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.
NYT – James H. Simons, one of the most respected money managers in the hedge fund industry, told investors Thursday he planned to step down from day-to-day management of Renaissance Technologies, the firm he founded over 30 years ago.
Mr. Simons, 71, plans to become the nonexecutive chairman of Renaissance on Jan. 1 but will remain the firm’s majority shareholder and participate in all major corporate decisions, he said in a letter to investors.
Peter Brown and Robert Mercer, who have been co-presidents of the firm, will be elevated to co-chief executives and have responsibility for the firm’s 300 employees.
Crain – For years, Dan Loeb was the hedge fund world’s hanging judge, firing off blistering letters to hapless chief executives that condemned them for their shortcomings.
“Do what you do best,” he hissed in a 2005 letter to a soon-to-be-gone CEO. “Retreat to your waterfront mansion in the Hamptons. … The matter of repairing the mess you have created should be left to professional management.”
How times change. After years of posting average gains of 27%, Mr. Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund crashed to earth last year with a shattering 33% loss. In response, many investors grabbed their money and ran, driving assets under management to less than $2 billion from more than $5 billion previously. Now it’s Mr. Loeb who’s left to clean things up—or face oceanfront exile.
Reuters – Top former Merrill Lynch executives, including two former CEOs, invested in hedge funds that lost money with alleged fraudster Bernard Madoff, becoming the highest-level Wall Street victims of the scandal to date, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Former chief executives Daniel Tully and David Komansky and former investment-banking chief Barry Friedberg personally invested in the funds, set up by former Merrill brokerage chief John Steffens, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC collapsed after the 70-year-old Wall Street trader was arrested and charged on December 11 last year with securities fraud.
Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, is under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance in his luxury Manhattan penthouse apartment as criminal and civil investigators probe his global operations that purportedly lost $50 billion.
The firm comprised a brokerage and an investment division that Madoff ran separately in the same New York building.
Idaho State Journal – Several prominent hedge fund managers told Congress Thursday they support a new central exchange to open the murky world of some complex investments partly blamed for the global financial crisis, but stopped short of endorsing stricter regulation of hedge funds themselves.
The managers testified at a House hearing examining the role of hedge funds in the crisis, and the risks that critics say they pose to the financial system. Hedge funds, vast pools of capital holding an estimated $2.5 trillion in assets, operate mostly outside of government supervision.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros, who runs a hedge fund, said new regulations were needed to gauge the underlying financial strength of banks. But he warned against "going overboard" with regulations that could do more damage than good to the financial system.
