West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Financial administration automation specialist, Confluence, released a new whitepaper for hedge fund administration executives, entitled "Hedge Fund Reporting: The Change Imperative".

"Mandates from investors, regulators, and auditors are driving significant change in hedge fund back offices," said Kirk Botula, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Confluence. "Each group is demanding new levels of due diligence, transparency, and disclosure that are driving never-before-seen hedge fund reporting requirements. Technology and automation can improve processes and offer the speed, control and flexibility needed in this new reporting environment."

A recent Rothstein Kass survey showed that 98% of hedge fund managers expect increased regulation of the hedge fund industry by the new administration—adding to burdens already imposed by FAS 157, FAS 161, and International Financial Reporting Standards.

The whitepaper also provides practical advice to help ensure that reporting processes are sufficient to meet these heightened demands. It offers best-practice recommendations and includes a "Sample Checklist" to help administrators evaluate their operations, whether they rely on outside service providers or their own internal back offices.

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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Principal at Rothstein Kass, Charles F. Plaveczky will be speaking at a webinar for hedge fund managers interested in meeting the growing demands for increased reporting transparency and control, according to fund manager and host Confluence.

“As the April 30 hedge fund financial reporting cycle clearly demonstrated, prevailing error-prone manual processes for hedge fund reporting are far too brittle and inflexible—and they lack the scalability to meet increasingly complex reporting requirements,” said Plaveczky. “The pressure for greater flexibility and control will only increase with the adoption of additional reporting rules, and challenge current processes even more.”

The webinar entitled “The Change Imperative for Hedge Fund Reporting” and will take place on Friday, May 29 at 11:00 am EDT.

Kirk Botula, Chief Operating Officer of Confluence, will also provide information on new hedge fund reporting trends and challenges, discussing processes to maximize accuracy, efficiency and control in the reporting process as hedge funds deal with a variety of reporting requirements—such as FAS 157 fair market reporting, FAS 161 disclosures about derivative instruments and hedging activities, and how new International Financial Accounting Standards from IASB will challenge prevailing back-office reporting processes.

“Multiple stakeholders are demanding greater reporting diligence from hedge funds and their administrators. Regulators are clearly focused on greater transparency, investors are demanding additional disclosures and more frequent reporting, and accounting and auditor firms are mandating improved process control and documentation,” said Botula. “Hedge funds must consider how technology and automation can improve their reporting processes in order to provide the speed, control and flexibility needed to weather a new era of reporting transparency and control.”

Hedge fund companies and their fund administration service providers can register for this complimentary webinar at www.confluence.com/GETCONTROL. Individuals who register will also receive Confluence’s new whitepaper, Hedge Fund Reporting: The Change Imperative.

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The Australian – After suffering one of the worst years on record, Australia’s $62 billion hedge fund industry is bracing for even tougher times in 2009 as a confluence of factors works against them, including poor performance, more regulation, further short-selling bans, and a flood of redemption requests in late 2008 that are due to be repaid right about now.

The result is that an unprecedented level of cash is being pulled out of hedge funds and funds-of-hedge-funds by investors this quarter, just as they face millions of dollars of losses from the ban on short selling.

It is no surprise, then, that a lot of lobbying is going on behind the scenes to ensure that corporate watchdog ASIC lifts the ban on short selling financial stocks on January 27.

But speculation is running hot that the ban will be rolled over and some believe it could remain until the credit crisis subsides — a move hedge funds can ill afford.

In Britain, the ban is due to be lifted on January 17, but Andrew Baker, deputy chief executive of the Alternative Investment Management Association, recently said the ban could last for the entire length of the financial crisis.

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