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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Top financial industry leaders and more than 200 attendees gathered in New York late last week discuss the volatile hedge fund market and provide insights on distressed funds.
Sponsored by global offshore law firm Walkers, the "Fighting the Tape" seminar included a wide variety of speakers offered a comprehensive look at the changes in the market over the past year, as well as predictions for what the alternative investment funds industry can expect in the months ahead.
The experts anticipate a new era of hedge fund regulation, greater flexibility and versatility in hedge fund offering documents, broader discretion for fund managers, and continued growth in many of the world’s key economies such as China, India, Russia, Brazil, the Middle East, and South Korea.
Investment manager George Hall, founder and president of The Clinton Group gave his personal views on the financial crisis and what the market might see under President-elect Barack Obama. While he felt it was too early to say how the "Obama factor" might influence the hedge fund industry, Mr. Hall said that he hoped the new President would make good choices when selecting his Treasury Secretary and a leader for the SEC.
"The true impact of the US credit crisis will not be tangible for many months to come," Yolanda McCoy, head of the Investments and Securities Division at the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) said, although she was able to confirm that to date they were aware of a total of 340 Cayman funds that had been impacted by the problems with Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG, with more than 200 of those affected by issues with Lehman.
Professor Jeffrey Rosensweig, director of the Global Perspectives Program at Goizueta Business School at Emory University, closed the seminar with insights into the investment opportunities presented by this current stage in the cycle, shifting the focus from New York and London to emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, China, the Middle East and India.
"The world adds 100 people every 42 seconds," Professor Rosensweig said, "and 98% of that population growth is in the emerging markets." Pointing to the expectation of long-term continued economic expansion in these regions, Professor Rosensweig said this massive population growth, combined with a move out of poverty in these regions, presents real future opportunities for investors.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – GlobeOp announced the strengthening its European-domiciled hedge fund administration services following the licensing of its Dublin office by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, expanding the company’s existing fund administration network based in the Cayman Islands and the USA.
The office is led by Jim Casey, GlobeOp’s global head of investor relations,"Ireland is a strategically important administrative center for European domiciled funds," Casey said, "Despite market turbulence this past year, the European funds sector continues to develop its long-term potential. I look forward to building a Dublin team whose best practices further strengthen our fund administration services globally.”
"The GlobeOp Ireland license allows us to directly service Irish domiciled funds and support European hedge fund clients and their investors with full fund administration services," Vernon Barback, GlobeOp president and chief operating officer said, "This includes independent and transparent fund performance reporting.”
The GlobeOp Ireland license allows GlobeOp to directly service Irish domiciled funds and support European hedge fund clients and their investors with full fund administration services.
With $108 billion in assets under administration, GlobeOp has more than 14,000 investors globally. Earlier this year the company opened a new hurricane-proof office in Caymana Bay, Cayman Islands and appointed Gary Linford, former head of the Investment & Securities Division of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), to its Cayman Islands subsidiary board.
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ITNews- Recent second quarter figures from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), have confirmed the achievement of a key milestone by the Cayman Islands financial services industry, with more than 10,000 investment funds currently registered in the jurisdiction.
At the end of June 2008 there were 10,037 funds on CIMA’s register, compared with 9,681 at the end of the previous quarter and 8,972 at the mid point of 2007. The current annual growth rate of 12% in net new hedge funds, which takes cancellations into account, is particularly striking in the context of the deterioration in global markets following the sub-prime meltdown and associated credit crunch.
"This is yet another round of impressive statistics from CIMA," said Mark Lewis, senior investment funds partner at Walkers. "The 10,000 barrier has been breached as hedge funds continue to be formed in the Cayman Islands, which remains the clear jurisdiction of choice for investment managers and their advisers around the world.
Caymen Net News- On Monday, 21 July, lawyers representing PricewaterhouseCoopers filed a formal petition in Grand Court to put the liquidation of several failed hedge funds under court supervision.
Chief Justice, Anthony Smellie, granted all of the petitions, which will now put the court in charge of overseeing the liquidation of the four collapsed funds. The lawyers said that it would be in the “public’s interests” to have the liquidation be under court supervision.
In June the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) confirmed that the “Grand Island” funds were put into voluntary liquidation by the funds’ shareholders. Three of the four funds involved were registered with CIMA in 2006 and one other was an unregulated fund, not registered with CIMA.
When lawyers representing PwC commented to Chief Justice Smellie about the media attention being given to the case he replied simply, “It’s not every day a local fund gets into trouble.”
