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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund adviser, Hennessee Group LLC, announced that the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index advanced +3.84% in April (+5.02% YTD).
“April continued to be a challenging environment for hedge funds, as the market rally was driven by short covering and momentum, rather than changes in fundamentals,” commented Charles Gradante, Co-Founder of Hennessee Group. “While we have seen some improvement in data (most typically that the rate of deterioration is slowing), most funds remain conservatively positioned. Funds are cautious and will wait for fundamentals to improve before significantly expanding their net exposures.”
“Hedge funds underperformed again in April, but have still outperformed year to date. Volatility remains elevated with the S&P 500 experiencing a gain or loss greater than 8% each month this year,” said Lee Hennessee , Managing Principal of Hennessee Group . “Last year hedge funds did a good job of protecting capital, so they don’t need a huge rally to reach a new high water mark. Equity markets would need to double from current levels to reach their previous high.”
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Indopia – Britain’s leading entrepreneurs are considering to leave the country as a mark of protest against UK Chancellor Alistair Darling’s new 50 per cent tax rate, a media report says.
" Hugh Osmond, the pubs to insurance entrepreneur, is thinking about a move to Switzerland. Peter Hargreaves, the 10 million-pound-a-year co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, the financial adviser, is looking at the Isle of Man or Monaco," the Sunday Times said adding," More are likely to follow."
As per the latest budget, from next year anyone earning more than 150,000 pounds a year will have to pay 50 per cent as income tax. The move replaced the 45 per cent tax bracket threatened in the pre-budget report last November.
Businessmen have warned that raising taxes on the rich would do nothing to boost the exchequer, as the wealthy can always find ways to avoid it.
Bloomberg - Pengana Capital Ltd., a Sydney- based asset manager that oversees A$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion), aims to increase the amount of hedge fund assets that bet on market swings by six times in two years.
Pengana is seeking to grow assets managed by its Chicago- based volatility team to $2.5 billion from about $420 million currently, Russel Pillemer, co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview yesterday. Pengana’s Global Volatility Master Fund returned 19.3 percent last year, while the hedge fund industry fell an average 19 percent.
Bloomberg – Octagon Capital Management Pte, run by former managers of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.’s quantitative-investment group, plans to start a fund that seeks to profit from broad economic trends.
Octagon, which uses computer models to pick trades, will raise money “in the near future” for a quantitative macro fund that wagers on currencies, equities, interest rates and commodities in Asia, said Lam Poh Min, 39, co-founder of the Singapore-based hedge-fund firm, in an interview. The firm is looking for a “more opportune time” to start the fund, Lam said yesterday.
North Country Gazette – The brother of the former chief financial officer of the bankrupt hedge fund firm Bayou Group LLC has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison of his role in concealing a $400 million fraud.
Matthew Marino, brother of Daniel Marino, was also ordered to pay $60 million in restitution.
Prosecutors say that Marino knew about the fraud on the investors in the now-collapsed Bayou Hedge Funds and took steps to conceal it. His brother is serving 20 years for the scheme as is Bayou co-founder Samuel Israel.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – March was a challenging month for hedge funds, which entered the month with tight net exposures, according to research by hedge fund consultant Hennessee LLC.
Technology and healthcare/biotech were bright spots for hedge funds, as these sectors were relative outperformers. While the strong equity rally did cause short squeezes, most hedge fund managers expect short portfolios to generate profits in the near term.
The Hennessee Hedge Fund Index advanced +1.37% in March (+1.09% YTD), while the S&P 500 advanced +8.54% (-11.67% YTD).
“Most funds were caught with tight net exposures and were unable to participate in the rally," Charles Gradante, Co-Founder of Hennessee Group said, "Managers were also hurt as the sectors they have been heavily short, such as financials, consumer discretionary and materials, were the sectors that rallied the strongest.”
“Despite the underperformance in March relative to the equity benchmarks, hedge funds are still outperforming for the year,” said Lee Hennessee , Managing Principal of Hennessee Group. “We expect that we will continue to see volatility throughout the year.”
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Bloombergb – Hedge funds and private-equity firms, after opposing increased federal oversight for years, said they can’t escape the Obama administration’s plan to include them in an overhaul of U.S. financial regulation.
“We’re not going to be able to stand in the way of that speeding train,” David Rubenstein, co-founder of private-equity firm Carlyle Group, said at a conference in New York yesterday.
Bloomberg – Bret Grebow, co-founder of hedge fund HMC International LLC, was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding investors out of $7.8 million in what prosecutors said was “a classic Ponzi scheme.”
Grebow, of Highland, Florida, was also ordered to forfeit $7.8 million after pleading guilty last year to investment adviser fraud. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in Manhattan imposed the sentence. Grebow, 33, faced a maximum prison sentence of five years.
“He was very remorseful,” defense attorney Vincent Gelardi said in an interview after today’s sentencing. “He was young at the time. He lost control of the situation.”
CNNMoney.com – In what looks like a sign of the hard times in the hedge fund world, AQR Capital Management – one of the industry’s biggest names – is opening its doors to the retail market.
In January, the investment management firm launched its Diversified Arbitrage Fund, its first mutual fund. Its Class I shares are up just 0.15% through the end of February, but that doesn’t look so bad compared with the S&P 500, which dropped 12.5% during the same period.
AQR says it wants to give average investors access to strategies that were once only available to hedge fund clients. While the fund may not be designed as a main holding, David Kabiller, co-founder of AQR with Cliff Asness, John Liew and Robert Krail says it can help individual investors balance out their portfolios.
Reuters – Many gamblers have been forced to sell financial assets to cover bets on horses, but it is less common for a lover of thoroughbreds to sell a farm because of bad bets on investments.
But that may be what is happening to the co-founder of hedge fund firm Fairfield Greenwich Group, which lost more than half of its assets in Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion (34 billion pounds) fraud.
Hedge fund manager Jeffrey Tucker’s horse farms near the 146-year-old Saratoga Race Track about 180 miles (290 km) north of New York City could be going up for sale, according to a real estate broker.
Paul Volcker, one of the men President-elect Barack Obama is counting on to save the U.S. economy, last night helped the Museum of American Finance raise about $470,000 at a gala dinner.
The former Federal Reserve chairman’s Rolodex and clout helped the museum come within $30,000 of the money raised at its inaugural gala before the crisis started last year.
Jeanne Driscoll, the museum’s development director, smiled as patrons arrived, including Merrill Lynch & Co. Vice Chairman William McDonough and Blackstone Group L.P. co-founder Pete Peterson. She said a Volcker-less affair and the absence of many of his rich and powerful friends would have raised much less in the current economy, which he is charged with fixing as head of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Times Online – A French investment manager who entrusted $2.1 billion (£1.42 billion) with Bernard Madoff was found dead in New York yesterday.
Thierry de la Villehuchet is thought to have committed suicide. He was found early yesterday morning in his office on Madison Avenue by a security guard.
He was found at his desk with both wrists slashed, with a box cutter (similar to a Stanley knife) and a bottle of sleeping pills on the floor, according to the Associated Press, citing NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Mr Villehuchet, 65, was the co-founder and chief executive of Access International Advisors, a fund management company.
