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.
New York Times – In the rarefied world of hedge funds, he is one of the greats — a stock-picker who managed to make money, bull market or bear, for more than two decades.
But on Wednesday, Arthur J. Samberg told his investors that his long, successful run was over. Mr. Samberg, 68, said he had reached a “painful conclusion” to wind down his $3 billion investment firm, Pequot Capital Management, because a long-simmering investigation into insider trading at the fund was heating up once again.
Reuters – Vito Fossella, a former U.S. congressman representing sections of New York until a drunk driving conviction last year, has joined controversial hedge fund Superfund Investment Group, the Staten Island Advance reported this week. The community newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said Fossella’s role at the firm was not known. Superfund officials and Fossella were not available for comment.
Superfund is a managed futures investment firm that wants to make hedge funds available to the masses. Founder Christian Baha, a former Austrian police officer and college drop-out, stars in television commercials that poke fun at his inability to pronounce "investor."
Reuters – Amiri Capital, the Islamic asset manager backed by investment firm Olivant, said on Monday it has teamed up with broker Newedge to launch the first Islamic fund of long/short hedge funds marketed in the Middle East.
The partnership with Newedge — itself a joint venture between Calyon and Societe Generale — allows Amiri to launch the fund, which was put on hold when original partner Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection in September.
Hedge funds are a relatively new concept in Islamic finance and a bone of contention, with some scholars rejecting them as speculative and others sanctioning them as a tool for diversification.
The Herald – Toscafund, the hedge fund that was a catalyst for the sale of ABN Amro, made £158m profit in 2007 when Royal Bank of Scotland led the disastrous £49bn acquisition of the Dutch bank.
The investment firm, whose holding company is chaired by former Royal Bank chief Sir George Mathewson, enjoyed a spectacular increase in earnings which appears to have been helped by a surge in the value of ABN Amro.
The revelation of Toscafund’s success may stoke fresh controversy about hedge funds. These have been accused of causing massive problems for the UK’s banks with investment policies focused on making short-term gains.
Lethbridge Herald - The top cop at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is leaving the government less than a week after receiving an angry dressing-down before Congress over the agency’s failure to detect a massive alleged fraud scheme.
The SEC said Monday that Linda Thomsen is leaving to pursue opportunities in the private sector, but did not provide further details. She has been the agency’s enforcement director since May 2005, under two previous SEC chairmen.
A replacement for Thomsen wasn’t named. The leading candidate was Robert Khuzami, a former federal prosecutor who is managing director and general counsel of investment firm Deutsche Bank.
Reuters – Investment firm SW1 Capital said on Friday it has bought into hedge fund platform PCE Investors and plans to build a controlling stake, cutting private equity firm Ubequity Capital Partners’ own holding.
PCE runs $1.6 billion (1.1 billion pounds) in assets and by next month will have 21 funds, run by 15 teams, in its stable. SW1 is hoping to exploit greater demand for robust and transparent hedge fund operations, thrown into the spotlight by the financial crisis and Madoff scandal.
The deal initially sees two-thirds owner Ubequity temporarily increase its holding as it and SW1 buy out minority shareholder Schneider Trading Associates.
Saudi Gazette – A seven-member investor group including billionaire George Soros and Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell have agreed to purchase failed lender IndyMac Bank, one of the largest casualties of the housing bust, for $13.9 billion.
IndyMac, which specialized in loans made with little down payment or proof of assets, was seized by the government in July after a run on the bank as the US housing market collapsed.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that a holding company led by Steven Mnuchin, co-chief executive of private equity firm Dune Capital Management, agreed to buy IndyMac in a deal reached Wednesday.
The investors have formed a partnership, called IMB Management Holdings LP, that includes Dell’s investment firm, MSD Capital.
Bloomberg – Jeffrey Gendell, whose investment firm Tontine Associates LLC is liquidating two hedge funds after losses of more than 60 percent this year, plans to start a new fund in February.
The Tontine Total Return Fund will invest in stocks believed to be undervalued and won’t use borrowed money, Gendell said in a letter to investors. Steve Bruce, a spokesman for Greenwich, Connecticut-based Tontine, declined to comment.
Tontine, started by Gendell 12 years ago, had been one of the industry’s best performers, with its four funds returning an average of 38 percent annually since inception through 2007. The firm last month said it was unwinding Tontine Capital Partners LP, a fund that plunged 77 percent this year through October, and Tontine Partners LP, which fell 67 percent through September.
Reuters – Electricite de France SA is close to an agreement to buy half the nuclear power business of Constellation Energy Group Inc (CEG.N) for $4.5 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the situation.
Approval by Constellation‘s board, subject to some conditions, may be announced as early as this week, Bloomberg said quoting a source who remained anonymous because the talks are private.
In September, Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) unit MidAmerican Energy Holdings agreed to pay $4.7 billion, or $26.50 a share, for U.S. power company Constellation, which was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Bloomberg – Dalton Investments LLC, the Los Angeles-based hedge fund with 70 percent of its assets in Japan, is starting a 50 billion yen ($550 million) fund that will invest in U.S. distressed assets, taking advantage of low prices.
The fund has raised about 10 billion yen from U.S. investors and will begin marketing in Japan by the end of March, said Junichiro Sano, chief executive officer of Dalton’s local unit. It will invest in bonds sold by U.S. companies that once had AAA ratings and have since been downgraded below investment grade, aiming to profit from the high yields on the debt.
Dalton, co-founded by James Rosenwald and Steven D. Persky in 1998, aims to raise its assets under management after they fell 23 percent to about 100 billion yen this year amid the biggest financial market losses since the Great Depression. Global financial institutions have posted about $989 billion in writedowns and credit losses linked to the U.S. mortgage market collapse, pushing corporate bond yields higher.
StreetInsider.com – Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier is moving forward with a plan to invest in hedge funds after losing $5 billion of pension assets this year.
Nappier will begin allocating up to 8% of the $20 billion she oversees for public sector employees and teachers into hedge funds after the state’s investment advisory council approved the plan later today.
Ironically, Connecticut, which has many of the world’s largest hedge funds, is one of the few states that doesn’t invest its public pension in the asset class.
The three retirement funds Nappier controls are heading for the worst annual performance since at least 1991, according to treasurer’s office data. Bloomberg reported asset values fell 19.5% to $20.7 billion from $25.9 billion between July 1 and the end of October.
Bloomberg – Switzerland’s asset managers and private bankers haven’t drawn much mirth from investing this year, making the timing of the “Art of Money” show in Lugano ironic.
The exhibition by New York-based artist Jenna Lash features a dozen brightly colored images based on currencies, some so familiar they’re taken for granted, and others extinct. Works on display feature pensive soldiers from the Lithuanian litas, a haunting Mahatma Gandhi from an Indian rupee, and a red, white and blue George Washington imitating the U.S. dollar.
“To finish a year that will go down as the ‘annus horribilis’ for money with a collection like this has beautiful irony,” said Klaus Muhlhausser, a German artist whose studio in a former typography factory a few blocks off Lake Lugano hosts the show through Dec. 13. “I’m one of the few people in Lugano not in the financial business, and this seemed a fun way to participate.”
