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West Palm beach (HedgeCo.net) – Swiss funds of hedge funds (FoHF) tech. provider Infonic AG, released the latest version of its software suite for FoHFs, HedgeSphere 4.3. “For many funds of hedge funds, including those with complex portfolio structures, management and incentive fees are still calculated manually – a time consuming and error-prone process.” said Thomas Furrer, Infonic AG’s CEO.
“This is an area of supreme client sensitivity,” he continued, “being the primary source of revenue for the management function and a major factor in liability and credibility in administration. HedgeSphere PAD 4.3 provides advanced automation to simplify and streamline the fee calculation process, providing near-real time availability, improving accuracy and transparency over fees and their attribution to investors,” “On the front and middle office side, HedgeSphere MO 4.3 provides tools to improve trading workflow and the exchange of information among portfolio managers, as well as enhanced equity exposure analysis.”
In this latest release, HedgeSphere provides enhanced capabilities for the calculation and processing of investor fees, including: in-advance fee calculations, automated fee crystallization and investor equalization tracking. In addition, HedgeSphere PAD now supports natural hedging and provides real-time views of cash available across accounting entities. Version 4.3 of HedgeSphere MO provides improved trading workflow and exchange of information among portfolio managers, as well as enhanced equity exposure analysis.
Headquartered in Switzerland, and with offices in Zug, Zurich and New York, Infonic AG is the provider of HedgeSphere, the leading product suite for operations of funds of hedge funds. Its HedgeSphere product range debuted in 1999 and has been adopted by the largest and most innovative funds of hedge funds asset managers and administrators in the industry.
WSWS – New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Monday charged J. Ezra Merkin, a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager and former chairman of GMAC Financial Services, the financial arm of General Motors, with bilking investors out of $2.4 billion by funneling their money, without their knowledge, to convicted Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff.
According to the civil complaint filed by Cuomo with the New York Supreme Court, Merkin collected $470 million in management and incentive fees over a fifteen-year period by claiming to be carefully managing the money his clients invested in his three hedge funds, while funneling the bulk of the funds to Madoff’s operation.
Hedge Funds Review – US hedge fund managers could be subject to higher personal taxes if changes to the taxation rules included in President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal are adopted.
The budget proposal includes measures to treat carried interest as ordinary income as opposed to capital gains for tax purposes. That would raise taxes on income earned from performance and incentive fees from the current rate of 15% applicable to capital gains to over 39%.
Carried interest has been a sensitive topic in Washington for many years. Some politicians have argued that hedge funds and private equity groups have used the carried interest exemption to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
The proposed change in tax rules could have a deep impact on the earnings of hedge fund managers. The compensation structure at many hedge fund companies puts the onus on performance and incentive fees as the principal source of income for the manager.
Bloomberg – Penjing Asset Management, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund of funds manager overseeing about $520 million, said it may not get any performance fees until next year, and declining income will restrict staff bonuses.
The company, which ran the fourth-best-performing Asia- Pacific fund of hedge funds last year, plans to keep all its 22 staff as layoffs by rivals make it cheaper to retain talent, said Chief Investment Officer Ronnie Wu.
“Realistically, 2009 we are just trying to climb the high- water mark,” Wu, 40, said in an interview yesterday, referring to a fund’s peak net asset value. “If we’re lucky, maybe we will get some incentive fees in 2010. It will be tough. The senior guys will take a pay cut. But if we can keep everybody intact, I think the future will get better again.”
Herald Tribune – A federal judge extended a freeze on the assets of Sarasota’s Arthur G. Nadel on Tuesday, but failed to include other partners — a measure some investors with the accused hedge fund swindler have been pushing for aggressively because Nadel shared $95.5 million in incentive fees with other Scoop Management Inc. principals.
Nadel did not contest U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara’s order freezing personal and business bank accounts, property and other assets Nadel controls solely or with others, so a hearing scheduled for today was canceled.
Investors like Fort Lauderdale’s Louis Paolino Jr., who is out $5.8 million since the Jan. 14 implosion of the six funds Nadel managed, had hoped the hearing might shed light on why the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was not seeking to include Nadel partners Neil or Chris Moody in the freeze.
