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Daily News and Analysis – With the last of the deadlines for hedge funds investors to file their redemption requests approaching, experts feel most of them may be done with their selling.
The Sensex has lost 1,761 points in the last 7 sessions as foreign investors unloaded equities worth over Rs 2,000 crore.
This is in sharp contrast to the first week of November, when they were net buyers for Rs 790 crore.
The renewed selling is seen as an effort by hedge funds to shore up their cash levels to meet the new wave of redemption requests around the November 15 deadline, analysts said.
Reuters – Shanghai has decided to let foreign investors, including private equity and venture capital funds, register legally as local equities investment firms as China’s financial hub moves to lure more overseas investment.
Foreign investors with a focus on Chinese equities can set up a Shanghai-registered entity with initial capital of 100 million yuan ($14.56 million) or more with the legal status of a local investment company and receive special tax treatment, according to a city government document dated Aug. 11 and obtained by Reuters on Friday.
Qualified foreign investors would include private equity funds, venture capital funds, buyout funds and hedge funds, it said.
Todays Zaman- Licensed just a few months ago, Turkey’s first hedge funds will likely embark on operations by mid-September, Corporate Governance Association of Turkey (TKYD) President Gür Çağdaş has said.
Speaking to Reuters yesterday, Çağdaş said with the funds, an important and attractive financial instrument would be available to domestic and foreign investors.
The government opened the door in March 2008 for the establishment of hedge funds in Turkey and since then, Garanti Bankası, İş Yatırım and Oyak Securities have acquired the necessary licenses for creating and running such funds. Yapı Kredi also applied for permission to run a hedge fund but is still awaiting approval of its application.
Bloomberg – Leopard Capital, which is setting up a $100 million private-equity fund to invest in Cambodia, said it’s competing to buy a stake in Acleda Bank Plc, the largest Cambodian bank.
“It’s the best-run bank, it’s clean and it has very good margins,” Thomas Hugger, executive director at Leopard Capital, said in an interview in Singapore today.
Leopard Capital is vying with other foreign investors that are seeking to invest in Cambodian companies after the economy grew at least 10 percent in the last four years. Acleda Bank, based in Phnom Penh, reported a 46 percent jump in net income to a record $9.7 million in 2007, according to its annual report.
“We have a lot of people sniffing around, ready to buy into us,” John Brinsden, vice chairman of Acleda Bank, said in an interview in Phnom Penh on June 18, declining to give details.
Acleda’s assets more than doubled to $473 million in 2007, from $223 million the previous year, according to its annual report. Loans almost doubled to $311 million, from $157 million over the same period. The bank had 204 offices across Cambodia at the end of last year.
Bloomberg- J-Power shareholders defeated a proposal by U.K. hedge fund TCI for the company to double its dividend, ending a monthlong proxy battle and sending the stock to its biggest decline since February.
Shareholders of Electric Power Development Co., the official name of Japan’s largest power wholesaler, rejected all five proposals by the investment company including limiting cross- shareholdings and doubling the yearly dividend at the utility’s annual general meeting in Tokyo today. The investors approved the board’s proposal to raise the payout by 10 yen to 70 yen.
Today’s vote marks the end of a public spat between the utility and The Children’s Investment Fund Management (UK) LLP, as the utility’s largest shareholder is officially known. The verdict undermines efforts by an increasing number of foreign investors pushing Japanese companies to improve shareholder returns that are less than half of those in the U.S.
