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.
Forbes – Man Group PLC, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, said Thursday that funds under management declined in the first half despite a recent growth in private investor sales.
The group said it had $43.3 billion in funds under management on June 30, down from $44 billion at the end of May and $46.8 billion on March 31.
Private investor sales in the three months ending June 30, the company’s first quarter, were $3.4 billion, producing a net inflow of $1.9 billion. However, institutional sales amounted to just $300 million, with a net outflow of $3.3 billion.
Barron – Shares of auctioneer Sotheby’s have rebounded on hopes for a recovery in the art market, although the economic picture is still difficult to frame. However, although investors have bid up the shares in recent months, the stock still has new buyers.
On June 18 Atticus Capital disclosed that it now owns 3.6 million shares, or a 5.4% stake in Sotheby’s. At the end of the first quarter, the hedge fund showed no holdings in the company.
Zawya.com – Hedge fund liquidations fell by 50 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 from the record levels set in the previuos quarter, according to data released yesterday by Hedge Fund Research (HFR), a leading provider of the industry data.
New fund launches accelerated during the first quarter, with approximately 150 funds entering the market, the highest rate of new introductions since the 2008 second quarter.
Caymen Net News – Hedge funds and financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have been pulling their money out of Britain as they are hit by the credit crunch, according to figures from the Bank of England. The low-tax regime and limited regulation of the Cayman Islands – with a population of 52,000 – has attracted 80% of the world’s $1.3tn (£790bn) hedge fund industry.
The drop in Cayman Islands’ deposits comes as hedge funds are being forced to return money to investors who have made big losses from the financial crisis. Loans from UK banks to Cayman institutions also fell, but at a lower pace. Outstanding loans from UK banks to Cayman institutions outweighed Cayman deposits in UK banks by $124bn in the first quarter, a sharp increase from $12bn in the last quarter of last year, the data shows.
ZURICH, June 9 (Reuters) – Hedge fund outflows of $116 billion in the first quarter of 2009 were the second highest since 1994, Lipper data show, yet hedgies may yet receive a boost from some pension funds before the end of the year. Aureliano Gentilini, Lipper’s global head of hedge fund research, said on Tuesday he expected hedge fund outflows to taper off in the second quarter and that inflows could return in the third as investor confidence returns.
"Although down 21 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008, outflows were high, but partly because withdrawal restrictions imposed in the fourth quarter were lifted in Q1 of 2009," said Gentilini.
Gentilini also said that, in spite of having their worst ever year in 2008, hedge funds were seeing renewed interest from larger institutions as the dust from the financial crisis settles. Lipper is a Thomson Reuters research firm.
Hedge funds and financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have been pulling their money out of Britain as they are hit by the credit crunch, according to figures from the Bank of England.
The low-tax regime and limited regulation of the Cayman Islands – with a population of 52,000 – has attracted 80% of the world’s $1.3tn (£790bn) hedge fund industry.
Those institutions have almost halved their deposits in UK banks over the past 12 months, from $356bn at the end of the first quarter in 2008, to $173bn at the end of March, Bank of England data shows. The drop in Cayman Islands’ deposits comes as hedge funds are being forced to return money to investors who have made big losses from the financial crisis. It also reflects fund losses from falling markets.
The outflow of funds from Britain puts the spotlight on hedge fund threats to abandon the UK because of higher taxes, tighter regulation and potential caps on executive pay and bonuses.
CNNMoney.com – A major shareholder of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. ( AMLN) is backing a slate of dissident directors nominated by Carl Icahn and another hedge-fund manager, Eastbourne Capital Management.
P. Schoenfeld and Associates, which owned 2.1 million Amylin shares as of the end of the first quarter, told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday it supports all five of Icahn’s and Eastbourne’s nominees because it sees that as the only opportunity for the company to make significant strides.
"We would like to see the largest minority possible elected to the Amylin board," said P. Schoenfeld founder Peter Schoenfeld.
Bloomberg – Daniel Och had about 35 percent of his $20 billion of hedge-fund assets in cash during the first quarter because he suspects global stock markets will start falling again.
“The world will not just bounce back to where it was,” Och, the 48-year-old chief executive officer of New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, wrote last month in a letter to investors, referring to the gain of almost 35 percent in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since March 9. “We continue to believe that economic recovery will be a long process.”
OZ Master, Och-Ziff’s biggest hedge fund, rose 6.3 percent this year through April after losing 15.5 percent last year. The S&P 500 fell 3.4 percent in the first four months of 2009 after dropping 38 percent in 2008.
Tehran Times – Atticus Capital LP sold 23 of the 25 U.S.-listed stocks it owned in the first quarter as the New York-based hedge-fund firm run by Timothy Barakett put more money into cash while equity markets fell.
Atticus sold 1.69 million shares of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Potash, the world’s largest producer of its namesake fertilizer, had been the firm’s top U.S. holding.
Barakett, whose firm oversees about $6 billion in assets, also sold all of his 5.31 million shares of Microsoft Corp. The world’s largest software maker, based in Redmond, Washington, had been the firm’s second-largest U.S. position.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Convertible Arbitrage: Shifting Gears (more found here at HedgeCo/blogs) discusses the strategy’s ability to generate positive returns both during the declines in equity markets in January and February, as well as during the global market rallies in March and April.
Convertible Arbitrage went from being one of the worst-performing strategies in the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index (“Broad Index”) in 2008, to one of the best-performing strategies in the first quarter of this year. Many believe that the fundamental and technical reasons for convertibles’ devaluation in 2008 may correct as credit markets begin to stabilize and if deleveraging continues to abate.
Bloomberg – Greenlight Capital Inc., the hedge- fund firm run by David Einhorn, added to its holdings of Ford Motor Co. debt in the first quarter and invested in EMC Corp., Harman International Industries Inc. and Pfizer Inc.
The hedge fund bought Ford’s high-yield, high-risk bank loans at an average price of 37 cents on the dollar starting in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a May 1 letter the New York-based Greenlight sent to investors. The debt rose to 45 cents on the dollar when the first quarter ended, said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News.
Forbes – Almost 20 percent of Asia’s hedge funds closed shop since the start of 2008 as a wave of investor redemptions and sharp losses amid the financial crisis took a heavy toll on the region’s once high-flying industry, a new survey said Monday.
At least 129 funds were shuttered in 2008 and 17 more in the first quarter of 2009, a study by London-based AsiaHedge magazine said.
