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.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – The British Financial Services Authority has imposed a fine on Steven Harrison for about $93,000 after accusing him of market abuse. Harrison will not be allowed to work as a trader for the next 12 months.
According to the allegations made by the FSA, Harrison told a co-worker at the Moore Credit Fund to purchase 2 million 10.5 percent senior notes in chemical company Rhodia SA, after having received insider information from members at Credit Suisse. Harrison was contacted in September 2006 by Credit Suisse to help them establish pricing for Rhodia’s bonds.
Knowing that Rhodia would be seeking board approval for its refinancing, Harrison made the order. The fund proceeded to make about $63,000 off that knowledge, though the FSA is not condemning the actions of Credit Suisse.
The FSA also acknowledged that Harrison did not make a personal profit from those trades. Harrison worked for Moore Europe Capital Management; a subsidiary of New-York based Moore Capital Management.
Moore Capital has a long standing reputation in the states for the global-macro strategies they employ, while investing in stocks, bonds and currencies. Founded by U.S. billionaire Louis Bacon in 1989, Moore Capital manages an estimated $15 billion in assets.
This is the latest in a string of attempts by the FSA to further probe hedge funds, after passing two new rules this summer requiring disclosure about shorting stocks and regarding derivatives.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Privately owned asset manager, Unigestion, has appointed Konstantinos Iordanidis as Managing Director and Head of Hedge Funds. Unigestion has $11 billion invested in hedge funds, private equity funds and quantitative equity strategies.
Iordanidis is a co-founder of Z.I. Investment, LLC, a global macro hedge fund in Chicago and former Head of Asset Allocation at Julius Baer Asset Management in Zurich from 2003 to 2005. He joins from Olympia Capital Management in Paris where he has been Co-Chief Investment Officer since 2005.
Based in Geneva, his role will be to lead the development of Unigestion’s fund of hedge funds business which comprises 43 investment professionals based in Geneva, London, New York, Paris, Singapore and Guernsey.
The arrival of Iordanidis will provide the opportunity for Bernard Sabrier, Chairman of Unigestion, and Patrick Fenal, CEO, to devote more time to the overall management of the Group focusing on the strategic direction of Unigestion over the next decade. Both will continue to have a key involvement in the fund of hedge fund business, including close relationships with hedge fund managers and Unigestion’s clients.
"It is a natural move for us to reinforce our management structure as we continue to build a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural and multi-geographic hedge fund team delivering superior quality products to our clients in a consistent and disciplined way." Patrick Fenal, CEO of Unigestion said.
"We are proud to have attracted such a talented individual to strengthen our team." Chairman of Unigestion Bernard Sabrier added, "No doubt he and the team will build on our existing expertise and continue to provide our clients with a combination of products and client service at the leading edge of the fund of hedge fund industry."
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net) – The Directors of Cayman based Camelot Global Investments announced a management buy-out of their hedge fund, in cooperation with Merlin Global Enterprise.
Camelot will join Arkanar Financial Holdings, with the head office being relocated to Tallinn, Estonia. A branch will remain in Caymans.
The key staff members will stay, "It is important that we were able to maintain all trading and administrative staff," the board announced, "We have only lost the former majority shareholders who decided to retire and leave the industry."
Bob Torkelund has joined as Managing Director and co-shareholder, he will head the entire promotion, distribution and the servicing of funds. Torkelund will also lead the launches of new products according to market demand.
"I am really delighted to be able to be part of this young, dynamic team especially because we have been working together for a while on a consulting basis and have got to know each other very well and know where to support each other. The combination of my experience and contact network makes it a thrilling opportunity for both parties”, Torkelund said.
Apart from Torkelund, head trader Thomas Feldt and Jevgeni Geller are still shareholders and directors in the company. Having contributed largely to the past success of Camelot, they and are enthusiastic about the challenge. Geller will concentrate on business development, overseeing all operations to ensure continuity in performance and service. Feldt will continue to head the trading desk and will be responsible for investment strategy.
The investment strategy will reflect Camelot’s previous success. Feldt analyses systematic trading and global macro strategy, making adjustments in conjunction with market change in order to ensure constant development in the returns.
On September 15th 2008 Arkanar Financial will be launching their first Cayman licensed fund in cooperation with Capita Financial, Gibraltar.
One of the significant differences with non-regulated funds is that they can offer investments from as little as $10 000 and subsequent deals from $1000.
Arkanar Financial Holdings also utilises electronic clearing facilities ( Euroclear /Clearstream), accepting deals on a -payment against delivery- basis which opens basically for a large number of Europeans banks to be able to invest on behalf of their clients, a big step for the more general investment population to be able to test hedge funds without having to risk a large part of their portfolio on one position.
The initial offering period will be running till September 30th.
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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Fortress Investment Group, who oversees more than $18 billion in assets, is starting a new hedge fund that will invest in markets throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
The new fund, Fortress MENA, is set to launch near the end of September and seeks returns of 20 percent annually, according to insider documents obtained by Bloomberg. Headed by Philippe Peres, who has run the company’s Drawbridge Global Macro funds for the past five years, the fund will use a “significant” amount of its employee’s personal capital to launch. The documents did not state how much money the fund aimed to raise up front.
Fortress MENA will deal with equities, fixed-income securities and currencies throughout regions seeking to reduce their oil dependencies. This includes countries such as Lebanon, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey.
This will be the fifth hedge fund in the company’s portfolio. Fortress went public in February, but has seen shares decrease 36 percent this year compared to the 13 percent decline of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Shares are trading almost 50 percent below their initial offering of $18.50.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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! Be sure to check out our sister sites. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com
Bloomberg – Citadel Investment Group LLC, the Chicago-based asset-management firm founded by Kenneth Griffin, is seeking about $1 billion for a new global macro hedge fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The fund is set to be managed in London by Kaveh Alamouti, 54, whom Citadel hired this year from New York-based Moore Capital Management LLC, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Citadel oversees $20 billion.
Macro funds, which attempt to profit from broad economic trends by trading stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities, gained an average of 3.7 percent this year through July, according to data compiled by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. All funds lost an average of 3.4 percent.
"Citadel is as good as they get,” said Tammer Kamel, president of Toronto-based Iluka Consulting Group Ltd., which advises clients on investing in hedge funds. “They have a reputation that will ease the current difficulties that hedge funds face in raising capital.”
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – David Ko, a former quantum physicist and Long-Term Capital Management employee, has set up his own hedge fund according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
Kurtosis Capital Partners will employ a global macro strategy and hopes to attract between $100 million and $250 million initially. Ko has partnered with Stephen Cain, once the global head of currency trading at Deutsche Asset Management.
"Our strategy is to buy options when we think a market is going to become volatile. The closer to the dislocation, the better. Then, at the moment of highest volatility, sell," he said.
Global macro funds generally look for tiny discrepancies in the market using complex equations and mathematical solutions. They then capitalize on those discrepancies by betting on which way they will eventually regulate.
Ko stresses that the fund won’t be using leverage, unlike Long-Term Capital Management, which used heavy amounts of leverage that only magnified the huge losses it suffered. LTCM infamously ended up losing close to $5 billion of investor’s money.
Prior to his hedge fund career, Ko helped to author 10 academic papers on quantum physics while studying at Oxford University.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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! Be sure to check out our sister sites. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com
International Herald Tribune- Hedge fund managers are looking to global macro funds to try to steer clear of the mess created by the credit crisis while cautiously dipping into a small pool of more risky assets, a Reuters poll found.
Stormy markets have torn through the hedge fund market this year, forcing many to shut up shop and others to tumble, but most have still managed to keep well ahead of the severe double-digit losses suffered by global stock markets in the first half of the year.
The quarterly survey of 13 managers who invest in a basket of hedge funds and manage a total of about $150 billion in assets showed global macro funds leading the way through 2008 as they tend to benefit from periods of high volatility.
Typically global macro funds bet on the direction of markets, currencies or debt, and commodities.
Guardian.co.uk- Funds of hedge fund managers are looking to global macro funds to try and steer clear of the mess thrown up by the credit crisis while cautiously dipping their toes in a small pool of more risky assets, a Reuters poll found.
Stormy markets have torn through the hedge fund market this year, forcing many to shut up shop and others to tumble, but most have still managed to keep well ahead of the severe double digit losses suffered by global stock markets in the first half of the year.
The quarterly survey of 13 managers which invest in a basket of hedge funds and manage a total of around $150 billion in assets showed global macro funds leading the way through 2008 as they tend to benefit from periods of high volatility.
FINalternatives- Bedrock Alternative Asset Management in May launched its Global Diversified Fund, a fund of funds covering private equity, hedge funds, real estate and commodities, combined with traditional stock and bond investments.
The fund will invest in a 15 to 25 underlying hedge fund managers, with exposure to event-driven, long/short equity, managed futures, global macro distressed, volatility and emerging markets strategies. Some 70% of its portfolio was weighted toward hedge funds, followed by equities (19%) and cash (8.4%). The firm is limiting its p.e. and real estate exposure to no more than 15% and commodities at 10%.
The US$65 million fund finished its first month of trading up an estimated 0.68%. Its hedge funds sub-portfolio was the strongest contributor to its performance in May, providing almost two-thirds of its gains, according to the firm.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net)- Investcorp’s hedge fund co-managers said they have raised over $2 billion for their Single Manager Platform. Debuted in 2005, the platform supports emerging talent in the hedge fund industry.
Deepak Gurnani, managing director and co-head of hedge funds said, "Reaching the $2 billion milestone is a testament to the quality of the managers who have partnered with us."
"We’ve tailored the program to the interests of sophisticated institutional investors that want to diversify their hedge fund holdings by including the industry’s rising stars in their portfolios," Ibrahim Gharghour, managing director and co-head of hedge funds added.
Investcorp provides between $50 million and $100 million in seed capital to the managers along with support for marketing and ongoing risk monitoring to avoid style-drift and other operational concerns. Investcorp’s hedge funds team of more than 100 professionals oversees approximately $8 billion in assets under management, of which approximately $2 billion is proprietary capital.
The Single Manager Platform is part of Investcorp’s larger suite of hedge fund solutions, which includes fund of funds, customized portfolios and structured products. Today, it has more than 30 institutional investors in the platform, which comprises six managers with a range of investing strategies.
The six managers currently in the program are Cura Capital Management, a fixed income relative value manager based in New York, Interlachen Capital Group, a multi-strategy firm based in Minneapolis, Silverback Asset Management, a convertible arbitrage focused management firm based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Stoneworks Asset Management, a global macro investment platform based in London, Washington Corner Capital Management, a distressed and credit-based investment platform based in Florham Park, New Jersey and WMG Asia, an Asian long/short equity strategy management firm based in Hong Kong.
Hank Murphy is the head of development for the Single Manager Platform.
FINalternatives- The $154.5 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund last month made commitments to a trio of hedge fund and private equity managers.
The CRF committed €150 million (US$233 million) to CVC European Equity Fund V and $50 million to Levine Leichtman Capital Partners IV, a $4 billion middle-market, woman-owned private equity shop.
The fund last month also made a $1 million commitment to Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund, through one of its funds of hedge funds, which was not disclosed for competitive reasons
Wall street Journal- U.K. hedge-fund manager London Diversified Fund Management recorded a loss of 17% on its global macro fund for the year to June 6, a rare loss under what generally has been a successful strategy.
Global macro funds make bets on global financial and economic trends, a strategy that has been the most successful so far this year, making 5.35% in the first five months, according to U.S. data provider Hedge Fund Research.
