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.
Bloomberg ‘ Asia Genesis Asset Management Pte, whose Japan Macro Fund has outperformed peers, is closing down its two hedge funds and returning money to investors.
“I need some time to recuperate from weak health,” founder Chua Soon Hock, 50, said in an e-mailed reply to queries from Bloomberg News. “In past years, I have been doing 18-hour workdays with very active positions’ management to keep downside volatility of funds very low. I cannot do that with my current health conditions.”
The Singapore-based hedge-fund firm will return all money invested in the $761 million Japan Macro Fund and $12 million in the Asia Genesis Equity Fund to investors by mid-September, Chua said on Aug. 14.
BullionVault – The Gold Price fell sharply against a strong US Dollar on Monday morning, falling through what one Asian dealer called "technical and psychological support at $942" to record the lowest Gold Fix so far this month at $937.50 an ounce.
Crude oil sank below $66 per barrel, while base metals and silver lost more than 3%.
Adding to Friday’s 0.7% loss despite news that France and Germany crept out of recession between April and July, world stock markets sank 1.4% early Monday on average – the biggest one-day loss in more than six weeks – after Japan reported 0.9% growth in its second-quarter GDP.
Reuters – The value of Japanese retail-targeted mutual funds rose to a 10-month high of 58.8 trillion yen ($613 billion) in July, lifted by inflows into international equities funds and strength in share prices, an industry body said on Thursday.
It was the sixth straight month of increases in the value of publicly placed investment trust funds, or "toshins", as signs of a global economic recovery boost investor confidence. The value was also helped by rises in share prices, with the benchmark Nikkei share average .N225 gaining 4 percent in July.
The overall value of publicly placed investment trust funds rose by 1.7 trillion yen or 3 percent from the previous month to 58.8 trillion yen in July, the highest since September, Japan’s Investment Trusts Association said.
Bloomberg – It was a crisp autumn day in November 2005 when hedge fund manager John Ho entered the half- century-old Electric Power Development Co.’s headquarters in Tokyo, betting that Japan’s corporate attitudes were ripe for change.
Ho, then director of Asia-Pacific investments at the Children’s Investment Fund Management UK LLP, also known as TCI, was ushered into a conference room with a worn carpet to meet with Masayoshi Kitamura, then executive vice president of the utility. The visitor, who was offered a bottle of water, told Kitamura he wanted to learn more about the company’s plans for growth.
Bloomberg – Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., Japan’s biggest casualty insurer, plans to trim hedge-fund investments and shift more of its portfolio in the industry to strategies such as macro and long-short equity funds.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., a unit of Tokio Marine Holdings with 8.4 trillion yen ($90 billion) in assets, will trim its holdings in hedge funds “slightly” this year from about 100 billion yen at the end of March, said Eisuke Shigemura, who runs the firm’s hedge-fund investment group. He declined to quantify the planned reduction.
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.
Bloomberg – Frederic Eechaute, a former senior analyst at DKR Oasis Management Co. LP, will start a Japan- focused equity hedge fund that tradesstocks using its own analyst database.
Eechaute, who will split his time between Tokyo and Sydney, along with Stephen Good, who formerly worked in the Japanese equity sales department at Mizuho Securities Co., set up Instinct Capital in June to run the new fund that may open as early as September. The fund will employ a so-called long-short strategy, betting on rising and falling stocks, and have a maximum capacity of 30 billion yen ($319 million).
NASDAQ – Tribridge Investment Partners Ltd., a Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager, said Monday it will launch a new fund in August and hired John Liptak, former head of Bank of America Corp.’s Asia special situations group, to run it.
The new fund will have a pan-Asia focus and seek to identify mispriced or undervalued securities due to financial stress, some corporate event or other special situation. It will be biased toward large-cap companies in more developed markets in the region such as Hong Kong, Australia, Korea, Singapore, or Japan.
"I believe that the opportunities from the upcoming default cycle have not been seen since shortly after the Asian currency crisis back in 1997-1998," Liptak said in prepared remarks.
Bloomberg – Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co., with 23 trillion yen ($244 billion) in assets, said it will cut its investments in hedge funds this year as it switches to investments with steadier returns.
Japan’s third-largest life insurer will reduce its allocation to the industry by “several tens of billions of yen,” from 64.6 billion yen at the end of last fiscal year through March 31, said Shinji Makino, manager of the insurer’s investment planning division. The Tokyo-based insurer last year slashed its hedge-fund holdings by more than 40 billion yen.
Winton Capital Management Ltd., the U.K. hedge fund with $12 billion in assets, will start a new fund in Japan and hire staff in Hong Kong as it expands when rivals such as Citadel Investment Group LLC retreat from Asia.
The London-based firm is going to advise a new fund sold to Japanese retail investors through Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. that will track the performance of its flagship commodity trading adviser fund as it seeks a slice of the nation’s $15 trillion in personal savings.
Reuters Amsterdam – For Dutch pension fund ABP, Michael Jackson’s death could be good for business.
The passing of the man called "King of Pop" last week has created a run on his music, which is partly owned by Dutch state pension fund ABP. It is the world’s third-largest state pension fund after Japan’s and Norway’s.
"There are always certain songs that for whatever reason, in this case tragic, suddenly become very popular. The last fact is a basis for the investment," an ABP spokesman said.
ABP bought two music catalogues last year, including the rights to some Michael Jackson songs like "You Are Not Alone," according to the website of Imagem Music Group, which manages the music assets for ABP.
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.
