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Times Online – GLG Partners, the London-based hedge fund, is on the point of losing a star fund manager this weekend in a situation that mirrors the high-profile departure of another top manager, Greg Coffey, last year.
Robert Donald, who manages part of the $1.5 billion (£1.3 billion) European fund with Pierre Lagrange, is planning to leave GLG after six years to work with the legendary financier George Soros.
However, sources close to New York-listed GLG said the situation was still live. ”He has not formally resigned, though he has indicated his desire to leave,” one said.
Bloomberg – Hedge fund managers gathering in Monaco this week said they have work to do to regain investors’ confidence after the industry’s record losses last year.
“We have to prove as an industry that we can provide absolute returns again,” Pierre Lagrange, co-founder of hedge fund GLG Partners Inc., told some of the 750 delegates at the GAIM International hedge fund conference in Monte Carlo. “We have to show that in the next year or two we can strike back.”
Hedge funds tumbled 19 percent in 2008, the worst year since Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. began keeping records almost two decades ago, prompting investors to pull money, and funds to shut or impose limits on withdrawals. Funds have started to rebound this year, rising 9.4 percent through May, according to the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index.
MONACO, June 17 (Reuters) – Investor flows out of the hedge fund industry have stabilised and the health of the industry has improved, GLG senior managing director Pierre Lagrange told Reuters on Wednesday.
‘Industry-wide they (flows) have stabilised,’ Lagrange said in an interview on the sidelines of the GAIM 2009 conference in Monaco. ‘You can see from performance that things are better.’
The hedge fund industry has suffered redemptions of around $250 billion between October and March as investors fretted over record poor performance last year.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge fund GLG Partners has completed its private offering of $214 million aggregate of dollar-denominated convertible subordinated notes due 2014.
The notes bear interest at a rate of 5.00% per year and rank junior in right of payment to all of GLG’s existing and future senior indebtedness.
Noam Gottesman, chairman and co-CEO of GLG, Emmanuel Roman, co-CEO, and Pierre Lagrange, senior managing director of GLG Partners L.P. — each a director of GLG — purchased collectively $30 million of the notes from the initial purchasers as part of this offering, through certain of their affiliates.
The notes are convertible, at the option of the holder, into shares of GLG’s common stock at an initial conversion rate of 268.8172 shares per $1,000 principal amount of notes, subject to certain adjustments. The initial conversion rate is equivalent to a conversion price of around $3.72 per share.
GLG used a portion of the net proceeds from the offering of the notes to acquire a portion of the indebtedness outstanding under its credit agreement in a transaction that closed concurrently with the closing of the note offering. Around $285 million of $570 million principal amount of loans outstanding under the credit facility were acquired at 60% of par value.
The company said that any proceeds not used to acquire its outstanding indebtedness will be used by GLG for general corporate purposes to the extent permitted under the credit agreement.
New York-based GLG Partners is a hedge fund manager that manages equity and fixed income portfolios and investment funds. The firm also invests in public equity fixed income, and in alternative markets through options, futures and convertibles.
Financial Times – The top three executives at GLG Partners, until recently Europe’s biggest hedge fund, have cut their salaries to $1 (69p) as the global financial turmoil puts pressure on senior managers to waive their pay.
Noam Gottesmann and Pierre Lagrange, the "G" and "L" in GLG, and Manny Roman, co-chief executive with Mr Gottesmann, said in a regulatory filing that they had agreed to take $1 in salary from April to the end of the year. They receive no bonus, although all are big shareholders.
