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.
Reuters - Hedge fund firm Polar Capital reported a fall in assets but has seen net inflows in recent months and said on Wednesday it was looking "more aggressively" at buying firms in distress.
Polar said assets under management fell to $1.54 billion at end-May from $3.1 billion at end-March 2008, although there has been a small rise since the end of March this year.
Chief executive Mark Kary told Reuters the firm had seen "small net inflows" since end-March, particularly into its global macro strategy and European long/short equity funds.
Wealth Bulletin - Geneva’s public prosecutor said he has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Banco Santander SA’s hedge-fund unit misled investors when it funneled their money into Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The formal investigation was opened following a complaint by Geneva Partners, an independent investment fund that bought financial products from Santander’s Geneva-based hedge-fund unit, Optimal Investment Services SA.
Dario Zanni, Geneva’s public prosecutor, said the inquiry would look at whether Optimal’s former chief executive, Manuel Echeverria, did the fact-finding claimed in the firm’s documents. "We have some suspicion about his [work]," Mr. Zanni said. "We are not sure he was doing his job compliant with his duties."
Independent - Hedge funds Apollo and Octavian have been quietly building up a position in ProSieben, one of Europe’s biggest commercial broadcasters. The move could lead to a showdown with private equity owners Permira, the Damon Buffini-run giant, and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (KKR). Lord Hollick, who was chief executive at former Daily Express owner United Business Media, represents KKR on the ProSieben board.
It is understood that Apollo and Permira have been buying the struggling German broadcaster’s debt on the cheap. Sources suggested that the pair had been paying only around 30cents for every euro of debt, allowing them to become, in effect, major creditors. "Apollo and Octavian have been buying up debt that is trading at distressed levels and I can see them taking on Permira and KKR over the direction of ProSieben," said a source.
New York Times Blogs - E*Trade Financial is in talks with Citadel Investment Group, the hedge fund that is its largest shareholder, about a deal to shore up the struggling brokerage firm’s balance sheet, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The two companies have been in negotiations for weeks to find a solution to E*Trade’s financial problems, The Journal said, adding that terms of the deal were unknown.
On Tuesday, E*Trade announced that Citadel Chief Executive Kenneth C. Griffin would be joining the firm’s finance and risk-oversight committee.
Seeking Alpha - Grail Advisors, LLC, the investment advisor that launched the Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value Fund (GVT) last month, has filed with the SEC to launch four additional ETFs. Grail notes that these four funds will be the first actively-managed ETFs to use a single-manager approach.
Unlike traditional ETFs, managers of these funds will have discretion on a daily basis to choose securities consistent with the ETF’s objective. With the launch of these funds, Grail will establish itself as the leader in the actively-managed ETF arena.
"Our goal from the outset was to bring traditional, active fund managers to the ETF marketplace," said William Thomas, chief executive of Grail Advisors. With these funds, that day has come "a lot sooner than even the most enthusiastic proponent of the ETF structure could have imagined."
Law.com - Federal prosecutors Thursday unsealed an indictment charging the chief executive of what used to be one of the world’s largest investment funds with constructing elaborate tax shelters for some of his wealthiest clients. The executive, Jeffrey Greenstein, the former head of the Seattle-based fund Quellos Group, and two lawyers face 18 counts related to tax evasion and fraud for a scheme that netted them $86 million in fees and allowed six clients to avoid paying about $400 million in federal taxes, according to the indictment.
What’s interesting for our purposes is that the indictment details how lawyers from Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Bryan Cave blessed the shelters with letters indicating to the taxpayers that they were legal and would withstand scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service. (The firms are identified as "C.S.M." and "B.C." in the indictment, but two sources familiar with the matter confirm they are Cravath and Bryan Cave. In addition, a 2006 congressional investigation mentioned the role the two firms played in the Quellos tax shelters, and at least one lawyer, Lewis Steinberg, then of Cravath and currently at Linklaters, testified before a congressional subcommittee.)
Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Richard W. Fields says he has come up with a win-win financial strategy for the downturn. He is investing in lawsuits.
Not in trip-and-fall cases, mind you, but in disputes that are far larger, more costly and potentially more lucrative, often pitting major corporations against each other.
Mr. Fields is chief executive of Juridica Capital Management. which runs a fund that invests in one side of a lawsuit in exchange for a share of any winnings.
Guardian.co.uk - No single hedge fund today poses a systemic risk to the global financial system, said a former partner at Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), as lawmakers continue to hammer out rules to control the industry.
Even though many funds are now much larger than LTCM, which collapsed in 1998 and received a $3.5 billion bailout to avert widespread financial chaos, Hans Hufschmid, currently chief executive at fund servicing firm GlobeOp, said prime brokers now act as an effective brake on hedge fund risk. "I find it hard to believe — I don’t think a hedge fund today is big enough to pose a systemic risk," he said.
Evening Standard - This year could see the bounceback of the hedge fund industry after a pretty disastrous 2008, Peter Clarke , chief executive of the world’s largest publicly quoted hedge fund manager Man Group , said today.
But news that the group took a $900 million (£565 million) hit on its funds in the final week of March, just after its most recent trading update, pushed the shares 10% or 25p lower to 225p.
Despite confirming a 40% fall in Man’s dollar profits for the year to the end of March and a 37% drop in funds under management, Clarke said: "Certainly 2009 has begun very well for the hedge fund industry with positive returns across the industry overall."
Reuters - Hedge fund assets under management around the world have probably fallen below $1 trillion, a top executive at hedge fund New Finance Capital LLP (NFC) said on Thursday.
"There has been an enormous contraction in this industry. The industry is much, much smaller this year," NFC co-Chief Executive and co-Chief Investment Officer Marc Hotimsky told a briefing for reporters.
Assets under management were by now "probably slightly below $1 trillion," he said.
Reuters - A wave of hedge funds are being launched this year by traders as the financial crisis fuels a shakeout of talent from Wall Street banks and big investment firms, an industry executive said.
Record redemptions last year prompted hundreds of hedge funds to shut down, and swooning markets have made it difficult to raise new capital. Still, one leading financial services technology firm said a growing number of managers are braving the tough environment to strike out on their own.
"There’s a huge resurgence of new start-ups," said Jayesh Punater, chief executive of Gravitas Technology, whose company builds and manages technology systems for investment firms.
Business Spectator - A group of three former Equigold executives have successfully staged a boardroom coup, replacing the board of Regis Resources in a requisitioned meeting held in Melbourne earlier today.
Mark Clark, Equigold’s former managing director, Nick Giorgetta, the former chairman of Equigold, and Morgan Hart were each elected to the board by an overwhelming 89 per cent of shareholders, including Newmont Corporation. Former Newmont Australia chief executive Paul Dowd, was on the Regis board, but stepped down before the vote went ahead.
Former ASIC chairman Jeff Lucy was another Regis director who stepped down before the vote was held, leaving the company’s founder David Walker as the only man standing to defend the outgoing management’s efforts to take the company from gold explorer to developer to producer.
