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.
The Australian – Blackstone Group posted a wider second-quarter loss, but results beat analysts’ expectations as the private-equity giant reported positive returns and better fund-raising at its credit-oriented and funds-of-hedge-funds businesses.
On a conference call with analysts and investors, chairman and chief Executive Stephen A. Schwarzman said that two-thirds of the companies in Blackstone’s private-equity portfolio expect to see either positive or flat earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, or Ebitda.
That’s compared to 35 per cent of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 that Blackstone expects to see gains in that area.
Reuters – Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, a U.S. hedge fund giant banged up by last year’s market turmoil, said its funds continued their 2009 revival with June gains, although assets under management slipped once again.
The New York firm estimated total assets fell by $800 million in June to $20.7 billion, continuing the contraction of a firm that managed nearly $34 billion last August.
The Lawyer – Offshore giant Appleby is to merge with Isle of Man firm Dickinson Cruickshank to create the world’s largest offshore firm in terms of partner numbers.
The combined firm will have 73 partners and nine offices worldwide, including in Dubai and Zurich, where Appleby opened last year.
It is the first major offshore merger since Appleby first moved into the Channel Islands by combining with Jersey-based firm Bailhache Labesse in June 2006.
Independent – Hedge funds Apollo and Octavian have been quietly building up a position in ProSieben, one of Europe’s biggest commercial broadcasters. The move could lead to a showdown with private equity owners Permira, the Damon Buffini-run giant, and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (KKR). Lord Hollick, who was chief executive at former Daily Express owner United Business Media, represents KKR on the ProSieben board.
It is understood that Apollo and Permira have been buying the struggling German broadcaster’s debt on the cheap. Sources suggested that the pair had been paying only around 30cents for every euro of debt, allowing them to become, in effect, major creditors. "Apollo and Octavian have been buying up debt that is trading at distressed levels and I can see them taking on Permira and KKR over the direction of ProSieben," said a source.
Reuters UK – Pension fund manager Hermes has called for a shake-up of the hedge fund industry, demanding greater transparency and fee structures closer aligned to performance.
The asset manager, which runs BT’s giant pension fund, said it wanted to set up an action committee to help drive through reforms on disclosure.
"I believe that hedge funds want to do the right thing," Matteo Dante Perruccio, head of Hermes’ hedge fund arm, told The Sunday Times.
eFinancialCareers UK – Man Group has been spending freely on technology over the last year, and is expected to continue to do so going into 2010. To carry out the new projects, it’s been hiring an ever-growing team of contractors, a tactic other hedge funds are also employing.
Operating costs amounted to $275m in the financial year to March 2009, and the hedge fund giant incurred a "significant increase in technology costs", with projects being rolled out to "increase the scalability and robustness of our infrastructure and to support the growth of our business in the future".
USA Today – A Spanish banking giant that channeled $3 billion of its clients’ funds to Bernard Madoff has agreed to repay more than $235 million it withdrew from the confessed Ponzi scheme architect in the months before the scam collapsed in December.
Pending federal bankruptcy court approval, the deal announced Tuesday by a hedge fund investment subsidiary of Banco Santander would boost the amount recovered to help repay Madoff’s victims past the $1.2 billion mark.
The settlement would return 85% of the total sought from Spain’s largest bank by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee seeking Madoff’s assets for redistribution to thousands of victimized investors worldwide. Picard has so far issued more than $100 million in repayment commitments, a fraction of the total losses.
The Ledger – The financial crisis has ravaged many a Wall Street giant, but it has also produced a handful of winners. BlackRock, a money manager that is much admired but little known outside financial circles, is fast emerging as one of the nation’s financial powerhouses.
BlackRock, which started in a one-room office 21 years ago, now manages $1.3 trillion in assets for big private clients, including hedge funds and foreign governments.
But it is the company’s highly prized role as a government adviser and contractor that is now drawing attention.
Globe and Mail – An Indian mining giant has quietly amassed a near 10-per-cent stake in HudBay Minerals Inc., HBM securing a major advantage over potential rival suitors for the Canadian zinc and copper producer that has hired advisers to explore the company’s strategic options.
Documents filed in Ontario Superior Court show Lakomasko BV, a privately held company based in Amsterdam, owns 14.5 million HudBay shares – about 9.5 per cent of the Toronto mining firm.
Globe and Mail – An Indian mining giant has quietly amassed a near 10-per-cent stake in HudBay Minerals Inc., securing a major advantage over potential rival suitors for the Canadian zinc and copper producer that has hired advisers to explore the company’s strategic options.
Documents filed in Ontario Superior Court show Lakomasko BV, a privately held company based in Amsterdam, owns 14.5 million HudBay shares – about 9.5 per cent of the Toronto mining firm.
AFP – The United States and Switzerland will begin negotiations to amend their bilateral income tax treaty to provide for improved transparency, the US Treasury Department said Monday.
The announcement came following Group of 20 pledges last week to clean up tax havens and fight tax fraud and as bilateral relations have been strained by a massive tax fraud case involving Swiss banking giant UBS.
The negotiations to amend the 1996 treaty are expected to begin April 28 in Berne, Switzerland, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
