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New York (HedgeCo.net) – A new independent study that examines the continued emergence of investment managers in the equity long and short marketplace and their convergence with hedge funds has been published by Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, and Finadium LLC.
The report entitled, Competition and Convergence: The Evolving Landscape for Hedge Funds, indicates that while investment managers have relatively few assets in equity long and short investment portfolios, this segment of the market continues to grow rapidly as firms seek to diversify their business lines and compete with hedge funds. This new competition for assets has pushed some hedge funds into long-only investment strategies and others towards retail distribution. The report suggests that investment managers will become more important to hedge funds as potential partners in product offerings and mergers and acquisitions. Key findings from the study include:
– Growth of Equity Long and Short Investment Strategies Among Investment Managers Expected to Increase – Investment managers’ control of equity long and short investment portfolios is expected to rise from $204 billion to $345 billion by 2012 representing an increase from 19% to 28% of today’s $694 billion marketplace. According to a recent Finadium survey, 65% of investment managers now operate some sort of long and short fund, up from 33% one year ago. Independent hedge funds are also expected to continue to grow and increase their equity long and short portfolios to $810 billion by 2012 as equity markets recover;
– Potential Regulatory Reform Remains a Wild Card – Investment managers view potential regulatory reform as a wild card in driving convergence between themselves and hedge funds. The report indicates that some investment managers advocate working more closely with hedge funds as sub-advisors and potential acquisition targets with the expectation that increased regulation will occur. Without specific regulation, hedge funds will continue to have few legal obligations to disclose fees and practices;
– Hedge Funds Continue to Benefit from Strong Prime Brokerage Relationships – Investment managers have notably different servicing needs than their hedge fund competitors. These organizational requirements have created challenges for investment managers looking to do business with noncustodian prime brokers, to the benefit of hedge funds with strong prime brokerage relationships. While investment managers are becoming more agile in their technology and operations, no party has surmounted the funding obstacles that regulatory and market pressures have put in place; and
– Tri-Party Custodial Relationships May Offer Hedge Funds an Edge – Hedge funds have a wide range of opportunities and challenges to take into consideration when evaluating the strategies of investment managers in the long and short arena. For example, hedge funds should consider tri-party custodial relationships which bring many traits of the asset management industry into their domain. These arrangements allow hedge funds to mitigate their counterparty risk by custodying cash and fully paid for securities with a less leveraged bank custodian, while prime brokerages still hold the fund’s short positions and provide margin financing.
“As investment managers increasingly expand into the equity long and short marketplace, hedge fund managers need to provide their investors with a distinct value proposition that uniquely positions them in the marketplace.” Craig Messinger, managing director of Pershing Prime Services, said, “Exploring new investment strategies, embracing potential merger and acquisition opportunities and offering clients innovative separately managed account solutions are several tactics hedge funds should consider to help continue growing their businesses.”
Guardian.co.uk – Boris Johnson, who is leading the fight against a European crackdown on City financiers, faced accusations of being “bought off” today, when it emerged that more than half the money donated to his mayoral campaign came from the financial sector including hedge funds and private equity.
Johnson has criticised the EU’s so-called “hedge fund directive,” draft rules published in the spring which would limit debt levels for alternative investment managers, such as hedge funds, and force them to be more transparent.
Politico – Schumer, No. 3 in the Senate Democratic leadership and the former chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has offered scads of proposals that the industry doesn’t like on issues from corporate governance to derivatives to the creation of a new consumer watchdog for the financial world.
But his top donors include insurance company New York Life Insurance, private equity firm Lightyear Capital, futures clearinghouse MBF Clearing Corp. and real estate companies Rudin Management and Related Companies.
Quite a few financial insiders express frustration with Schumer, feeling he’s thrown the industry under the bus now that it’s politically popular to do so — after having collected mountains of cash from the industry to help the Democrats build their 60-vote majority in the Senate.
The hedge funds and private equity firms included in that giving also see him as something of a champion for them. Private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital firms gave him more than $707,100 during the 2010 cycle, nearly double what the industry has donated to any other member. Their support can be traced back to a 2007 battle over the “carried interest” bill that would have more than doubled the taxes paid by investment managers.
The legislation passed the House, but momentum petered out in the Senate — a victory some financial services lobbyists attribute to Schumer.
Herald Tribune – Two investors who lost $750,000 in the implosion of Scoop Management have filed a lawsuit against investment managers Neil and Chris Moody, who ran the Valhalla Investment Partners L.P. hedge fund.
Bruce M. Bell and Richard G. Levine, represented by Sarasota attorney Morgan Bentley, allege that the Moodys knew that the hedge funds were an investment scheme.
The latest lawsuit is along the lines of one Bentley filed on behalf of Fort Lauderdale investor Louis Paolino, who says he lost $6 million in the Moodys’ Viking Fund LLC.
Reuters – Harvard Management Co, which invests the Ivy League school’s multibillion dollar endowment, hired two investment managers away from two prominent hedge funds, the university said on Wednesday.
Emil Dabora, a senior managing director at Caxton Associates, will join as an equity portfolio manager while Michele Toscani, now at Fortress Investment Group, will join the international fixed income portfolio management team.
Hedge fund Fortelus and other investors are preparing to oust the management of a publicly listed investment trust because they disagree with its investment decisions, the Guardian has learned. The growing row provides a rare insight into the way hedge funds operate.
Fortelus owns 14% of the shares of Strategic Equity Capital (SEC), a trust managed by London-based asset manager SVG Investment Managers. Along with shareholders representing another 20% of the company’s capital, the rebel group will request management to step down at an extraordinary general meeting to be held in London on 14 August. "We’re launching an EGM to remove the board of this underperforming fund," said one of the investors.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - BK Communications Group (BKCG) today announced a strategic partnership with James Velgot, a Wall Street visual communications pioneer who was most recently Director of Global Branding at AllianceBernstein. Velgot will offer his brand identity and visual communications expertise on a consulting basis, as part of BKCG’s best-of-breed team of strategic partners that complements the firm’s services.
BKCG provides comprehensive solutions for investment managers’ marketing and client communications efforts – helping firms in the areas of message development and materials creation in every medium from pitchbooks to investor communications to websites, as well as presentation coaching.
“This partnership strengthens our ability to provide our clients with a suite of tools for more successful capital raising and client retention,” said Kevin Kasper, one of BKCG’S Principals. “Jim Velgot’s expertise is a great match with ours, and it’s a proven combination.” Kasper was referring to successful client engagements already completed or under way by BKCG with Velgot as strategic partner, including high-end deliverables for a global alternative asset manager and a prominent boutique service provider.
“Jim represents a very unusual combination of project management skills and visual creativity,” observed Eric Brand, a Principal of BKCG. “I know from the inside, having worked closely with him on many successful projects at AllianceBernstein – some of which are still in use today.”
James Velgot’s 25-year career has been dedicated to fostering next-generation visual communications, building one of Wall Street’s most respected design capabilities and overseeing global rebranding at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co./AllianceBernstein. Now a successful consultant for investment managers as well as such icons as the Manhattan Institute and the New York Historical Society, Velgot provides brand identity and communications consultation across the entire spectrum of delivery media – including print, web, interactive media, satellite broadcasting, and multi-language live webcasting.
The client engagements on which BKCG and James Velgot are collaborating join a growing roster for BKCG, which has seen an enthusiastic response from the investment management industry since its founding in January 2009. The demand for greater transparency and the need to cut costs are driving more and more investment managers and service providers to outsource their marketing and client service communications. BKCG’s experience, expertise, and scalability represent a compelling solution.
The firm plans to continue to add top-tier strategic partners to its team in response to client demand.
Editing by Alex Akesson
For HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@hedgeco.net
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – On June 12, three IRS personnel participated in a teleconference designed to address open questions regarding the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) for calendar year 2008 that must be filed by June 30. It was their position that an offshore hedge fund is a “foreign financial account” for FBAR purposes and that, therefore, every U.S. investor in an offshore hedge fund should file an FBAR, whether or not the fund has any offshore bank or securities accounts.
The FBAR needs to be filed by U.S. persons that have a financial interest in, or signature or other authority over, a foreign financial account or accounts if the aggregate value of the account(s) exceeds $10,000 at any time during the year. The instructions to the FBAR provide that foreign financial accounts include “any accounts in which the assets are held in a commingled fund, and the account owner holds an equity interest in the fund (including mutual funds).” In the teleconference, the IRS personnel took the position that offshore hedge funds are foreign financial accounts for FBAR purposes.
Based on the instructions to the FBAR and this insight from IRS personnel, until further guidance is issued by the IRS, we recommend that an FBAR should be filed by the following persons or entities with respect to offshore funds:
• Every U.S. investor, including U.S. tax-exempt entities, in an offshore hedge fund (this includes both stand-alone offshore hedge funds and the offshore feeder in master/feeder hedge fund structure)
• U.S. feeder funds that invest in offshore master funds, and any U.S. investor that owns more than 50% of the U.S. feeder
• Any direct U.S. investor in an offshore master fund
• Investment managers that have a financial interest (for example, through their carry) in any offshore hedge funds (whether stand-alone, feeder or master)
This requirement is in addition to FBAR requirements applicable to U.S. persons or entities that have a direct or indirect interest in an offshore bank, securities or securities derivatives account. Therefore, any U.S. person or entity (for example, a U.S. hedge fund) that has a financial interest in such foreign financial account or owns more than 50% of the equity of an entity that has a foreign financial account needs to file the FBAR. Similarly, anyone with signature or other similar authority over such foreign financial accounts needs to file the FBAR.
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MONACO (Reuters) – Former Insight Investment fund managers Patrick Armstrong and Ana Cukic-Armstrong have launched a new fund management business that will invest in a broad range of assets and seek to beat inflation.
The firm, Armstrong Investment Managers, will try to combine hedge fund-style flexibility with the liquidity and lower fees of traditional asset management. It will launch funds for retail, high net worth and pension fund investors at the end of the summer, Patrick Armstrong told Reuters on Tuesday.
The pair were co-heads of the multi-asset group at Insight Investment, now owned by Lloyds Banking Group. They ran around 1.2 billion pounds in assets including the Diversified Target Return fund, which over the past three years fell 2 percent, beating an average 11 percent fall among peer funds.
"We think there is a middle ground between traditional funds and hedge funds," Armstrong said. "Hedge funds have been opaque, illiquid and had very high charges."
Reuters Blogs – Finding the right partner can be difficult, which is why matchmaking can be helpful.
That’s precisely what recruitment firm Alpha Search Advisory Partners is attempting to do with its Hedge Fund Consolidation practice, launched today.
The unit, which aims to provide “confidentiality” and which boasts of its “extensive network of potential partners”, will work on behalf of hedge funds “seeking strategic partnerships with other top investment managers” with the aim of cutting costs, creating economies of scale and combining assets under management.
Bloomberg – Regulating hedge funds is one thing. Shackling them is another.
It’s difficult to tell which one is the ultimate objective of authorities in the U.S. and Europe as they push for greater oversight of these alternative investment managers.
There are reasons to worry officials will opt for whips and chains.
President Barack Obama last week showed why. Speaking of Chrysler LLC’s bankruptcy filing, he heaped blame on “a group of investment firms and hedge funds.” The funds, the president said, had refused to put wider government and auto-industry interests ahead of their own.
President Obama’s harsh attack on hedge funds he blamed for forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy yesterday sparked cries of protest from the secretive financial firms that hold about $1 billion of the automaker’s debt.
Hedge funds and investment managers were irate at Obama’s description of them as "speculators" who were "refusing to sacrifice like everyone else" and who wanted "to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout."
"Some of the characterizations that were used today to refer to us as speculators or to say we’re looking for a bailout is really unfair," said one executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "What we’re looking for is a reasonable payout on the value of the debt . . . more in line with what unions and Fiat were getting."
