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 – Geneva banks, which began investing client money in funds of hedge funds during the 1960s, are struggling to rebuild the business after market losses and Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme cut assets by 72 percent.
The assets of funds of funds managed from Geneva slumped to $15 billion in May from $54.2 billion at the end of 2007, according to data compiled by Singapore-based Eurekahedge Pte. Almost 25 percent of the 227 funds operating in the city at the end of last year shut in the first five months of 2009 and only six opened, less than a fifth of the 2008 number.
Bloomberg – Geneva banks, which began investing client money in funds of hedge funds during the 1960s, are struggling to rebuild the business after market losses and Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme cut assets by 72 percent.
The assets of funds of funds managed from Geneva slumped to $15 billion in May from $54.2 billion at the end of 2007, according to data compiled by Singapore-based Eurekahedge Pte. Almost 25 percent of the 227 funds operating in the city at the end of last year shut in the first five months of 2009 and only six opened, less than a fifth of the 2008 number.
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.
Alibaba News Channel – We’re not quite there yet, but hedge fund managers may soon need to start giving away toasters — or perhaps plasma TVs — to woo new investors. Forcing the funds to eat a little humble pie now would benefit hedge fund investors in the long run.
Most hedge funds are off to a decent start this year — the average return to date is 9.43 percent, says Hedge Fund Research. Yet it’s a particularly tough time for launching a new fund. In the first five months of 2009, just 40 new funds have begun reporting performance figures, BarclayHedge reports.
Reuters UK – Five months after Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud was revealed, little of his victims’ money has been found and it appears increasingly likely that the worldwide hunt for their missing billions will drag on for years.
So far, the court-appointed trustee sorting through Wall Street’s biggest investment fraud has located only about $1 billion (656 million pounds) to be distributed to defrauded customers — a fraction of the $65 billion the confessed con man’s records purported to have in nearly 7,000 client accounts when the FBI arrested him in December.
Trustee Irving Picard has signalled, however, that he is ramping up efforts to find more money, a ray of hope for victims if these funds can ever be tracked down and shared among them.
At this relatively early stage of Picard’s investigation, though, it is unclear if that is possible.
New York Times – The billionaire financier Carl C. Icahn put another $250 million into his hedge fund at the beginning of the year after suffering further losses in the fourth quarter on investments in Motorola and Yahoo, according to a letter he sent to investors.
The Icahn Fund Ltd. was down about 33 percent through the end of January after plummeting 22 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the letter. After receiving more than $1 billion in redemption requests from investors, Mr. Icahn put $250 million of his own cash into the fund in November to avoid selling shares to meet the redemptions.
Trying to instill confidence in his investors, Mr. Icahn decided to make another $250 million cash injection into the fund on Jan. 1. Still, over the last five months, Icahn Capital’s funds under management have shrunk by about $2.5 billion.
The losses are likely to affect the publicly traded Icahn Enterprises fund, which reports earnings on Thursday.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Wall Street’s highest-ranking woman, Erin Callan, was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, along with 24 other Lehman executives regarding the collapse of Lehman Brothers, according to the New York Post.
Now in seclusion, the NYP says she taking a five-month personal leave. Callan joined Credit Suisse five months ago after being ousted as CFO of collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers.
NYP excerpt: "At Lehman, Callan had been an admired public face of Lehman’s whirlwind dance with hedge fund chiefs, but then-CEO Dick Fuld blamed her for Lehman’s collapse, and pushed her out just months before the firm imploded, wiping out billions for investors and employees."
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