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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - In the monthly report from Dow Jones Indexes on the performance of Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks, only one of four strategies, merger arbitrage, posted net-of-fee gains in November.
After hedge funds experienced two of the most volatile months in market history, merger arbitrage emerged with a small positive net-of-fee gain in November, returning 0.15%. The small gain held YTD performance for merger arbitrage at approximately the same level as last month, down about -9%.
Convertible arbitrage was hit the hardest with a loss of -4.80%, followed by event driven and distressed securities, which were down -6.35% and -7.47%, respectively, for November.
The equity market neutral and equity long/short benchmarks were suspended at the start of the month as a result of the temporary risk mitigation measures taken by the investment manager of the managed account platform that supports the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks. It has not been determined when calculation of these benchmarks will resume.
On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the only broad measure of the domestic equity market, lost -8% (-8.15% on a full-cap basis) in November decreasing its YTD return to -38.30% (-38.37% on a full-cap basis).
The fixed income asset class, as measured by the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index was up 4.88% this month and its cumulative return is down -5.99% for the year. Finally, the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index, the broadest measure of global equity market, lost -6.73% for the month decreasing its YTD return to -44.68% for 2008.
November 2008 figures for the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks are based on daily estimates net of fees.
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guardian.co.uk – Bolder hedge funds are looking to snap up convertible bonds at bargain prices, returning to an asset class that became a no-go area for them only a short while ago.
The convertible bond market has tumbled 44.5 percent since September, as hedge funds facing a wave of client redemptions paid back bank debt. Many said convertible arbitrage strategies were a thing of the past.
But yields are now reaching all-time highs and are starting to attract the first daring hedge funds back to the investment arena they traditionally dominated.
"You can buy a convertible right now on a 25 percent discount to the same bond issued by the same company," Emmanuel Roman of GLG Partners, one of Europe’s biggest hedge funds, told a recent conference.
"You get a 25 percent discount plus a call option. That doesn’t make any sense," he said.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – After a disappointing year, Citadel will launch several new hedge funds in hopes of countering the losses of their main hedge fund.
The multi-strat $10 billion Kensington Global Strategies Fund has fallen over 30 percent this year. CEO Ken Griffin attributed some of that loss to the temporary ban on short selling, saying it “created material dislocations across many of our portfolios and disrupted our ability to assume and manage risk.”
After much speculation and some bad press, Griffin warned investors last week that returns on the fund would experience “significant volatility” in the next few weeks.
The new funds will focus more on global macro, convertible arbitrage and fixed income strategies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Griffin told investors, "The financial crisis dramatically raised the cost of borrowing and reduced the availability of credit to market participants, materially reducing the value of cash assets as compared to the value of derivative instruments.” He went onto explain how he did not foresee the financial crisis that has unfolded this past year.
While the Kensington Fund will still be available to investors, many clients are interested in allocating their assets across numerous strategies.
Citadel was founded in 1990 and manages over $20 billion in capital.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Morningstar, Inc. reported that hedge funds reported the worst losses in the Morningstar Hedge Fund Index’s history, which began in January 2003.
In September, the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund index dropped 7.87%, more than double August`s losses. Hedge funds entered the third quarter virtually flat for the year, but the index`s 13.17% third-quarter drop dragged year-to-date performance into the red.
"In September, the financial world as we know it turned upside down. We saw a shakeout in the hedge fund industry all around the globe. Hedge funds experienced poor borrowing, hedging, and trading conditions while liquidity dried up and volatility skyrocketed," said Morningstar hedge fund analyst Nadia Van Dalen.
Hedge funds were affected by extreme and unforeseen events during the month, including failures and takeovers of mortgage agencies, banks, insurers, and prime brokers.
As the world watched in anticipation of a U.S. government bailout, the global equity markets roiled. The Morningstar Global Equity Hedge Fund Index lost 11.22% in September. The Morningstar Europe Equity Hedge Fund Index declined 9.62% during the month but outperformed the MSCI Europe Index by more than five percentage points, while the Morningstar US Equity Hedge Fund Index underperformed the SandP 500 Index by more than one percentage point.
Developed Asia and emerging markets equity hedge funds managed to avoid some of the market losses, as these indexes outperformed the MSCI AC Asia Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by about five percentage points in September. For the year to date, however, these emerging markets funds have taken more than a 30% hit.
Hedging proved difficult for hedge funds this month. The SEC and the FSA announced temporary bans on shorting financial stocks. Many convertible arbitrage funds taking long positions in financial sector convertible bonds were unable to hedge with short stock positions. The Morningstar Convertible Arbitrage Hedge Fund Index lost 12.39% in September. Fortunately, some equity arbitrage hedge funds were able to avoid financials. The Morningstar Equity Arbitrage Hedge Fund Index lost only 4.60%.
Debt-oriented hedge funds also experienced hedging problems. Credit default swaps, a common way to hedge bond exposure, became more expensive and less attractive with fears of default and counterparty risk. Both the Morningstar Debt Arbitrage and the Morningstar Global Debt Hedge Fund Indexes underperformed global and U.S. bonds, losing 4.39% and 7.50% respectively. The Morningstar Distressed Securities Hedge Fund Index closed the month down 6.21% as risky debt yields rose.
Global trend following hedge funds actually profited from some of the downward trends in the market, as these funds trade stock index futures as well as interest rates, currencies, and commodities. The Morningstar Global Trend Hedge Fund Index lost only 1.26% in September, the best-performing category other than short equity. The Morningstar Global Non-trend Index, comprised of funds with a more macro-economic approach, slid only 1.56%.
Funds of funds performed in line with the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index, outperforming the index by about 20 basis points in September, but falling slightly short for the quarter and year to date. The Morningstar Multistrategy Hedge Fund Index underperformed the overall index by about 200 basis points in September.
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Economist – Hedge funds are supposed to hedge. This year, they haven’t. The fund-weighted composite index compiled by Hedge Fund Research, a firm that tracks the industry, fell by 4.7% in September, the second-worst month on record. Since the start of the year it has lost 9.4%. The industry’s promises of “absolute returns” for investors now ring rather hollow.
To be fair to them, hedge funds have not been allowed to hedge. The restrictions on short-selling (betting on falling prices) imposed by regulators round the globe have played havoc with managers’ strategies in recent weeks.
Take the worst-performing strategy, convertible arbitrage, which lost the average fund 12% in the month. Convertible bonds are fixed-income securities that can be exchanged for shares in the issuing company. Historically, these bonds have been underpriced, because too low a value has been placed on the right to convert them to equity. So arbitrage managers have tended to buy the bonds and sell short the shares. Thanks to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ban on the shorting of more than 900 stocks from September 19th to October 8th, that strategy no longer worked. And since the managers could not short the shares, they had to sell the bonds. As a result, the bonds’ prices plunged.
Times Online – Every week at least one British hedge fund is considering winding up its funds as catastrophic investment performance puts the sector under unprecedented pressure, an industry expert said yesterday.
Andrew Shrimpton, the former head of hedge fund regulation at the Financial Services Authority who now runs Kinetic, a consultancy, said: “The credit crisis is definitely kicking in for the hedge fund industry now. We are being approached by hedge funds considering voluntary fund liquidations on a weekly basis.”
His remarks came as CQS, one of London’s best-known hedge funds, wrote to its investors to say that its flagship $4.25billion CQS Fund had fallen 9.42 per cent for the year to date. Michael Hintze, its chief executive and senior investment officer, told investors that senior management at CQS were meeting as often as three times a day to monitor the fund and take action over its exposures where necessary. The fund, which specialises in convertible arbitrage – or small price differentials between bonds and underlying equities – is down more than 11 per cent for the year.
Telegraph.co.uk – In the biggest-ever round of redemptions, funds around the world are braced to give back between 10pc and 50pc of their assets under management.
Hedge funds were faced with a slew of redemption notices at the start of the quarter, but investors were prepared not to withdraw their money if returns improved, according to one prime broker. He said many would now be forced to close.
None of the strategies used by hedge funds produced a positive return in September. According to the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes , equity market-neutral funds, which often try to manage risk by shorting a stock in one sector and going long on one if its competitors, have fallen 1.85pc this month, while convertible arbitrage securities have dropped 7.96pc and distressed securities by 7.34pc. That compares with a 9pc decline by the FTSE 100. Hedge fund of funds, which are designed to spread risk, are expected to face the biggest redemptions.
Fortis has closed three small hedge funds in the aftermath of its acquisition of part of ABN Amro and merger of the Belgian and Dutch banks’ asset management operations, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The Fortis European long/short fund, which had €120m ($167m) under administration, was shut after the decision to rope in the ABN European equity team, led by Andrew King.
The convertible arbitrage fund was shut in order to free up staff to focus on the enlarged long-only convertible bond funds. The final fund, a US long/short fund, was shut at the end of last year, the FT report said.
The DIFC has clarified its position on news reports that have recently appeared regarding ‘Rashed Investment Bank’ an Islamic investment bank which has been proposed to be set up in Dubai. The DIFC said that while it welcomes initiatives within the Islamic finance industry, the “DIFC clarifies that it is not a member of the founding consortium of ‘Rashed Investment Bank’ and does not have a financial stake in the venture.”
Word had appeared in some media outlets that a new Islamic investment bank was going to be set up in Dubai, would have authorised capital of around $1 billion. The report which initially broke in the UAE’s Al Bayan newspaper claimed that the new bank would deal in hedge funds, structured products and equity capital markets.
It claimed that a number of investors from the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were behind the new entity, although their identities were not made public, adding that it would be headquartered in the DIFC.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Citigroup Inc. will close its $400 million Tribeca Convertible hedge fund in what will help wind down the $2 billion Tribeca Global Investments Group, according to a report published on Bloomberg.com. The closing of the fund has not yet been made public, but investor redemptions are thought to be the reason for the fund’s demise.
The fund uses a convertible arbitrage strategy, which involves acquiring company bonds that can be converted to common stock which in turn may be shorted. Tribeca Convertible was down a mere 5 percent this year.
This is the latest failure in a string of attempts by Citigroup to offer their clients a broader array of alternative investments. Two months ago they closed the $800 million Old Lane Partners, founded by Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, after investors redeemed over $200 million.
Citigroup was hit hard by the subprime-related mortgage fallout last summer, forcing its hedge funds to suffer. The bank’s Falcon Strategies funds were closed this year, even after a $500 million influx of capital by Citigroup.
CSO Partners, another hedge fund run by Citigroup also closed its doors this year after suspending investor redemptions. The company wrote down over $15 billion in losses the first two quarters of 2008.
Tribeca Convertible Portfolio Managers Andrew Wang and Jeffry Chmielewski are rumored to be thinking about starting their own fund.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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