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 – Clients of Spain’s BBVA Patrimonios have cut hedge fund exposure by more than two-thirds over the past year after disappointing returns, says its chief investment officer, who believes the industry is in meltdown.
"Appetite for hedge funds has diminished dramatically," Enrique Marazuela told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit, adding that hedge funds had not met his clients’ return and risk expectations.
"The idea customers had about hedge funds was that they were going to have absolute returns and hedge funds controlled the risks."
However, hedge fund returns have disappointed many investors this year in high market volatility.
Hedge Fund Research’s HFRI index fell 4.68 percent in September, its second worst month after August 1998′s 8.7 percent drop, taking the year-to-date loss to 9.41 percent.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Argo Group, an emerging markets investment manager, announced the launch of The Era Shopping Park Iasi. Projected to generate EUR 18 million ($25.7 million) in annual rental income the launch is funded by Argo’s private equity fund, the Argo Capital Partners Fund 1, together with a local joint venture partner, Omilos Group.
"From Argo’s perspective this has been an excellent investment," says Argo Capital Management chief investment officer Andreas Rialas. "Through our partnership with Omilos we acquired two excellent sites at a time when property and land prices were relatively low. Since then both projects are well advanced and demonstrating their potential to generate substantial returns."
The Park is the first of two planned retail parks to operate under the Era Shopping Park brand. The Iasi retail park will be the largest outside of Bucharest and the second largest in Romania.
Based in Romania’s second largest city, situated in the north-east of the country close to the Moldovan border. The Era Shopping Park Iasi will offer on completion more than 115,000 square metres of gross lettable area.
The second facility planned, the Era Shopping Park Oradea, is located in Oradea in the north-west of Romania, close to the Hungarian border. This smaller project with a gross lettable area of 65,000 square metres is expected to open in March next year. The Oradea site is projected to generate annual rental income of EUR 10.5 million.
"Economically, Romania continues to perform strongly. Following its EU accession, there has been a significant uplift in consumer spending and as demonstrated by tenant demand for Era, western European retailers are increasing their presence in the country," Rialas concluded.
The Argo Group has significant experience in property notably through the Argo Real Estate Opportunities Fund, a Guernsey-domiciled closed-ended investment company that invests in the commercial property markets of Central and Eastern Europe. The AIM-listed company is managed by Argo Capital Management Property, which has offices in London, Bucharest and Kiev.
The Argo Capital Partners Fund I was launched in August 2006 to focus on delivering private equity returns from different types of investments and situations in emerging markets. The fund, which was launched targeting a minimum internal rate of return of 40 per cent, has not yet exited any investments.
Its current portfolio includes Infarmasa, a generics pharmaceutical company in Peru, Nigerian commercial and retail bank Intercontinental Bank, Greek triple-play telecommunications Telecoms and Russian regional bank Probusinessbank as well as the Era Shopping Parks.
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Bloomberg – Hedge funds that profit from turbulence in the financial markets are beating stock, bond and commodity investments for the first time in five years.
Volatility hedge funds climbed 7.3 percent this year through August, according to the Newedge Volatility Trading Index. The average equity fund fell 8.38 percent, corporate fixed-income funds declined 4 percent, and energy and basic- materials stock funds dropped 6.36 percent in the same period, data compiled by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. show.
“Nobody knows the direction of the markets or economy at the moment, and we’re profiting from that uncertainty,” said Trevor Taylor, 35, co-chief investment officer at Miami-based Innovative Options Management LLC. The firm’s $90 million hedge fund rose 12.3 percent this year through August, after returning 25 percent in 2007.
Price swings that helped Taylor started with the collapse of subprime mortgages that have left the world’s biggest banks with $506 billion of writedowns and credit losses in the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 19 percent since October as credit dried up and the U.S. economy edged to the brink of recession.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Privately owned asset manager, Unigestion, has appointed Konstantinos Iordanidis as Managing Director and Head of Hedge Funds. Unigestion has $11 billion invested in hedge funds, private equity funds and quantitative equity strategies.
Iordanidis is a co-founder of Z.I. Investment, LLC, a global macro hedge fund in Chicago and former Head of Asset Allocation at Julius Baer Asset Management in Zurich from 2003 to 2005. He joins from Olympia Capital Management in Paris where he has been Co-Chief Investment Officer since 2005.
Based in Geneva, his role will be to lead the development of Unigestion’s fund of hedge funds business which comprises 43 investment professionals based in Geneva, London, New York, Paris, Singapore and Guernsey.
The arrival of Iordanidis will provide the opportunity for Bernard Sabrier, Chairman of Unigestion, and Patrick Fenal, CEO, to devote more time to the overall management of the Group focusing on the strategic direction of Unigestion over the next decade. Both will continue to have a key involvement in the fund of hedge fund business, including close relationships with hedge fund managers and Unigestion’s clients.
"It is a natural move for us to reinforce our management structure as we continue to build a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural and multi-geographic hedge fund team delivering superior quality products to our clients in a consistent and disciplined way." Patrick Fenal, CEO of Unigestion said.
"We are proud to have attracted such a talented individual to strengthen our team." Chairman of Unigestion Bernard Sabrier added, "No doubt he and the team will build on our existing expertise and continue to provide our clients with a combination of products and client service at the leading edge of the fund of hedge fund industry."
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Reuters India – Goldman Sachs said it has regulatory approval to launch mutual funds in India, Asia’s third-largest economy, joining the likes of AIG, JPMorgan and South Korea’s Mirae Asset who have started operations in the past 18 months.
Adam Broder will be the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Company (India) and Prashant Khemka will be chief investment officer, the firm said in a statement on Monday.
"India is one of the most important countries to our Asian business and we have a long-term strategic commitment to this market," Broder said.
India’s 35 member funds industry managed about 5.4 trillion rupees at the end of July, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India showed.
While the industry has been hit by a fall of about 30 percent in the Indian stock market this year, Boston Consulting Group has forecast assets could more than quadruple by 2015.
New York Post – Former Goldman Sachs exec Steve Mandis has left the $12 billion hedge fund Halcyon Asset Management – one of the oldest hedge funds on Wall Street, according to an investor letter.
Mandis was vice chairman and chief investment officer at Halcyon Structured Asset Management LP, a lending subsidiary of Halcyon that he helped co-found about four years ago with about $1 billion in capital.
According to an investor letter issued Tuesday and obtained by The Post, Mandis’ departure is "effective immediately," and the firm expects to announce a succession plan "as soon as possible."
Although the official reason for Mandis’ departure could not be learned, people familiar with the matter said his lending subsidiary had been performing poorly and was drawing the ire of some of the firm’s biggest institutional investors.
CNBC – As losses mount, hedge funds no longer have the ability to drive speculation in the markets, Hugh Hendry, chief investment officer and partner at Eclectica hedge fund told "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday.
"There is no role for speculation or speculators today. This is kaput," Hendry said. "If we were Second World War generals, we’ve exposed our flanks. We’ve been wiped out. This is about fundamentals … this is about losing money."
As the crisis unfolds, the policymakers’ focus should shift from the threat of inflation to that of the world economic downturn, which could be more severe than economists anticipate, he said.
China, which many believe will balance out slowdowns elsewhere, will struggle if difficulties in the U.S. continue, while the current spike in producer prices is just a hangover from rising oil prices earlier this year, Hendry said.
"I fear that the central bankers of the world are fighting yesterday’s battle," he said.
Bloomberg – Rogers Investment Advisors Y.K., a Tokyo-based hedge fund adviser, has hired Yoshiaki Iizuka and Eric Chong as it expects to more than double assets by the year-end.
Iizuka, 52, joined Rogers Investment on Aug. 1 as a managing director and head of Japanese research in Tokyo, after his most recent stint as chief investment officer of Tokyo-based Traders Investment Management Co., now JPS Asset Management Co., Ed Rogers, chief executive officer of Rogers Investment, said in an interview in Tokyo. Iizuka was chief executive officer of American Express Financial Advisors Japan Inc., Rogers said.
Chong, 36, joined Wolver Hill Advisors in New York, the U.S. counterpart of Rogers Investment, in mid-July, as a risk manager, Rogers said. He was most recently a risk manager at Societe Generale Asset Management Inc. in New York, where he was responsible for risk evaluation and analysis for a $5 billion fund of hedge funds, according to Rogers. Prior to that, Chong was a vice president at Stamford, Connecticut-based K2 Advisors LLC, a $6 billion multi-strategy fund of hedge funds.
Wall Street Journal – Eager to keep one of its key employees, publicly traded Fortress Investment Group LLC has lavished a $300 million share grant on one of its star traders, 38-year-old Adam Levinson.
Mr. Levinson, who also is the chief investment officer of one the firm’s main funds, joins the private-equity and hedge-fund giant’s five other controlling shareholders, who together hold some $3 billion of company stock. These executives haven’t sold any shares since the company went public in 2007 and own 77% of the business.
Fortress has struggled mightily in its 18 months as a public company, losing two-thirds of its peak value amid brutal markets for financial firms.
Mr. Levinson’s windfall — which was alluded to in a May filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission — highlights the quandary of publicly traded private-investment outfits. On the one hand, they must compensate elite traders and dealmakers richly enough so they don’t leave for a competitor or start their own firms. The heads of large private hedge funds such as Citadel Investment Group and Paulson & Co. can — and have — earned billions of dollars in a single year.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Established leader in the management of fund of hedge funds, Tremont Capital Management, has appointed Scott R. Metchick as Chief Investment Officer. Metchick brings to Tremont over 20 years of experience in the fund of hedge fund industry and a proven performance record.
"The role of the fund of hedge funds is even more important for investors in today’s market which makes Tremont’s over 20 years of experience and dedication to excellence critical factors in delivering the products and performance that our clients need and deserve," said Metchick. "I’m excited to join the firm and look forward to all that’s ahead of us."
Tremont says his demonstrated ability to manage a defined process-oriented investment philosophy while managing a global investment team complements the existing investment approach at Tremont, allowing the firm to deepen its presence in key global institutional and distribution markets.
"Investment excellence is core to our strategy of establishing a scalable, institutional standard multimanager fund of funds business," said Rupert Allan, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Scott’s appointment represents the execution of the final phase of this strategy by capping a series of senior hires which, together with our existing expertise in the investment management group, completes the leadership team at Tremont."
Metchick’s hire as CIO, replacing Cynthia Nicoll who left Tremont for personal reasons, is the most recent in a succession of senior appointments in the investment team including Andrew Kaneb, former head of Global Equities at Lighthouse Partners, and Jim Purnell, who came from the structured product group at Dresdner Bank to lead the risk management group at Tremont.
Allan has moved quickly within a challenging external environment since becoming CEO last year, adding to his role as President. "Now more than ever," said Allan, "clients want to know that they are working with an investment manager that has the experience, the infrastructure and the ability to deliver on a mandate in various market conditions with the products and solutions they need. We now have the team in place to do just that."
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Reuters HK- SAIL Advisors Ltd, one of Asia’s largest homegrown fund of hedge fund managers, said on Wednesday it hired former Goldman Sachs Group Inc managing director Vincent Duhamel as its new chief executive.
Hong Kong-based Duhamel will replace Eliza Lau, who previously served as both chief executive and chief investment officer. SAIL said Lau would remain as CIO and continue to oversee its portfolios. The Hong Kong-based firm had about $2.5 billion in assets under management as of the end of June.
Duhamel, who will start as CEO on September 17, was with Goldman in Asia from 2005 until earlier this year.
The Canadian executive initially ran its asset management business in the region, before the role was taken over by Oliver Bolitho. He moved on to help lead the unit’s sovereign wealth fund and central bank strategy.
Bizjournals.com- The Florida State Board of Administration is negotiating with hedge fund manager Ashbel C. Williams Jr. for the position of executive director and chief investment officer.
Williams is a former executive director of the Florida SBA, a former assistant controller for the state, and currently is managing director of New York area hedge fund manager Fir Tree Partners.
At their July 2 meeting, trustees instructed Robert Milligan, interim executive director of the SBA, to negotiate contract terms with Williams, said Dennis MacKee, the board’s communication director. Milligan is expected to bring a proposed contract for approval back to the board.
