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.
CNNMoney.com – When Keith McCullough left his hedge fund job last October to start an independent research company, it may have seemed like a curious move. Fourteen months, a highly prescient call on the market crash, and several key hires from top hedge funds later, McCullough’s company, Research Edge LLC, is forming a partnership with the institutional brokerage division of LaBranche & Co. (LAB) that will see LaBranche process actual trades for its clients based on Research Edge’s research.
The partnership will allow customers of LaBranche Financial Services LLC, including hedge funds, to get access to Research Edge research and immediately trade on that research through LaBranche. Existing customers that are clients of both LaBranche and Research Edge would automatically be able to use LaBranche for the trades, and LaBranche will have a team dedicated to pitching Research Edge to its other clients. LaBranche customers who pay for Research Edge research will be the only LaBranche clients who can act on that research. Neither company would comment on financial terms of the deal.
Washington Post – The European Union will this week take the first step toward new rules governing high-risk hedge funds, the EU’s financial services chief said Monday.
EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, long opposed to regulating the funds, is bowing to calls from the G-20 group of the world’s leading industrialized and emerging economies and many European politicians for more oversight for hedge funds that invest large sums and often operate in near secrecy.
He said the European Commission would consult European financial firms and others, sparking a debate that might see regulators eventually come up new rules.
He said he wanted to focus on the risks hedge funds might pose to the financial system if current rules were left in place. EU regulators also have to define hedge funds and consider how they should deal with hedge funds based in jurisdictions with little supervision, he said.
BusinessWeek – Some participants in South Korea’s nascent alternative-investment market have grown pessimistic over the ability of incoming legislation to support the development of an onshore hedge funds industry.
The Capital Markets Consolidation Act will become effective in February. It is a sweeping attempt to give Korea a securities law akin to those in the United Kingdom or Australia, in which financial services are regulated by function rather than by business license, and in which most types of businesses will be thrown open to all kinds of financial institutions. It will allow the development of a universal bank and plenty of cross-selling.
As part of this, the Financial Supervisory Service has been keen to encourage the development of an onshore hedge funds industry. There are a growing number of Korea-focused hedge funds, but nearly all of them operate offshore, in Singapore, Hong Kong or the United States. The government wants to position Seoul as a financial hub for northeast Asia, and has seen how hedge funds have become a vital and welcome part of the milieu in places like Singapore.
Irish Times – Seven international hedge funds have bet hundreds of millions of euro that Irish bank stocks will continue to fall.
Although it is normal stock market practice, since last Friday short-selling of the four Irish publicly quoted banks has been banned by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority. While the regulator banned investors from taking new short positions, existing positions can be maintained, reduced or closed.
By maintaining their positions, the hedge funds are betting that Irish bank stocks, already at record lows, are set to fall further. As it is not clear when the initial share trades took place, brokers said the actual monetary value of the bets is unclear.
However, using yesterday’s closing prices, the seven funds hold positions worth €279 million in the four quoted Irish banks.
Five US and two London-based funds have disclosed their short positions.
Times Online – The European Parliament will support calls tomorrow for Europe-wide legislation aimed at making the inner workings of hedge funds and private equity more transparent.
The proposals – championed by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the Socialist MEP and a former Danish Prime Minister – call for clear rules for these financial players, whose influence on the economic landscape is increasing.
MEPs want the European Commission to present, before the end of the year, legally binding minimum transparency rules on how investments are financed. These rules would also cover the qualifications of managers, possible conflicts of interest, registration of hedge funds and disclosure of ownership structures.
Peter Skinner, a Labour MEP and the party’s spokesman on financial services, said yesterday: “Current self-regulation attitudes are not enough to arrive at satisfactory conclusions, especially in the light of the current crisis. This is an important step to tackle current problems, including lack of transparency.”
Wall Street & Technology – Now that Apple has improved security and enterprise connectivity capabilities for the iPhone 3G, industry specific applications are starting to emerge. One of the first iPhone applications for the securities industry is a tool that provides real-time portfolio management called Lab49 Capital from Lab49, Inc. a technology consulting firm that builds solutions for the financial services.
The application helps buy-side portfolio managers track the performance of their assets in real time, and "slice and dice" positions, P&L and changes in the portfolio across multiple dimensions such as strategy, industry, country and manager, according to Marc Jacobs, director at Lab49. (See a Lab49 Capital ScreenCast demo.)
"For a portfolio manager, they don’t spend all of their time at their desks," Jacobs adds. "But their mind is always ‘where are we right now?’ Allowing portfolio managers to such visibility into their fund is a key aspect that this application provides. Lab49 Capital is inspired by several projects we have going on with a number of firms. Lab49 Capital is a representation of actual work we are doing with some of our clients."
Independant- European Union Financial Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has defended hedge funds in relation to the fallout from the US subprime mortgage market collapse.
The move comes in tandem with a report commissioned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy which states that France should join a German initiative asking the European Union’s executive arm to propose measures boosting hedge fund transparency.
Berlin has been pushing for the creation of a code of conduct for hedge funds within the group of Eight club of industrialised nations, even though regulators show little appetite for imposing tougher rules on the industry. Mr McCreevy is considered a general critic of regulation in financial markets.
