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.
Bloomberg – Hedge funds may increase assets by more than 8 percent this year as clients led by pension plans and rich families invest $50 billion of the cash they held while financial markets fell, according to a report by Barclays Plc.
Investors have about 14 percent of their assets in cash, according to the survey released today by Barclays Capital, the investment-banking unit of London-based Barclays. Almost 80 percent plan to allocate money to hedge funds in 2009.
“We are seeing that investors are now realizing that hedge funds are surviving as a compelling investment proposition and as an important segment of the broader asset-management industry,” Andrea Gentilini, the New York-based author of the report, said in a telephone interview.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Swiss alternative investment company ALTIN AG has said it intends to maintain its share price by buying back between 5% and 10% of its own shares, its Board of Directors has also approved a capital reduction program. ALTIN’s hedge fund’s management performance was predictably negative (-29.20%) in 2008, yet considerably higher than key stock market indices.
2008 proved a particularly harsh year for the financial markets, compounded by additional difficulties specific to the hedge fund industry. The severe credit crisis often forced hedge funds to fire-sell positions.
In addition, the increased correlation between hedge funds and equity markets did not protect them against falling stock markets. In performance terms, the year 2008 has thus been negative for hedge funds and ALTIN proved no exception with a -29.20% fall in its net asset value. However, in light of the losses incurred by world stock markets over the same period, this result is acceptable and hedge funds remain the best performing asset class over the medium term.
Invested in approximately 40 hedge funds, the company has chosen to avoid illiquid strategies that have caused the closing of a number of hedge funds, ALTIN’s manager has been favouring liquidity since 2007.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@hedgeco.net
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EasyBourse.com – The U.S. and Germany are going "in the same direction" ahead of next week’s G20 summit, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday amid reports of rifts between Europe and the U.S.
There are "no points of contention here between us and the U.S. government. For both of us, and our position has been made clear for some time, regulation of financial markets is the focus of the meeting," the spokesman said after Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama held a video conference Thursday.
"The proposals that (U.S. Treasury Secretary) Timothy Geithner has put on the table when it comes to regulation of certain players – hedge funds and others – show that we are proceeding together in the same direction," spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told a regular press briefing.
In Obama’s first trip to Europe since being elected, the Group of 20 summit on April 2 – which brings together major industrialized and developing nations – takes place against the backdrop of the worst financial crisis in decades.
Interactive Investor – British fund firm Ashmore Group said it expected the fund-raising environment to remain tough in 2009 as clients continue to cash in investments, after it reported first half profits in line with forecasts.
The group, which specialises in managing emerging market funds, said on Tuesday it sees significant opportunities arising from the turmoil that has hit financial markets, though so far this year it has lost money on its investments. The group said pretax profit for the six months to end-December fell to 80.3 million pounds ($116.9 million) from 100.9 million a year before.
Assets under management fell 34 percent to $24.6 billion during the period as the group suffered net outflows of $5.8 billion and investment losses of $7.1 billion.
Economic Times – European leaders meeting in Berlin on Sunday backed oversight of the world?s financial markets and products, including hedge funds, and urged that sanctions be drawn up to punish tax havens.
A copy of the “chair’s summary” from a summit hosted by Chancellor Angela Merkel and seen by Reuters describes the situation in financial markets as “fraught” and says structural reforms and a focus on public spending are needed to emerge stronger from the global crisis.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Wachovia customers who invested in auction rate securities prior to their collapse will most likely get their money back. The SEC announced a settlement yesterday with Wachovia Securities that will provide $7 billion in liquidity to those clients, which resolves the agency’s original charges that the bank misled investors about the risks associated with ARS.
"The goal of the SEC in these matters was to return as much liquidity to investors as quickly as possible, while at the same time avoiding further disruption in the financial markets. Today’s final settlement with Wachovia represents substantial progress toward fulfilling that goal,” said Linda Chatman Thomsen, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
The original SEC complaint alleged that Wachovia peddled ARS to clients, while representing them as safe, highly liquid investments, much like cash or money market instruments. In addition, the agency charges that the bank became aware of the mounting risks associated with these investments, yet continued to market them as safe. When the ARS market plummeted, thousands of clients were left with billions of dollars of illiquid investments.
"Wachovia did not ensure that its sales force understood the ARS products it was selling. As a result, Wachovia’s customers were not adequately informed of the nature and risks associated with ARS and were caught holding illiquid securities when the ARS market froze," explained Merri Jo Gillette, Director of the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office.
The settlement has several facets, including buying back ARS from investors who purchased them on or before February 13, 2008. For more information on the matter, or for buyback eligibility, the SEC suggests you contact Wachovia directly at 1-866-283-7943.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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Market Rap – In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). He said, over and over, that the crime was destroying public companies and had the potential to trigger a systemic meltdown of our financial markets.
Soon after, I began to investigate a network of short sellers, journalists, and miscreants. I concluded that many of the people in this network were connected to two famous criminals – “junk bond king” Michael Milken and his associate, Ivan Boesky. I also began taking a close look at the Mafia’s involvement in naked short selling.
Gold Seek – This January was one of the worst on record for financial markets. US Treasuries crashed after enjoying a recession-beating run in 2008. Gold and silver were the only major asset class to end the month higher.
Hedge funds that previously ignored precious metals have become converts, with hedge fund star Greenlight Capital buying the yellow metal for the first time.
Another money manager Osmium Capital Management is offering a hedge fund priced in ounces of gold to protect it from exchange rate fluctuations. Subscriptions are in dollars, euros or pounds and then converted into gold.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund tech. provider Eze Castle Integration and Thomson Reuters are sponsoring a panel to discuss hedge fund strategies and regulatory considerations for the Obama administration, the ‘Obama Administration & Hedge Fund Strategies panel’.
Hedge funds and investment firms are discussing whether the Obama administration will have a positive or negative impact on existing hedge fund strategies.
Moderated by Daniel Burns, Reuters U.S. Financial Markets Editor, the panel also includes Reuters correspondents Jeff Mason and Jennifer Ablan and hedge fund managers Dan Castro, Chief Risk Officer of Huxley Capital and Theresa R. Patti, CFA, Managing Director of QFS Asset Management.
The Obama Administration & Hedge Fund Strategies panel will take place in New York City on Wednesday, January 28, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., at the Thomson Reuters office at 3 Times Square, New York.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Asia Times Online – During the end of the 1970s into the 1980s, British Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher and the City of London financial interests who backed her introduced wholesale measures of privatization, state budget cuts, moves against labor and deregulation of the financial markets.
They did so in parallel with similar moves in the US initiated by advisers around Reagan. The claim was that hard medicine was needed to curb inflation and that the bloated state bureaucracy was a central problem.
Bloomberg – It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.
The biggest loss and the hardest thing to recover, though, may be something that can’t be precisely measured — confidence in the markets and the firms that rely on them.
“The wholesale funding model lost its credibility,” said David Hendler, senior analyst at New York-based CreditSights Inc. “That started the semi-nationalization of funding in the financial markets. It’s a real chink in the armor of capitalism as supposedly the best process for allocating capital. The government is now deciding who gets access to capital.”
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – John Paulson, head of hedge fund firm Paulson & Co., recently spoke his mind on the wave of redemption freezes that many managers have chosen to impose.
“We think it’s a mistake for our managers to use gates and other tools to limit investor access to their funds,” Paulson stated in a recent outlook to investors that was obtained by Bloomberg News. “While we recognize the difficulties of the current environment, we think it is a manager’s responsibility to raise liquidity to meet the redemption needs of their investors.”
Paulson’s hedge funds did not see the effects of the troubled economy, where most funds posted their worst year to date. In fact, when the subprime crisis wreaked havoc on the financial markets, Paulson was catapaulted into billionaire status, by successfully predicted the housing mess. His hedge funds, in turn, were up about $15 billion in 2007.
This year also saw admirable gains, with his Advantage Plus Fund climbing 3.19 percent in November, and currently up 38 percent on the year. His slightly smaller Advantage Fund was also up 21 percent through the end of November.
Most other funds haven’t experienced that level of success this year. According to the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index, funds are down over 19 percent on the year through the end of November. Dozens of large, reputable funds have suspended withdrawals including Citadel, RAB, Harbinger and Cerberus, just to name a few.
Paulson also disagrees with managers that “have the cash and one of the stated reasons for restricting withdrawals is so the manager can continue to invest in new opportunities.”
Paulson’s firm is teaming up fellow New York firms Dune Capital Management and J.C. Flowers & Co. to purchase failed bank IndyMac. A deal is expected to be finalized in the near future.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
