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.
Bloomberg – Credit Suisse Group AG, the largest Swiss bank by market value, hired Trevor Randolph from BNP Paribas Securities as a senior sales executive for its fund- linked products unit, a person familiar with the matter said.
Randolph, 36, will be a director and report to Jeff Jaenicke and Walter Rotondo, global head of fund-linked products at the Zurich-based company, said the person, who declined to be identified because the hire hasn’t been announced.
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) – 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!
Bloomberg – Goldman Sachs Group Inc., unbowed by the securities industry’s worst year since the Great Depression, increased its trading bets at the fastest rate on Wall Street.
Goldman Sachs’s so-called value-at-risk, the amount the New York-based bank estimates it could lose from trading in a day, jumped 22 percent to $240 million in the first quarter, twice what Morgan Stanley stands to lose, company reports show. VaR climbed 2.8 percent in the same period at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and dropped 14 percent at Credit Suisse Group AG.
Bloomberg – UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, nominated former Finance Minister Kaspar Villiger as chairman of its board of directors, replacing Peter Kurer after one year amid a probe into whether it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes.
Kurer’s departure comes less than a week after UBS called former Credit Suisse Group AG Chief Executive Officer Oswald Gruebel, 65, out of retirement to replace CEO Marcel Rohner. Villiger, 68, will step down from board positions at Swiss Reinsurance Co, Nestle SA and Neue Zuercher Zeitung if elected by shareholders on April 15, the Zurich-based bank said today.
UBS is being sued by the U.S. over the names of as many as 52,000 clients, after agreeing last month to hand out details of a few hundred customers to avoid prosecution on a charge that it helped rich Americans dodge taxes. The bank is cutting 11,000 jobs after more than $50 billion in losses from the credit crisis, and clients withdrew $195 billion of assets last year.
“This is a clean slate,” said Christian Stark, an analyst at Credit Agricole Cheuvreux in Zurich who has an “underperform” rating on the stock. “Villiger hasn’t got the banking experience, but his political background may be useful in dealing with the U.S. and European Union.”
UBS rose 37 centimes, or 3.7 percent, to 10.26 francs by 1:02 p.m. in Swiss trading. The bank has lost 84 percent of its market value in the past two years and posted the biggest ever loss by a Swiss company earlier this year.
Bloomberg – James Pallotta and Christopher Pia, hedge-fund managers who recently struck out on their own, are discovering just how much the global financial crisis is reducing investors’ appetite for risk.
Pallotta, who split from Tudor Investment Corp. last month, and Pia, who spent 13 years managing money for Moore Capital Management LLC, probably will raise about $500 million apiece this year, according to brokers who provide loans and administrative services to hedge funds. Michael Ryan, who left Credit Suisse Group AG to open Jai Capital Management, will top out at around the same amount, according to the brokers, who asked not to be identified because the funds are private.
Investors, who put more than $1 billion each into seven new hedge funds last year, are scaling back after the industry posted its worst year on record in 2008. Whether it’s a big-name manager like Boston-based Pallotta or a newcomer, that threshold will be harder to cross this year than in the boom of 2002 through 2007.
Bloomberg - Myojo Asset Management Japan Co., whose assets shrank 86 percent in 2008, plans a new fund focused on global technology stocks as the firm rebuilds after the hedge fund industry’s worst year on record.
Noriya Nishi, a former technology analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in Tokyo, will run the Myojo Super Cycle Fund, set to start on March 1. Nishi, 44, said in an interview yesterday he’ll use a long-short strategy, betting on rising and falling stock prices of firms including NEC Corp. and Intel Corp.
Myojo joins U.S. funds including Prentice Capital Management LP and Tontine Associates LLC in seeking to raise money after the $1.5 trillion hedge-fund industry contracted about 20 percent in 2008. It will start with “several hundreds of millions of yen,” including Nishi’s own money, and invest in 55 Japanese technology-related stocks and 25 companies abroad.
Bloomberg – Banque Safdie SA, the Geneva-based wealth manager that withdrew money invested with Bernard Madoff three years before his alleged Ponzi scheme unraveled, said the scandal will mean more hedge fund regulation.
“What Madoff has done is highlight the lack of regulation,” Safdie Chief Executive Officer Claude Le Ber said in an interview from Geneva this week. “There’s going to be a shake out. Even before Madoff, the hedge fund industry was seeing redemptions and wasn’t producing absolute returns.”
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Because of investors’ demand Salus Alpha decided to make the Salus Alpha Directional Market accessible as a fund. This way Salus Alpha continues to launch tracker funds for all hedge fund indices launched by Alternative-Index Ltd.
The Directional Markets Index (DMX) convinced investors this year with outstanding +53% YTD performance and above-average performance in the last years, the DMX contrasts clearly with other Hedge Fund Indices.
Investors are able to achieve profits even in falling markets because of the widening of the product range Salus Alpha. It responds to investors’ needs in the current volatile market environment and offers a lager selection of funds with no correlation to bonds or equities.
The Salus Alpha Directional Markets employs directional trend following strategies in multiple time frames and markets. The funds objective is to achieve low to negative correlation to traditional longonly investments such as bonds or equities. The fund also tracks the Vienna Stock Exchange listed DMX.
Since inception of the calculation the DMX displays a performance of approximately 28.40% p.a. with a volatility of 17.88% p.a.
The subscription period for the Salus Alpha Directional Markets is from 5th November 2008 to 30th November 2008. During subscription period no sales fee will be charged.
