12 months, from $356bn at the end of the first quarter in 2008, to $173bn at the end of March, Bank of England data shows. The drop in Cayman Islands’ deposits comes as hedge funds are being forced to return money to investors who have made big losses from the financial crisis. It also reflects fund losses from falling markets.
The outflow of funds from Britain puts the spotlight on hedge fund threats to abandon the UK because of higher taxes, tighter regulation and potential caps on executive pay and bonuses.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The UK Serious Fraud Office, (SFO) Friday conducted searches on two residential properties (one in Kent, the other in Surrey) assisted by the City of London Police, in connection with its investigation into an alleged fraud involving the recently collapsed hedge fund, Weavering Capital.
Two men, aged 43 and 45, were arrested and have been taken to a police station for questioning.
Hedge fund Weavering Capital launched in March 2009, acting as investment advisor to a Cayman Islands incorporated hedge fund, Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Limited. The Macro Fund was understood to have funds under management of around $639 million in late 2008.
The investigation is currently focused, the SFO said, on certain interest rate swap transactions between the Macro Fund and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, Weavering Capital Fund Limited, which appears to be a related third party, which inflated the apparent Net Asset Value of the Macro Fund. More details to be released as the case proceeds.
Alex Akesson
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Caymen Net News – After an intensive grant selection process, Hedge Funds Care has agreed to distribute the US$247,647 raised at the 14 November 2008 event to support local projects designed to treat and prevent child abuse and neglect in the Cayman Islands.
The grantees that will receive funding in May are: The Nadine Andreas Foster Home (operated by the NCVO); the Ministry of Education, Training, Employment, Youth, Sports and Culture; Children and Youth Services (CAYS) Foundation; and the Cayman Islands Crisis Centre.
“The grant selection process is purposely lengthy and thorough,” explained Committee Chair Peter Cockhill.
Jamaica Observer – A Jamaican investment manager in the Cayman Islands has been charged in the collapse of four hedge funds based in the Caribbean offshore financial centre.
Robert Christopher Girvan was charged with forgery, obtaining a money transfer by deception and producing a false document, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Services said in a statement.
Girvan, 48, of Jamaica, made a brief appearance before a magistrate Tuesday but did not enter a plea. He was released on bail and ordered to appear back in court on May 26.
The battered insurance giant AIG returns to Capitol Hill Wednesday facing another frosty reception in Congress – where three AIG trustees appointed by the U.S. government will make their public debut amid growing skepticism over their role at the company.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) is questioning whether the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – which installed the handpicked trustees in January – is doing enough to protect taxpayers footing the bill for the $182.5 billion bailout.
And POLITICO has learned that one of those trustees has another role – as chairwoman of a Bermuda-based firm that administers hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands and other global tax havens.
