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.
Guardian – Emerging markets have been the place to invest over the past decade. While the FTSE 100 is down more than a quarter since it peaked in December 1999, and the S&P 500 in the US by 28%, markets in Brazil, India and Russia have more than trebled in value, while China has doubled, according to figures compiled for Cash by BGC Partners.
The more recent performance of emerging markets has also been better than developed ones, undermining the traditional view that they overreact to bad news. And Bryan Coyne, head of emerging markets at BGC Partners, thinks “there’s no reason why these markets shouldn’t continue to outperform mature markets”.
Reuters India – Global fund of hedge funds firm FRM Capital Advisors said on Tuesday it will invest up to $60 million in New York-based asset manager WestSpring’s first fund.
Specialist hedge fund seeder FCA said the investment is part of a strategic tie up with WestSpring, which is scheduled to launch the fund in September. The firm will try to combine fundamental and quantitative approaches to credit analysis.
”We are confident in WestSpring’s ability to build a high quality alternative investment business and we believe this strategic relationship is a great opportunity for our investors,” said Clive Peggram, chief executive of FCA.
Reuters India – Asian hedge funds were up a fourth straight month in June, rising an estimated 1.79 percent, on the strength of gains in Chinese and Japanese stocks, hedge-fund tracker Eurekahedge said.
The positive returns in June, which is based on preliminary data, brought gains since the start of 2009 to 13.96 percent.
Japan hedge funds gained 2.14 percent, North American funds edged up 0.60 percent, European funds lost 0.15 percent and Latin American funds returned 1.19 percent, the Singapore-based firm said in a statement on Wednesday.
Seeking Alpha – During the past week, almost 15 percent of investors have expressed a specific interest in India-focused funds. When compared with the first week of the second quarter, this percentage is almost double. In a recent article in Hedge Funds India (see, “Hedge Fund Managers Cautious: Focus on China and India,” June 22, 2009), Seppo Leskinen, an investment manager stated
I think the shift of the world’s economies has gone to China and India and these BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies. They are the new economy superpowers in the economic world.
A study by HedgeFund.net (HFN) seems to support this opinion. HFN found that since the first of the year, India-focused hedge funds have produced average returns of 19.6 percent. The same study also estimated that between late 2005 and September 2008, the total assets allocated to India-focused hedge funds increased from $2.8 billion to almost $14 billion. This increase of close to 500 percent shows that hedge fund investors have been looking for more exposure to India.
Reuters India – Wall Street, where hundreds of commodity traders lost jobs last year as the recession set in, is on a new hiring phase where banks and hedge funds want to pay top dollar but only to a few, highly productive people.
The actual number of hires is unlikely to match the pace seen during the commodities super-cycle from 2003 to 2008, when investment banks ran a maze of desks that handled almost everything in the energy, metals and agricultural space.
Reuters India – Nomura Holdings plans to launch a global prime brokerage business by September as the financial crisis creates room for new players to offer lucrative services to hedge funds, a senior executive said on Monday.
The move shows how Japan’s biggest investment bank, which scooped the European, Middle Eastern and Asian units of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, is muscling into an industry once dominated by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
CNBC – People who invested with Bernard Madoff were greedy and happy to accept high returns without probing too much in the way these were achieved, Hugh Hendry, chief investment officer at hedge fund Eclectica, told CNBC Tuesday.
"I’m sympathetic for people losing money but I think this pejorative term of being greedy still applies," Hendry told CNBC.com. "There was an implicit greed in not questioning and just accepting unnatural returns."
"They didn’t show the requisite amount of fear that would have generated the curiosity to investigate," he said, adding that for every one Madoff investor, there were ten who stayed on the sidelines.
Reuters India – Hedge funds are living up to their high-flying reputation again with strong returns in the last three months, but many investors burned by last year’s losses are clamoring for reforms before committing new money.
Final June quarter data will not be released until next week, but Merrill Lynch analysts who track returns in the $1.3 trillion industry wrote on Monday that hedge funds will likely post their best quarterly performance since early 2000.
Reuters India – Hedge funds, private equity firms and other investors are scrambling to meet a looming deadline to report their offshore income, as U.S. tax collectors boost efforts to track foreign holdings.
The reports will give authorities a glimpse into just how much money U.S. citizens have tucked away in investment accounts overseas, believed to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
U.S. taxpayers have long been required to file "Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Account" forms with the government when they have holdings of more than $10,000 in foreign banks.
VC Circle – UK fund of funds CDC Group Plc has committed $10 million to Rabo Equity Advisors’ India Agri Business Fund. This investment is part of CDC’s new investment policy which came into effect on January1, 2009, according to which, the lender will invest in the world’s poorest nations. About 75% of its investments will go into countries with an annual gross national income per head of less than $905.
Reuters India – Lenders to French roofing company Monier Group have approved a restructuring deal that sees a group of debt investors take control of the company, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.
The deal is one of the largest "loan to own" restructurings in Europe, and has been led by debt investors Apollo Management [APOLO.UL], TowerBrook and York Capital.
Reuters India – Hedge fund firm 47 Degrees North has launched a portfolio that will invest in funds in areas such as electricity, transportation and volatility arbitrage as it seeks fresh ways to sidestep falls in traditional markets.
The firm, which is part-owned by Iveagh, the investment office of the super-rich Guinness family, said the 47 Degrees North Innovation fund will invest in 20-to-25 funds in non-traditional areas that will also include insurance-linked securities and Middle East and North African equities.
