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.
eFinancialCareers UK – Man Group has been spending freely on technology over the last year, and is expected to continue to do so going into 2010. To carry out the new projects, it’s been hiring an ever-growing team of contractors, a tactic other hedge funds are also employing.
Operating costs amounted to $275m in the financial year to March 2009, and the hedge fund giant incurred a "significant increase in technology costs", with projects being rolled out to "increase the scalability and robustness of our infrastructure and to support the growth of our business in the future".
Bloomberg – Switzerland is the world’s most attractive financial center for the “mobile wealthy,” beating London, Singapore and New York, according to a new survey by Scorpio Partnership.
The Alpine nation ranks highest for economic and political stability, legal issues, children’s education and infrastructure, the London-based wealth management adviser said. Switzerland placed fifth for tax and immigration, behind Monaco, Singapore, Cayman and Hong Kong.
“To the mobile wealthy, Switzerland is very nearly all things to all people,” said Scorpio Director Stephen Wall. It “has been and will continue to be the biggest beneficiary of moves away from London.”
Reuters – China Zhongwang Holdings, Asia’s biggest maker of aluminium extrusion products, began marketing on Monday for a Hong Kong IPO to raise as much as $1.58 billion in what would be the world’s largest new listing so far this year.
The company, which generates a large share of its business from the transport sector, including railways, is a beneficiary of Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) economic stimulus package, a big chunk of which is being spent on infrastructure.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund manager Eze Castle Integration has introduced a web version of its "hedge fund hotel" for small hedge funds with fewer than 10 people.
The company introduced the fully managed physical suite in November 2007 and Eze says that the new offering has many of the same options now, over the Internet, using Citrix servers and thin clients. Users pay a monthly subscription fee for this hosted platform using their own desktops and basic networking.
"We act as a cloud," says Bob Guilbert, managing director. "As we add more applications to our back end data center, we’ll enable clients to get things like CRM services, accounting services and anything else that might be necessary to run a back office operation. The benefit of this solution is they don’t have to build out an IT infrastructure, they don’t have to build out a data center. That makes it very easy for them to become operational."
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The Energy Hedge Fund Center, an online community focused on energy and environmental alternative investments, has launched a Directory of Commodity-focused Exchange Traded Funds that will appeal to ordinary investors. The Directory lists Exchange Traded Funds, Exchange Traded Notes and Exchange Traded Commodities in Excel format.
"Over the last several years there has also been an explosion of Exchange Traded instruments accessible by ordinary investors that are designed to provide exposure to commodities," reports Dr. Gary M. Vasey, Co-Principal of EHFC. "This directory is designed as a single source for investors interested in these vehicles."
"The financial crisis has driven more business to exchanges and ETFs. We expect more growth in this sector next year," said Peter Fusaro, Co-Principal, Energy Hedge Fund Center.
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eGov monitor – The international financial crisis has left the world as a whole facing exceptional challenges. The breakthrough in the efforts to bring about closer international cooperation and a reform of international financial institutions achieved at the G-20 meeting in Washington on 15 November owes much the coordinated approach developed in the European Union.
If we can now see a chance of resolving the crisis, it is because the European Union has shown the determination needed to take a pioneering role at world level.
Globe and Mail – Black clouds have been building over the hedge fund industry for much of the year, and a storm could break in coming weeks as investors receive their second set of lousy monthly results from funds that are meant to do well in good markets and bad.
A series of challenges, some unrelated to the hedge funds’ investment strategies, have combined to create lower returns and investor redemptions.
Industry experts expect some funds will be forced to close down as clients walk away.
The single biggest problem is performance. The most recent update of Scotia Capital Inc.’s hedge fund index shows the average fund was down 8.6 per cent in July, compared to a 1.74-per-cent decline in the S&P/TSX equity benchmark. Since its inception in 2005, the Scotia Capital hedge fund index averaged a 13.9-per-cent annual gain.
Wealth Bulletin- US hedge funds keen to support their European client bases are looking at expansion into London. Institutional Credit Partners Capital and Silver Creek have made the move.
Despite predictions that the UK’s non-domiciled tax regime would lead to hedge funds migrating to other European destinations, London remains the hedge fund centre of Europe, handling some 75% of Europe’s $300bn hedge fund assets.
Setting up in the UK poses challenges for unwary US firms – and those coming unprepared may be in for a rude awakening. US hedge funds are generally accustomed to an “employment at will” legal system – hiring and compensating employees without formal written agreements and firing them without any reason (bar discriminatory ones) or any form of prior disciplinary action or dismissal procedure. This is not the case in the UK.
