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Bloomberg - Salida Capital Corp., a Toronto-based hedge-fund manager with assets of about C$900 million ($834 million), halted redemptions on three of its funds after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Lehman acted as prime broker for Salida’s C$157 million Global Opportunity Fund, the C$85 million Global Prospector Fund and the C$64 million Global Arbitrage Fund, Managing Director Courtenay Wolfe said in an interview.
Salida is one of dozens of investment managers worldwide whose Lehman prime-brokerage accounts were frozen when the New York-based company filed for protection from creditors on Sept. 15. Large securities firms such as Lehman typically offer prime brokerage services to hedge funds and professional investors that borrow stock and cash to invest.
“The Lehman issue is something we are navigating through,” Wolfe said today in a telephone interview from Toronto. “We are working very hard to get the securities back for our firm and our investors because we believe they are rightfully and legally ours.”
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Mooring Financial Corp., a private investment firm specializing in the management of alternative assets, has seen its hedge fund, the Mooring Intrepid Opportunity Fund gain 37% year-to-date, while global hedge fund returns have declined almost 10% this year.
The fund gained by capitalizing on corrections in the high-yield corporate bond, commercial mortgage-backed securities and subprime residential mortgage markets. The Fund has gained 132.1% since its inception on March 1, 2007, the Fund’s highest gain on investment to date.
"The centerpiece of our objective for Mooring Intrepid Opportunity Fund is the expectation of a repricing of risk in the credit markets," said president and founder John Jacquemin, "We mapped out a strategy two years ago in anticipation of the credit markets debacle now taking place. The fund’s positions are volatile and aggressive, and appropriate only for investors who understand these risks."
In recent weeks, the fund has begun to take additional bearish positions in financial and commercial real estate stocks as well as exchange traded funds in anticipation of continued deterioration within these markets.
"We believed strongly that the credit markets had reached a point of excess never before experienced in modern history." Jacqumin explained, "and we felt strongly that the risk/reward ratio was very much in our favor. This has proven to be the case."
The firm has acquired and managed more than $2 billion of financial assets since inception in 1982. Mooring Financial Corporation manages four funds across different asset classes, including distressed commercial loans, real estate tax liens, publicly traded equities and credit derivatives.
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New York (HedgeCo.Net) - Greenwich-based hedge fund SageCrest Finance has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The credit opportunity fund, which grants short-term loan to companies left with few financing alternatives, said its recent losses were due to the condition of the debt markets coupled with mounting lawsuits.
The fund once managed around $900 million. Current assets are listed at $50-$100 million. In addition to providing short term capital to businesses, SageCrest also extended loans to plaintiffs in slip-and-fall lawsuits. They also dabbled in the art world and are caught in a nasty battle mired with scandal to retrieve $40 million which they claim is owed to them.
SageCrest is run by Alan and Philip Morton. The fund has had its recent share of bad press, with two investors suing the company for various reasons this year. Westerly Capital filed a suit in June claiming the managers ran the fund to their own benefit and to the detriment of its clients. This followed an earlier suit by Wood Creek Capital Management, who claimed that SageCrest did not adhere to its redemption policy.
In a petition filed on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Connecticut, SageCrest listed debts in the range of $1 million to $10 million.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Lee Hetfield has joined ARE Asset Management LLC, a distressed credit and distressed real estate asset management company in Florida, as Portfolio Manager.
Hetfield reports that as of May 30, 2008, ARE Asset Management launched ARE Opportunity Fund, Ltd. (British Virgin Islands). The fund works in purchasing mortgage loans, the strategy is generating returns using both loan modifications negotiated with borrowers to create loan re-performance, as well as loss mitigation techniques. Re-performing loans are held for income or sold to securitizers or other investors for a gain.
Loans that cannot re-perform, resulting in “REO” or real estate owned property, are resolved via a property sale or entered into a rental income program. The fund also opportunistically invests in senior commercial loans backed by improved real estate at low LTV’s (50-65% of 90 day liquidated value, 35%-45% of BPO), through high-yielding originations made by an affiliated commercial loan originator, SeaBreeze Financial.
The investment manager currently has $110 million under management under the strategy as that of the fund, and the results since launch have been encouraging: For the month of June the BVI fund was up 1.59%, net of expenses, and July looks to be up ~1.5% (early est.). Prior to the BVI fund launch The Manager has historically managed funds for offshore investors in fixed-term, LLC structures (in the same distressed/credit opportunities strategy).
The team is spearheaded by Jeffrey Kirsch with over 30 years of experience in commercial and residential real estate. He has managed the ARE group of companies, based in Miami, FL, since their founding in 1996. At ARE, Mr. Kirsch has overseen more than $1 billion in performing and non-performing mortgage transactions and has long-standing relationships with private and public-sector sellers.
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Reuters - Greylock Capital, a hedge fund with about $600 million under management, said on Tuesday it hired several former Bear Stearns senior executives, the latest firm to bring in executives from the investment bank sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
New York-based Greylock said it hired A.J. Mediratta, former Bear senior managing director and head of the international debt capital markets group, to be senior managing director.
Mediratta, who was with Bear for a decade, is also joining the Greylock board and will be on the investment committee for Greylock’s flagship Global Opportunity Fund, it said.
Greylock also hired former Bear executives including Andrey Popel from Bear’s leveraged finance team and Anthony Bitz. In Asia, Greylock hired Wei Yeh Sun to be part of its Singapore office.