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.
Interactive Investor – The retreat of two high-profile activist funds from Japan underscores the difficulties such funds face in squeezing value from their investments and raises worries about lax corporate governance in the world’s second-biggest economy.
The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) and Steel Partners have been scaling back since last year, joining a growing pool of foreign funds reducing exposure to Japan.
The departure also points to rising frustration among foreign funds that managers are not interested in maximising value, while domestic shareholders, often through complex cross-holdings, want to maintain the status quo.
Interactive Investor – Activist hedge fund Algebris has sold its stake in Italian insurer Assicurazione Generali SpA , a newspaper said on Tuesday, but a financial source said Algebris would attend the shareholder meeting this week.
Algebris head Davide Serra criticised Generali’s governance last year, a rare move among Italian shareholders, and lost his bid to appoint an auditor. He resumed his campaign last July by querying Generali investments.
Interactive Investor – Japan’s Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co said on Monday it planned to cut its unhedged foreign bond holdings while increasing its hedged foreign bond holdings this business year to offset currency risks.
The nation’s third-largest life insurer by assets also said it has been experimenting with trades in yen swap rates since March to seek higher yields, and said it would boost its yen bond holdings mostly in super-long Japanese government bonds.
Meiji Yasuda said it planned to reduce its unhedged foreign bond holdings by about 100 billion yen ($997 million), and raise its currency-hedged foreign bond holdings by 200 billion yen in the year to March 2010.
Interactive Investor – British fund firm Ashmore Group said it expected the fund-raising environment to remain tough in 2009 as clients continue to cash in investments, after it reported first half profits in line with forecasts.
The group, which specialises in managing emerging market funds, said on Tuesday it sees significant opportunities arising from the turmoil that has hit financial markets, though so far this year it has lost money on its investments. The group said pretax profit for the six months to end-December fell to 80.3 million pounds ($116.9 million) from 100.9 million a year before.
Assets under management fell 34 percent to $24.6 billion during the period as the group suffered net outflows of $5.8 billion and investment losses of $7.1 billion.
Interactive Investor – Paolo Pellegrini, who played a crucial role in helping to implement bets against subprime mortgages that netted Paulson & Co about $15 billion in 2007, resigned from the hedge-fund firm on Dec. 31, the Wall Street Journal said.
Pellegrini, who along with John Paulson was the co-portfolio manager of the two Paulson Credit Opportunities funds, is expected to start his own hedge fund, the paper said.
The departure was amicable, the paper said, citing people close to the matter.
