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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – India hedge fund manager, Taurus Mutual Fund, launched India’s first actively managed Equity Oriented Shariah compliant fund, the ‘Taurus Ethical Fund’.
With a minimum investment of INR 5000 ($100K), the open-ended actively managed mutual fund opens on February 19, 2009 and closes on March 20, 2009.
Launching in Mumbai, the fund has been certified by an independent Shariah Board named TASIS (Taqwaa Advisory and Shariah Investment Solutions).
“It’s all about investing in the right businesses and Shariah compliance ensures that," Waqar Naqvi, CEO, Taurus Mutual Fund said, "The need to pick businesses that foster wealth creation over the long term and distribute it equitably forms the basis of Shariah investing. It also provides an effective filter to identify and avoid speculative businesses. No wonder, Shariah compliant businesses have weathered the sub prime crisis”.
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Market Rap – In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). He said, over and over, that the crime was destroying public companies and had the potential to trigger a systemic meltdown of our financial markets.
Soon after, I began to investigate a network of short sellers, journalists, and miscreants. I concluded that many of the people in this network were connected to two famous criminals – “junk bond king” Michael Milken and his associate, Ivan Boesky. I also began taking a close look at the Mafia’s involvement in naked short selling.
MSN MoneyCentral – Mace Security International Inc. said Tuesday it has only received $1 million of a little more than $3.2 million owed it by a hedge fund managed by missing Florida money manager Arthur Nadel.
The Horsham, Pa., maker of personal defense and electronic security products said the Victory Fund Ltd. didn’t pay Mace the roughly $2.2 million it was due Jan. 15.
“We have already filed a report with the authorities, and we intend to take all possible legal action against the Victory Fund,” Dennis Raefield, Mace’s CEO and president, said in a statement. “Mace continues to have a solid balance sheet, cash in the bank and strong business fundamentals.”
CNNMoney.com – When the headhunter first called Richard Baker in late 2007 and asked him if he was interested in becoming president and CEO of the Managed Funds Association – the hedge fund trade group – Baker thought it was a joke. "My reaction was, ‘You want me to do what?’"
An 11-term Republican Congressman from Louisiana, Baker was about as likely a candidate to run the MFA as Bill Gates is to run an Apple in his home office.
Over the years, Baker had emerged as a fierce and independent critic of the financial services industry – pushing for tougher regulation of hedge funds after the 1998 collapse of Long Term Capital Management.
CNBC – The hedge fund industry has been battered this year, suffering heavy losses in part due to redemptions by investors as they asked for their money back amid the market turmoil.
According to a Singapore-based hedge fund research firm Eurekahedge, the industry has lost some one-fifth of its assets this year to $1.55 trillion. About $125 billion of the losses came from redemptions.
The scandal surrounding Bernard Madoff is certainly not helping the industry. The investment adviser and former Nasdaq stock market chairman has allegedly swindled clients out of $50 billion through a bogus fund. It’s forgivable if seasoned high-net worth investors get cold feet and steer clear of this form of investment.
Stephen Gollop, CEO of Tyche, expects one-third of the hedge funds to disappear in the first-quarter of next year.
New York Daily News – Disgraced Park Ave. lawyer Marc Dreier gave fellow scamsters $100,000 to impersonate others in calls to victims, Manhattan federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The new details emerged at a bail hearing for former broker Kosta Kovachev, 57, arrested yesterday for allegedly helping Dreier try to steal some $100 million from hedge fund managers.
Prosecutors say Kovachev pretended to be a real estate developer’s controller in an October sitdown with hesitant hedge fund managers. Kovachev also impersonated the developer’s CEO in a conference call, prosecutors say.
International Herald Tribune- Hedge fund managers are looking to global macro funds to try to steer clear of the mess created by the credit crisis while cautiously dipping into a small pool of more risky assets, a Reuters poll found.
Stormy markets have torn through the hedge fund market this year, forcing many to shut up shop and others to tumble, but most have still managed to keep well ahead of the severe double-digit losses suffered by global stock markets in the first half of the year.
The quarterly survey of 13 managers who invest in a basket of hedge funds and manage a total of about $150 billion in assets showed global macro funds leading the way through 2008 as they tend to benefit from periods of high volatility.
Typically global macro funds bet on the direction of markets, currencies or debt, and commodities.
Guardian.co.uk- Funds of hedge fund managers are looking to global macro funds to try and steer clear of the mess thrown up by the credit crisis while cautiously dipping their toes in a small pool of more risky assets, a Reuters poll found.
Stormy markets have torn through the hedge fund market this year, forcing many to shut up shop and others to tumble, but most have still managed to keep well ahead of the severe double digit losses suffered by global stock markets in the first half of the year.
The quarterly survey of 13 managers which invest in a basket of hedge funds and manage a total of around $150 billion in assets showed global macro funds leading the way through 2008 as they tend to benefit from periods of high volatility.
Reuters UK- A near one year-old credit crunch still has plenty of venom and will sting global financial markets and the economy well into next year or even into 2010, a Reuters poll found.
On the eve of its one-year anniversary at the start of August the credit crisis is still spitting out victims and darkening the outlooks from global central banks.
Most of the 87 economists polled from across Europe, the U.S. and Canada said the worst was not over and most felt that the fallout would last for another six to 12 months at least.
The sudden rescue plan for U.S. mortgage finance agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae arranged by the U.S. Treasury and the collapse of IndyMac bank last week has 34 economists forecasting the crisis will roll on for another year or even more.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – GLG Partners started off the new year by suspending its dividend payments, after capping off a year that saw a steady decline in share value.
This is the first time that GLG, who used to manage $24 billion, has done away with the dividend since it was listed in late 2007. However, with hedge funds seeing a record number of redemption requests, GLG, along with other hedge funds may be trying to salvage as much capital as they can. GLG currently manages an estimated $17 billion.
“We have decided at this time that it is prudent to retain capital rather than continue paying a regular quarterly dividend,” said Noam Gottesman, Chairman and Co-CEO of GLG.
2008 was a tough year for hedge funds across the board. The $3 trillion that the industry was thought to manage at one point, should dwindle down to about $1 trillion, experts say. On average, hedge funds dropped about 19 percent in 2008, according to the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index.
Shares of GLG closed at $2.27 yesterday, dropping over 80 percent since March 2008.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
