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.
Telegraph.co.uk – Mark McGoldrick, a former Goldman Sachs trader whose track record earned him the nickname ‘Goldfinger’ during his career with the Wall Street bank, is making a comeback with a new $5bn (£2.8bn) fund.
McGoldrick, who famously earned $70m a year ($200,000 a day), but resigned because it was not enough, has asked his old firm to raise money for a super hedge fund that will concentrate on special situations.
While at Goldman Sachs, McGoldrick was head of distressed and special situations investing in Asia. He co-founded and built the firm’s secretive ‘special-situations group’, Goldman’s elite and opaque money-making machine, which buys and sells eclectic assets including British power plants, Japanese golf courses and Thai auto loans.
Reuters – LaSalle Investment Management has raised a $3 billion (1.64 billion pounds) "opportunity" fund for Asian property, saying it is interested in investing in Japan, China and South Korea.
The fund management unit of property services firm Jones Lang LaSalle said in a statement on Friday that the fund would use borrowing to boost its spending power to as much as $12 billion.
The company told Reuters in June that it expects assets under management in Asia to double in the next three years from about $11 billion now.
"Asia remains a key strategic priority for our business and we have a very active plan to grow our operations in the region," LaSalle’s managing director Philip Ling said in the statement.
Reuters – JPMorgan plans to invest more than $1 billion in Asian real estate over the next three years, hoping to fill a gap as Indian and Chinese developers crave funds and rival investors recoil from property markets.
The investment bank, which has fared better than some Wall Street rivals because of smaller exposure to U.S. subprime mortgage investments, is using its special opportunities group to finance Asian property firms and their projects.
"It’s a fantastic opportunity for us at a time when a lot of our competitors are scaling down because of difficulties accessing their balance sheet," the group’s Asia real estate head, Bryan Southergill, told Reuters in an interview.
Reuters Singapore – Investors almost halved the money they put into Asia-focused hedge funds in the second quarter compared to the first three months of the year as a selloff in stocks hurt appetite for risky assets, data showed.
Asia-focused hedge funds received a net $530 million (268 million pounds) from investors in the April-June quarter, down from $1 billion in the first quarter, Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research said in a statement released late on Thursday.
Asian hedge funds grew by approximately $200 million to $100.48 billion, up just 0.25 percent from the first quarter, as inflows were mostly offset by a decline of nearly $320 million due to poor performance.
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.
FT Alphaville- New figures from Singapore’s central bank bear out the (abundant) anecdotal evidence of the quickening exodus of Asia-focused hedge funds out of Japan and elsewhere and into Singapore.
Reuters reports that assets managed by fund managers in Singapore grew 32 per cent to S$1,173bn ($862bn) last year, driven by a doubling in assets held by hedge funds.
Assets managed by hedge fund managers in Singapore doubled to close to S$80bn in the year, while the number of hedge fund firms in Singapore increased by more than 50 per cent to almost 300, according to the island state’s Monetary Authority. Meanwhile institutional investors such as pension funds, endowments, foundations, companies and financial institutions accounted for 43 per cent of the funds.
FINalternatives- Global hedge fund assets under management increased 30% in 2007 to a record $2.25 trillion, according to a new International Financial Services report.
Most of this growth was in the first three quarters, as market turbulence in the latter part of the year resulted in a slowdown in inflow of new funds and a decline in average returns.
New York remained the leading global location for hedge fund managers, with 40% of global assets, but its share was down from 50% in 2002 as growth of the hedge fund industry in Europe and Asia outpaced growth in the U.S. This was largely a result of a rise in institutional portfolio allocation into hedge funds in these regions during this period.
Boston Globe- The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday said that it and other regulators would begin examining rumor-spreading intended to manipulate securities prices.
The timing of the announcement, made before the markets opened in Asia, was meant to warn broker-dealers, hedge funds, and investment advisers to quell any spreading of rumors before trading started today.
The SEC has been engaged in an internal debate over what kind of investigation to mount with respect to rumors. The turbulence in the markets last week, with rumors adding to concerns about fundamentals affecting commercial banks, investment banks, and the government-chartered enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sped the decision to begin the examination and make it public.
"Traders know there is false information in the market. They need to think twice if they are going to pass it on," said Lori Richards, an SEC official.
Bloomberg- Asian hedge funds are increasing their use of multiple prime brokers after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapse heightened the risk of relying on a single investment bank for brokerage services, an AsiaHedge survey found.
Hedge funds that are managed in Asia or invest primarily in the region awarded 326 shared mandates to prime brokers, 36 percent more than last year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on information in AsiaHedge’s 2007 and 2008 Asian prime brokerage surveys. The pace of growth exceeded the less than 20 percent increase in sole mandates to 778 in the past year.
Rising delinquencies in the subprime market that led to the near collapse of Bear Stearns Cos., once among the top three Wall Street prime brokers, have forced the world’s largest banks and securities firms to post more than $400 billion of asset writedowns and credit losses since the beginning of last year.
New York – Hong Kong based hedge fund manager, PCM Capital, has successfully launched it second Fund of Funds (FoF) – PCM Green Power Fund on 1st, April 2008. The fund (Class A) returned 1.34% and 1.10% in the first two months respectively.
The new “Green” fund – with its emphasis on Asia – trades or invests in a number of environmental and alternative energy related sectors including clean energy, water management, waste management, power trading, CO2 derivatives and environmental technologies.
Norman Chan, CIO of PCM Capital, said, “We are launching this product in response to the compelling investment opportunities emerging in the environmental sectors, particularly in Asia. In addition, there is increasing demand from institutional investors for exposure to environmental related investment.”
Norman further added, “The demand reflects growing environmental awareness, attractive upside potential and solid diversification benefits.”
Established in 2006, PCM Capital has two funds under management – PCM Asia Pioneer Fund and PCM Green Power Fund.
For more information, please visit www.pcm-cap.com
Reuters India- CQS has hired former Barclays Capital managing director David Kilgore as its head of trading in Hong Kong, part of a broader push by the $9.6 billion (4.9 billion pound) UK hedge fund manager to expand its presence in high-growth Asia.
CQS, a specialist in convertible bond arbitrage, is looking at further expanding its 20-person Hong Kong office and the launch of additional Asia-focused hedge funds is possible, CQS director Brian Pohli said on Tuesday.
"There are a number of different businesses we can bolt on here. But it depends on the skill set of the folks available and the complementary nature of the fit into our existing platform," he told Reuters in an interview at the firm’s Hong Kong office.
BusinessWeek- Assets invested in Asia-focused hedge-fund strategies fell about 10% in the first quarter of 2008, with industry assets under management plummeting from $110 billion to $100 billion, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research.
Net allocations to Asia-only strategies also decreased in the first three months of the year, although net allocations to global emerging-market strategies, which include Asian markets, increased by $1 billion.
On a global basis, the hedge-fund industry attracted a net of $16.5 billion in the first quarter (versus receiving $194 billion throughout 2007), with total capital under management virtually flat over the quarter at $1.9 trillion.
