Philadelphia Inquirer - Pension funds for Pennsylvania state workers and schoolteachers lost more than $12 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30.
And that’s not counting losses from hedge funds, real estate, private equity, and other hard-to-trace private investments - roughly half of the State Employees’ Retirement System - that pension managers don’t plan to […]

Globe and Mail - The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, hammered by losses on international holdings, has been forced in recent weeks to sell billions of dollars of stocks into a falling market.
A fund that began the year with $155.4-billion of assets has sold $10-billion of stocks in the past two months, sources […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - According to a report in the Financial Times, London hedge fund manager Alan Miller has returned to the industry after a two-year absence by becoming a partner at SilverStreet Capital, a small London fund of hedge funds manager.
Miller, who co-founded New Star Asset Management with John Duffield in 2001, went […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Morningstar and Barron’s today released highlights of a recent national survey examining the perception and usage of alternative investments among institutions and financial advisors.
“Our survey found that both institutions and advisors want alternative investments that are liquid, transparent, and regulated like traditional investments,” said Steve Deutsch, director of separate accounts […]

New York Times Blogs - After pouring money into Barack Obama’s campaign, what can hedge funds and their executives expect from the new president?
If history is any exmaple, says FINAlternatives, they shouldn’t expect a cuddly relationship.
Mr. Obama didn’t appear sympathetic to the industry on the campaign trail, the publication noted, calling John McCain the […]

Choregus (London) - It seems that West End Office Space in not impervious from the effects of the global economic slow down.
Whilst many had observed the West End continuing to perform despite the pressures, it seems that the credit crunch in finally starting to bite.  CBRE are reporting a 3.2% fall in rental values in […]

FT - Reuters - Fortress Investment Group LLC, one of the few publicly traded managers of private equity and hedge funds, is taking action to keep two of its companies afloat, the Financial Times said, quoting people familiar with the situation.
Fortress is struggling to preserve the value of its investments in Intrawest, a ski resort […]

Reuters - An unprecedented cash crunch is choking the ability of banks to lend and creating an opportunity for hedge funds to launch, or ramp up corporate lending facilities.
Companies that have relied on bank borrowing to grow, or even maintain their business, are turning to hedge funds in a move that some say may signal a […]

BloggingStocks - MetLife, Inc., which is the largest life insurer in the U.S., got its start 140 years ago. But the recent couple weeks may have been the toughest as the stock price has plunged.
It seems MetLife’s woes have just started, though, as the company announced Tuesday it has withdrawn its 2008 earnings estimates. As […]

Reuters - Britain’s new Personal Accounts scheme, a plan for savers without a company pension, is "highly unlikely" to invest in hedge funds and private equity, said the head of the authority in charge of setting up the scheme.
The investment portfolio of the Personal Accounts scheme, which is set to grow to 150 billion […]

Politico.com - Even as the storied financial names vanish — Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns — they’re being quietly replaced by less familiar ones: Cerberus Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, SAC Capital Partners and the other biggest hedge funds and private equity shops in the world.
The consensus in Washington is that […]

Guardian.co.uk - MEPs will call tomorrow for EU legislation to force private equity groups and hedge funds to disclose unprecedented amounts of information about their activities.
The demand for tougher regulation comes as private equity groups are warning that the enduring credit crunch will reduce new money inflows into their funds by up to 30% over […]