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.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Man Investments’ seeding fund, RMF Global Emerging Managers, has completed its second incubation deal of the last two months, providing a cornerstone investment of $50 million for Hong Kong’s Minerva Macro Fund.
In July RMF GEM invested $50 million in the flagship product of 5:15 Capital Management, an unrelated fixed income arbitrage manager based in Connecticut.
Minerva is managed by Stanley Ku, who founded the Hong Kong office of hedge fund Fortress Investment Group and most recently managed $750 million for Fortress’ Drawbridge Global Macro Fund. Dorothy Lau, Minerva’s risk and business manager, formerly worked for JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
“Stanley Ku’s work at Fortress and Goldman Sachs has made him a very well respected money manager in Asia,” said Hans Hurschler, head of Man Investments’ hedge fund Ventures. “We believe that Minerva has the potential to generate solid, stable returns and that it may attract substantial assets.”
Minerva is a discretionary global macro fund, focused on Asia. It trades only highly liquid instruments such as interest rate or bond futures, foreign exchange forwards and equity index futures or sector ETFs. The entire portfolio is designed to be liquidated in 48 hours.
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Financial Standard – Long/short hedge fund managers increased their net exposure to equity markets, allowing them to post positive returns last month, according to a replication index.
The Credit Suisse Long/Short Equity Replication Index, which replicates the performance of major hedge fund strategies, was up almost 2 per cent (net) in July.
At the same time, the Credit Suisse Global Macro Replication Index crept into positive territory by 3 basis points.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Alternative investment manager, Global Fund Exchange, has hired A. Michael D’Arpino as Director of Business Development, a new position at the firm. D’Arpino joins Global Fund Exchange from hedge fund manager Clinton Group, Inc.
"We are very excited to have Michael join our team," said Lauralouise Duffy, CEO, Global Fund Exchange Group. "He brings a wealth of hedge fund and Wall Street broker-dealer experience, outstanding leadership capabilities and the expert analytical, planning and communications skills that are so critically important to our investors."
Prior to joining Global Fund Exchange, D’Arpino was Managing Director, Clinton Group, Inc., where he held responsibility for all marketing functions including identifying and mitigating business and operational risks, compliance, business development and investor relations.
"I am pleased to join Global Fund Exchange, which is comprised of a unique group of industry veterans dedicated to providing a distinct approach to alternative and traditional energy opportunities globally through the Earth Wind & Fire Funds," said D’Arpino. "The firm’s strategy, using a multi-manager global macro approach to investing across the entire spectrum of energy and resources, represents a compelling opportunity for investors who seek access to the alternative energy and renewable resources sectors while offering the benefits of diversified and uncorrelated portfolios."
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Long/Short Equity hedge funds continued to increase overall net exposures in July, enabling managers to capitalize on market upswings early in the month, according to Jordan Drachman, Head of Research for Alternative Beta Strategies at Credit Suisse.
Dr. Drachman noted, ”As risk appetite returns to the market, many Long/Short Equity hedge fund managers have increased their overall net exposures, which enabled them to generate positive returns as equity markets bounced back early in July. Despite mid-month volatility, managers were able to preserve gains to finish up for the month. The Credit Suisse Long/Short Equity Replication Index was up 1.96% (net) for the month, while the Credit Suisse Global Macro Replication Index finished up 0.03% over the same period.”
AIR Indices seek to replicate the performance of major hedge fund strategies and enable investors to gain liquid, transparent insight into the Global Macro and Long/Short Equity sectors of the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index. The AIR platform also offers inverse indices that seek to approximate short exposure to the aggregate returns of the universe of Long/Short Equity and Global Macro hedge fund managers.
Performances for the AIR Global Macro and Long/Short Equity Indices are calculated daily and shown net of a 1.15% per annum calculation fee.
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Reuters UK – HSBC Halbis fund manager Jim Dunsford is favouring trades exploiting price discrepancies, rather than big bets on market movements, because he believes markets are still in unknown territory.
Dunsford manages the 100 million euro (85 million pound) Halbis Global Macro fund, which uses hedge fund-style techniques to try and make money in all environments.
"We prefer non-directional, relative value bets. We’re living in a very unusual environment and directional bets are risky," Dunsford told Reuters.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Credit Suisse Tremont Index LLC released a new research piece, 1H 2009 Hedge Fund Update: Halfway There, a review of how hedge funds have repositioned themselves in the first half of 2009 to generate positive returns for five out of the first six months of the year.
The report discusses how hedge funds have generated year-to-date returns of 7.2% through June 30, outperforming, with lower volatility, both key equity and bond indices. Some key takeaways from the report include:
* The Convertible Arbitrage, Emerging Markets, and Global Macro sectors have received increased attention as investors began to regain their appetite for risk and global markets rallied.
* Performance has improved across most sectors, with the bulk of returns for many strategies moving into positive territory for the year, with 80% of all funds reporting positive returns for the second quarter.
* Overall industry assets under management have dropped approximately $18 billion since the end of the first quarter of 2009; we estimate industry assets totaled $1.3 trillion as of June 30 – down from $1.5 trillion at the end of 2008.
* As of June 30, 2009, an estimated 9.6% of funds were classified as impaired, meaning they have either suspended redemptions, imposed gate provisions or sidepocketed assets.
Credit Suisse is comprised of a number of legal entities around the world and is headquartered in Zurich. The registered shares of Credit Suisse’s parent company, Credit Suisse Group AG, are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares, in New York.
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Six months after their worst drawdown on record, hedge funds appear to be demonstrating stronger performance than in some previous recovery periods, such as during the Asian Currency Crisis and the Tech Bubble Burst events.
On average, it has taken hedge funds 13 months to recover from these market disruptions accordind to research peice by Credit Suisse Tremont Index LLC, the research reviews of how hedge funds have repositioned themselves in the first half of 2009 to generate positive returns for five out of the first six months of the year.
The report discusses how hedge funds, as measured by the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index (“Broad Index”), have generated year-to-date returns of 7.2% through June 30, outperforming, with lower volatility, both key equity and bond indices. Some key takeaways from the report include:
The Convertible Arbitrage, Emerging Markets, and Global Macro sectors have received increased attention as investors began to regain their appetite for risk and global markets rallied.
Performance has improved across most sectors, with the bulk of returns for many strategies moving into positive territory for the year, with 80% of all funds reporting positive returns for the second quarter.
Overall industry assets under management have dropped approximately $18 billion since the end of the first quarter of 2009; we estimate industry assets totaled $1.3 trillion as of June 30 – down from $1.5 trillion at the end of 2008.
As of June 30, 2009, an estimated 9.6% of funds were classified as impaired, meaning they have either suspended redemptions, imposed gate provisions or sidepocketed assets.
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!
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Long/Short Equity managers who maintained a cautious stance through the recent market run-up appeared to be positioned to profit as markets shifted from cyclicals to defensives in June. Overall, the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index (“Broad Index”) finished up 0.43% for June, bringing year to date to 7.18%.
Convertible Arbitrage funds continued to post the best performance of all the strategies in the Broad Index, with 4.05% for June and 23.95% cumulative performance YTD, Credit Suisse/Tremont Index’s monthly commentary reported. As equity markets’ recovered in the second quarter, managers began to profit again from the volatility arbitrage aspect of the strategy.
Overall, Emerging Markets finished the month relatively flat despite a rebound in economic activity in Asia, as countries across the region saw rising industrial and manufacturing output, the Index reported.
Credit-oriented hedge funds performed well as credit markets showed healthy activity, with $102 billion of investment grade bonds brought to the market in June. Many believe continued governments’ activism in the markets could provide additional opportunities for these managers.
Global Macro hedge funds posted their first negative monthly performance since October 2008 as the sell-off of short rates in US Treasuries negatively impacted the positions of a number of Global Macro hedge funds early in the month, Credit Suisse/Tremont said.
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – One of the first no-load, open-end mutual funds designed to replicate broad-based hedge fund performance characteristics, the ‘IQ ALPHA Hedge Strategy Fund’ (IQHIX) has marked its one-year anniversary on June 30th, 2009.
For the trailing 12-month period, the fund was down -2.58 percent, compared to a loss of -26.21 percent for the S&P 500.
“The performance over the past year can be attributed to a number of factors, including the ability of the fund to hold both long and short positions, and the liquidity of the ETFs used to represent asset class exposures,” said Adam Patti, IndexIQ’s Chief Executive Officer. “As a result, we were able to continuously execute our strategy during the period, something not all hedge funds could do.”
The fund works by optimizing the relative index weights among six hedge fund strategies, Equity Long/Short; Global Macro; Emerging Markets; Fixed Income Arbitrage; Equity Market Neutral; and Event Driven.
The funds do not invest in hedge funds, but use ETFs and a variety of other highly liquid financial instruments to provide exposure to the components of the index in approximately the same weighting. It employs leverage totaling 25 percent of the portfolio to magnify returns.
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Bloomberg – Sparx Group Co., Asia’s biggest hedge-fund manager, plans to start its first global macro fund, adding a strategy that was among the few winners in 2008 when an equities rout led to the only annual loss in its 20-year history.
The fund, which will wager on trends in stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide, will be sold to institutional investors in the next few months as Tokyo-based Sparx expands beyond equity- related offerings, President Shuhei Abe said. He declined to give the fund’s size, saying that and other details are still being worked out.
Reuters – Hedge fund firm Polar Capital reported a fall in assets but has seen net inflows in recent months and said on Wednesday it was looking "more aggressively" at buying firms in distress.
Polar said assets under management fell to $1.54 billion at end-May from $3.1 billion at end-March 2008, although there has been a small rise since the end of March this year.
Chief executive Mark Kary told Reuters the firm had seen "small net inflows" since end-March, particularly into its global macro strategy and European long/short equity funds.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Global hedge fund manager Cogo Wolf Asset Management has launched the Cogo Wolf Trimaran Liquidity Fund, a highly liquid fund of hedge funds designed to help institutional and private investors navigate the current global investing storms.
Managed by Co-CIOs and Managing Partners Christopher R. Wolf and Giles Conway-Gordon and offering complete transparency, the Trimaran Liquidity Fund targets 16-18% net return with expected volatility of 6-8% without the use of leverage.
“The global financial markets are forever changed. The industry has experienced a kind of ‘perfect storm’ in recent years—the credit contraction, the housing contraction and the overall economic contraction,” stated Christopher R. Wolf. “Trimaran is the first fund of its kind, designed as a remedy for sophisticated institutional and private investors who are ready to redeploy capital but need new assurances to do so.”
The Trimaran Fund has been designed to provide Alpha with non-correlation and liability protection including: Ultra Liquidity (monthly liquidity, 10-day notice with no lock-up, no gate, no redemption penalties and complete transparency); Flexibility (all underlying investments are ultra liquid, permitting rapid, opportunistic responses to global volatility and market uncertainty); and Stability (diversification).
The “three distinct hulls” the Trimaran Fund invests in include:
* Managed Futures, Global Macro, CTAs and other ultra liquid strategies which have low/negative correlation to equity markets; * ETFs enabling narrow and controlled directionality as a proxy for direct hedge fund investing; * Debt-Related Instruments, notably mispriced credit opportunities offering attractive returns and gains.
“A forward-looking, global tactical asset allocation model will be necessary for investors to deliver profit in the new fund of hedge funds paradigm,” commented Giles Conway-Gordon. “Our top-down investment methodology, namely skating to where the puck is going to be, is paramount to nimbleness and adaptability. We are asset allocators first, talent scouts second.”
“It’s not enough to know what instruments one finds compelling; what’s mandatory is to know why you’re there in the first place. What macroeconomic trend does that investment capture? And if so, how effectively and what risks are associated with that decision? Risk management is more than optimization modeling, VAR and stress testing. It’s a holistic understanding of the environment in which these instruments are being used, the opportunity they’re designed to capture and the finesse necessary to know depth and duration – how long and how much does one hold? That’s the art and a talent we’ve honed over 25+ years,” Wolf concluded.
Cogo Wolf has been nominated by Alternative Investment News and Institutional Investor as “Emerging Manager of the Year” given its strong growth trajectory lead by the firm’s President and Partner, Rachel S.L. Minard, its 14-year history delivering 12% net CAR and having never lost an investor since its doors opened, according to the fund manager.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@hedgeco.net
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