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 – Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co., with 23 trillion yen ($244 billion) in assets, said it will cut its investments in hedge funds this year as it switches to investments with steadier returns.
Japan’s third-largest life insurer will reduce its allocation to the industry by “several tens of billions of yen,” from 64.6 billion yen at the end of last fiscal year through March 31, said Shinji Makino, manager of the insurer’s investment planning division. The Tokyo-based insurer last year slashed its hedge-fund holdings by more than 40 billion yen.
Guardian Unlimited – Japanese government bond futures fell on Monday, edging back towards six-month lows hit earlier this month, with traders citing selling by hedge funds on the back of concerns about rising debt issuance.
The Ministry of Finance said it would issue an additional 16.9 trillion yen ($175 billion) in JGBs in the fiscal year that ends next March to pay for an economic stimulus package.
The extra supply, which will start coming to the market in July, will increase calendar base JGB issuance in fiscal 2009/10 by roughly 15 percent to a total of 130.2 trillion yen.
Bloomberg – The Children’s Investment Fund Management UK LLP, a $9.5 billion London-based hedge fund, has about $1.2 billion of short positions in Japanese stocks including Toshiba Corp., according to exchange filings.
The fund, better known as TCI, has shorted 13 Japanese stocks, data based on exchange filings compiled by Bloomberg show. Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan’s second-biggest bank by revenue, and Sony Corp., the world’s second-biggest consumer- electronics maker, are also among the short positions.
The bets against Japanese stocks by activist fund TCI, which lost a proxy battle with Japanese utility Electric Power Development Co. last year, come as the Nikkei 225 Stock Average completed its worst fiscal year since March 2001, losing 35 percent. TCI’s fund fell 43 percent in 2008, as global hedge funds were battered by client withdrawals and the worst market losses since the 1930s.
Bloomberg - Man Group Plc, the largest publicly traded hedge-fund manager, said it will cut its workforce by about 15 percent after fiscal year profit dropped and assets under management declined by a third.
Assets fell to $48 billion in the period ending March 31, from $75 billion the previous year, London-based Man Group said in a trading statement. Pretax profit will be $1.2 billion, down from $2.1 billion. The median estimate from four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News had forecast assets of about $48.6 billion and a $1.14 billion profit.
Times of the Internet – Hedge funds have gained ammunition for complaints against German sports car maker Porsche after it said it made almost 400 million euros (514 million dollars) in bets on German blue-chip stocks, a press report said on Monday.
The Financial Times quoted Porsche chief financial officer Holger Haerter as saying that the company had gained 392 million euros in its 2007/2008 fiscal year from trading in options on German stocks, in addition to controversial gains from trades in VW shares.
"We have also arranged share options to generate liquidity. The underlying shares were referring to DAX (Frankfurt blue-chip index) companies and not to Volkswagen," the FT quoted Haerter as telling an annual general meeting.
Reuters – Universities and schools put more money into alternative investments like hedge funds in fiscal 2008, researchers reported on Tuesday.
The Commonfund Institute, a group that polled 628 educational endowments on their investment tastes, found their appetite for alternatives increased slightly in fiscal 2008 after having fallen off modestly in fiscal 2007. The fiscal year runs through the end of June 2008.
Universities and schools put more money into alternative investments like hedge funds in fiscal 2008, researchers reported on Tuesday.
The Commonfund Institute, a group that polled 628 educational endowments on their investment tastes, found their appetite for alternatives increased slightly in fiscal 2008 after having fallen off modestly in fiscal 2007. The fiscal year runs through the end of June 2008.
"With public equity markets declining sharply," the researchers said, "the long-term trend for alternative asset strategies to capture a greater share of educational institutions’ investment portfolios continued in fiscal year 2008."
