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.
New York Times – Jean-Pierre Aguilar, a pioneer in hedge fund investing in Europe and chief executive and co-founder of Capital Fund Management, died in a gliding accident over the weekend, the company said in a letter to investors Sunday. He was 49.
The accident, which occurred late Saturday morning near the airport of Barcelonnette, a town in the French Alps about 12 miles, or 20 kilometers, from the Italian border, also killed Mr. Aguilar’s co-pilot, Michel Fache, 56, president of the local gliding club, according to the local newspaper La Provence.
Assan Din, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. credit trader, is setting up a hedge fund to trade corporate bonds and derivatives in Asia.
SaKa Capital’s fund, which will have a capacity of more than $500 million, will start in September with $25 million to $50 million sourced mainly from founding members and friends, Din, 38, said. The Singapore-based firm will subsequently raise capital from institutional investors, including U.S. pension funds and endowments, once it builds a track record, he added.
Times Online – Hedge funds are on course to deliver their best first-half performance in a decade, as investors renew their faith in the sector in the wake of last year’s calamitous losses.
Hedge funds worldwide returned 5.63 per cent to their investors in the year to last Thursday, according to Hedge Fund Research (HFR), the Chicago-based research firm that compiles daily statistics on performance.
Strategies that predict big directional market moves made profits of 12.52 per cent over the period as equity markets in Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific posted strong gains and liquidity gradually returned to the credit markets.
Reuters India – Lenders to French roofing company Monier Group have approved a restructuring deal that sees a group of debt investors take control of the company, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.
The deal is one of the largest "loan to own" restructurings in Europe, and has been led by debt investors Apollo Management [APOLO.UL], TowerBrook and York Capital.
Bloomberg – Asian hedge funds are attracting growing interest from investors as managers focusing on the region outperform global peers, said Andrew Hill, director of prime finance for Asia-Pacific markets at Citigroup Inc.
“There are pockets of proprietary money looking to be put to work in Asia,” Singapore-based Hill said in a June 12 interview. “There is going to be an outsized investment back into Asia. Some of the big pensions are going to be looking at Asia; it’s coming onto the radar screens.”
Asia-focused hedge funds gained 12.4 percent in the first five months of the year, outpacing returns in the U.S. and Europe, according to Eurekahedge Pte. That’s a reversal from last year, when clients withdrew almost $24 billion from the region’s hedge funds as managers posted bigger losses than global peers, the Singapore-based industry data provider reported.
New York Times – In mid-March, with the global stock markets plunging, Philippe Jabre, a hedge fund manager based in Geneva, started buying bombed out financial stocks in the United States, Europe and Asia.
A procession of sleepless nights followed as he wondered whether his bets would pan out, or send his nascent $2.5 billion fund outfit reeling.
Now, with his main fund up 30 percent this year, rest comes a little more easily.
Citywire.co.uk – To analyse all of Europe’s absolute return funds on a variety ofg risk-return measures and see a comprehensive league table of performance visit our new zone here
The CF KB Endeavour Absolute Return fund slipped into negative territory last September as the fallout from the collapse of Lehman Brothers rippled across several major asset classes.
The fund suffered its highest drawdown to date, shedding -16.75%, which effectively wiped out all of the gains it had made since launch in July 2006, and then some.
Bloomberg – Regulating hedge funds is one thing. Shackling them is another.
It’s difficult to tell which one is the ultimate objective of authorities in the U.S. and Europe as they push for greater oversight of these alternative investment managers.
There are reasons to worry officials will opt for whips and chains.
President Barack Obama last week showed why. Speaking of Chrysler LLC’s bankruptcy filing, he heaped blame on “a group of investment firms and hedge funds.” The funds, the president said, had refused to put wider government and auto-industry interests ahead of their own.
Bloomberg – Companies with the most debt and lowest returns on assets are turning the biggest six-week rally in stocks since 1938 into a bloodbath for last year’s best- performing trading strategy.
Investors in so-called quantitative momentum funds — which speculate that the worst stocks in the past 12 months will continue to decline — have become this year’s biggest losers after banks and companies that rely on consumer spending surged. Quant momentum managers may have tumbled 27 percent this month in the U.S., the most since at least 1993, while those in Europe may have lost 20 percent in March and 24 percent in April, according to data compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Reuters – World stocks steadied on Friday but were still on track for a sixth consecutive week of gains, while the euro fell on worries about the region’s prospects.
MSCI‘s main world stock index was flat despite modest gains in Europe and a rebound in Japan. But the index was up 1.6 percent on the week, gaining around 28 percent since a March 9 low.
U.S. financial services firmState Street said evidence was building that big investors were buying into the rally, particularly in U.S. and emerging market stocks.
Financial Standard – The financial crisis could bridge the gap between diametrically opposed asset managers with more hedge funds merging with long-only funds to slash operational costs, predicts consultancy firm Accenture.
Mark Halverson, global executive partner, wealth & asset management, at Accenture Capital Markets said one of the fallouts of the market crisis is that in Europe, some hedge funds and private equity firms with long-only asset managers are merging their businesses either to stay afloat or to halve operational costs.
Financial Times – The top three executives at GLG Partners, until recently Europe’s biggest hedge fund, have cut their salaries to $1 (69p) as the global financial turmoil puts pressure on senior managers to waive their pay.
Noam Gottesmann and Pierre Lagrange, the "G" and "L" in GLG, and Manny Roman, co-chief executive with Mr Gottesmann, said in a regulatory filing that they had agreed to take $1 in salary from April to the end of the year. They receive no bonus, although all are big shareholders.
