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.
Reuters – Hermes BPK Partners, the fund of hedge funds linked to Britain’s largest pension scheme, wants to bring in 5 billion pounds ($7.89 billion) in assets within the next five years, the firm’s CEO said on Tuesday.
Hermes BPK currently manages about $1.3 billion for the BT Pension Scheme (BTPS), its only client. Matteo Dante Perruccio told Reuters the boutique firm now wants to attract new assets from other corporate and local authority pension funds.
Reuters – The West Midlands Pension Fund, one of the UK’s largest local government schemes, has invested 40 million pounds ($64.28 million) in a fund of hedge funds.
Goodhart Partners said on Thursday the pension fund, which has 7 billion pounds in assets, had invested in its Global Long Short Equity Fund, which comprises 11 hedge fund portfolios.
The move shows some pension funds are continuing to invest in hedge funds despite poor returns last year. Earlier this year Goodhart won a 65 million pound mandate from the UK railway scheme Railpen [nL6341602]. Britain’s universities pension fund, USS, has also indicated it is going ahead with plans to invest in hedge funds.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Global fund of hedge funds group, Financial Risk Management and its seeding arm, (FCA), has entered into a strategic relationship with an Asian hedge fund expected to launch at the beginning of December with between $50 and $75 million in assets under management.
The FoHF group will make a significant investment in the first fund to be launched by Isometric Capital Management, owned and managed by Sanjiv Bhatia, the former head of Deephaven Capital Management’s Asia office. The fund is
The fund will use a fundamental research strategy to identify investment opportunities in Asian companies where it can identify a catalyst which will drive investment returns. The fund will invest predominantly in equities although positions will range across the capital structure.
“This deal reinforces the global nature of FCA’s business and is the first investment we have made outside of the US and Europe.” Neil Mason, CIO, FCA says, “Asia is an important focus in our manager research. Asian economies have shown their strength and there are numerous market inefficiencies that hedge funds can profit from. The industry has grown significantly in recent years and there are a number of high quality managers with interesting investment strategies.
Isometric is the third seeding deal announced by FCA in the past four months having previously agreed strategic relationships with JD Capital and WestSpring Advisors.
New York Times – Investors who expected hedge funds to prune fees after a particularly disastrous showing in 2008 may be disappointed by a recent study.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a study compiled by the French fund-of-hedge-funds firm Olympia Capital Management found that for the most part, fees remained steady at the 2,659 funds it analyzed. It also found that only a handful of the firms had shortened the time between one redemption date to the next, or reduced the initial lockup period they place on investors’ capital.
Last year, the average fund lost nearly 19 percent, and investors flooded firms with withdrawal requests. More than $600 billion has been pulled from hedge funds since the peak of the credit boom, leaving the industry to oversee just $1.3 trillion, according to Hedge Fund Research.
Reuters UK – The fund of hedge funds industry is being forced to reinvent itself after the Madoff scandal and hefty client outflows, and will emerge from the crisis smaller but in better shape than many had expected.
Investors pulled more than $150 billion (92 billion pounds) from funds of funds in 2008 and 2009, according to Hedge Fund Research, but these portfolios, which charge an extra level of fees for selecting a basket of managers, are developing tactics such as changing staff, overhauling risk monitoring or offering investors easier access to cash, to rebuild their reputations and maintain fees.
Forbes – Global fund of hedge funds firm FRM Capital Advisors (FCA) said on Tuesday it will invest up to $60 million in New York-based asset manager WestSpring’s first fund.
Specialist hedge fund seeder FCA said the investment is part of a strategic tie up with WestSpring, which is scheduled to launch the fund in September. The firm will try to combine fundamental and quantitative approaches to credit analysis.
‘We are confident in WestSpring’s ability to build a high quality alternative investment business and we believe this strategic relationship is a great opportunity for our investors,’ said Clive Peggram, chief executive of FCA.
Reuters – The UK Railways Pension Schemes, one of the UK’s largest plans, has invested 65 million pounds in London-based asset manager Goodhart Partners’ global long-short equity fund of hedge funds.
Railpen Investments, the fund manager of the industry-wide scheme with assets of over 15 billion pounds, has some 8 percent of its assets in hedge fund strategies.
”Goodhart’s Long-Short fund offers large institutions exposure to small and specialist hedge fund managers, with the degree of governance and due diligence these allocations require,” said Paul Jeffries, an investment analyst at Railpen.
Reuters – Global fund of hedge funds firm FRM Capital Advisors (FCA) said on Tuesday it will invest up to $60 million in New York-based asset manager WestSpring’s first fund.
Specialist hedge fund seeder FCA said the investment is part of a strategic tie up with WestSpring, which is scheduled to launch the fund in September. The firm will try to combine fundamental and quantitative approaches to credit analysis.
Reuters India – Global fund of hedge funds firm FRM Capital Advisors said on Tuesday it will invest up to $60 million in New York-based asset manager WestSpring’s first fund.
Specialist hedge fund seeder FCA said the investment is part of a strategic tie up with WestSpring, which is scheduled to launch the fund in September. The firm will try to combine fundamental and quantitative approaches to credit analysis.
”We are confident in WestSpring’s ability to build a high quality alternative investment business and we believe this strategic relationship is a great opportunity for our investors,” said Clive Peggram, chief executive of FCA.
Reuters – Gottex Fund Management Holdings Ltd said on Wednesday assets under management slipped 4.6 percent to $8.1 billion in the second quarter, denting its shares, but it saw some positive signs for the second half.
The fund of hedge funds provider said the fall in assets under management was mainly due to client redemptions and partly offset by positive performance.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – ALTIN, the London and Swiss-listed fund of hedge funds, has released a full disclosure of its underlying investments and weightings. ALTIN has adopted a position of total transparency, and holds one of the world’s longest track records as an exchange-listed fund of hedge funds.
ALTIN has reduced its cash allocation from 14% on 1 March 2009 to 6.3% on 1 July 2009, as part of an active investment programme into hedge funds to benefit from the current investment opportunities. The portfolio, featuring more than 30 underlying funds representing 10 different strategies, is particularly well diversified and boasts a positive performance of +5.18%[1] to date in 2009.
Only approximately 20% of funds held by ALTIN have restricted redemptions of one form or another. This relatively low proportion does not affect ALTIN as, being a fixed-capital investment company, it is not faced with redemption requests.
The portfolio’s great liquidity allows the investment manager to perform a dynamic management and benefit from the current investment opportunities. The manager has thus launched a significant investment programme in the past months.
ALTIN AG was launched in December 1996 and has been listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange since its inception as well as on the London Stock Exchange since 2001. ALTIN is a multi-strategy fund of hedge funds investing in more than 30 hedge funds representing various investment styles. The Company holds one of the world’s longest track records as an exchange-listed fund of hedge funds. Its objective is to generate an absolute annual return in US dollars terms with lower volatility than equity markets.
ALTIN is managed by 3A SA (Alternative Asset Advisors), a management firm specialised in alternative investments and member of the SYZ & CO Group.
3A currently manages more than USD 2.1 billion in hedge fund assets. 3A also provides alternative research and due-diligence services on an additional USD 4 billion in alternative investments.
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Hedge fund performance specialist Alternative-Index Ltd., fully owned by hedge fund manager, Salus Alpha Group AG, reported that the Relative Value Index (RVX) is the top performing Alternative Investment Indices (AI-Index) in June 2009 with a month-to-date performance of +0.52% listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange.
The RVX outperformed the German equity index for the month to date by +1.49%.
The Relative Value Index is an investable benchmark of the performance of the Alternative Investment Sub-Strategies Fixed Income Arbitrage, Long/Short Credit and Convertible Bond Arbitrage.
The Alternative Investment Indices target to offer investors an unbiased reference of the performance of alternative asset classes. Daily index prices are calculated by the Vienna Stock Exchange, and are also available via Reuters, Bloomberg and other data terminals.
Salus Alpha Group AG is a Swiss Alternative Investment expert and manages capital for institutional clients and High Net Worth Individuals since 2002. The Group was the first Asset Manager worldwide to introduce a synthetic fund of hedge funds as a UCITS fund in 2003.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
