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.
Wall Street Journal – Man Group PLC said its assets are growing again after a 15-month decline that saw the funds it manages nearly halve, as redemptions from institutional clients markedly slowed in its fiscal second quarter.
Funds under management now stand at around $43.8 billion, from $43.3 billion at June 30 and down from their peak of $79.5 billion in June 2008.
Analysts said the news was encouraging and some raised their ratings and price targets. Man Group shares rose as much as 8% and at 0900 GMT were trading at 332 pence, up 23 pence or 7.6%.
Guardian – Visitors to Pfäffikon, a small Swiss town on the shores of lake Zurich, would never suspect that they were in a hedge fund hot spot. But many have followed in the wake of London-based Man Group, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, which set up a base in the Swiss mountains several years ago. They are coming from the UK, seeking lower taxes, less regulation and a friendly welcome, far from public anger about bonuses.
“I moved when it became obvious that government spending was getting silly. I knew the culture would translate into higher taxes and more problems,” says the boss of a fund with more than $500m under management, who recently moved from London to Pfäffikon.
Forbes – British hedge fund manager Man Group on Friday said it had agreed to sell its remaining stake in futures and options broker MF Global to Japanese bank Nomura.
Man, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund manager, said it will get initial proceeds of $112 million from the sale, while its regulatory capital will rise by $90 million.
Reuters – Equity investors are too negative about the hedge fund industry, says Neptune’s Jeremy Smith, who has recently bought shares in Man Group and expects more consolidation among traditional fund firms.
Smith, who manages the 42 million-pound Neptune UK Equity fund, said that while performance of Man’s flagship AHL managed futures strategy has been poor this year, shares in the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm still look cheap.
”A lot of fund managers have written off the hedge fund industry but from anecdotal evidence it seems a lot of money is being raised” he said at a briefing with reporters late on Wednesday.
Reuters – Bayswater Asset Management, a computer-driven hedge fund shut down last year after big losses during the credit crisis, has relaunched after revamping its risk management controls, its new backers said on Wednesday.
San Francisco-based Bayswater had initially been backed at its launch in 2004 with $25 million (15 million pounds) from Man Global Strategies, part of hedge fund giant Man Group.
However, its strategy of trying to exploit inefficiencies in global markets lost 12 percent in the six months to September 2007 and it returned money to investors after being caught out by a vicious circle of deleveraging in July and August that hit many computer-driven funds.
The Guardian – Bayswater Asset Management, a computer-driven hedge fund shut down last year after big losses during the credit crisis, has relaunched after revamping its risk management controls, its new backers said on Wednesday. San Francisco-based Bayswater had initially been backed at its launch in 2004 with $25 million from Man Global Strategies, part of hedge fund giant Man Group.
However, its strategy of trying to exploit inefficiencies in global markets lost 12 percent in the six months to September 2007 and it returned money to investors after being caught out by a vicious circle of deleveraging in July and August that hit many computer-driven funds. The firm has now relaunched with large-scale changes to its risk management system and added a manual override, according to Revere Capital Advisors, which has seeded the fund with an initial $10 million and also plans to buy an equity stake in the firm, a spokesman said.
Reuters – A portfolio run by Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm, has invested $50 million (30 million pounds) in a new start-up fund run by three former Brevan Howard traders.
Man’s RMF Global Emerging Managers strategy has put money with 5:15 Capital Management, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based fixed income arbitrage firm set up this month and named after a song from The Who’s 1973 album Quadrophenia.
Man will take a share of revenue from the firm, whose founders also worked together at Greenwich Capital Markets.
This is Money – Institutional investors are still running scared from hedge funds after last year’s bloodbath, figures from sector giant Man Group show.
They pulled a net £2bn from Man Group in the first quarter of its financial year. Confidence in hedge funds has been rocked by their poor performance of late.
Keith Baird, analyst at Oriel Securities, said 2008 destroyed the entire theory of hedge funds ability to produce positive returns in any market. He said: ‘The illusion was shattered.’
Reuters UK – Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm, reported a rise in sales to private investors and said it expects to return to overall net client inflows in its second half, boosting its shares.
In a statement on Thursday, the firm said it attracted net private investor inflows in its first quarter of $1.9 billion (1.1 billion pounds) into its funds, which aim to deliver positive investment returns whether markets rise or fall. This partly offset net outflows of $3.3 billion from institutions such as pension funds.
Bloomberg – Man Group Plc, the largest publicly traded hedge-fund manager, rose as much as 4.5 percent in London trading after redemptions by institutional investors slowed.
Pension plans, endowments and money managers pulled $1.8 billion on July 1, half the $3.6 billion of redemptions three months earlier, London-based Man Group said in a statement today. The stock was up 1.7 percent at 243.25 pence as of 9:05 a.m.
MENAFN - U.K. hedge fund manager Man Group reported a further decline in its assets under management Thursday, but said institutional customers have significantly slowed their withdrawals and private investor sales have been strong.
The group said funds under management at the end of its fiscal first quarter were $43.3 billion, down 7.5% from $46.8 billion at the end of March.
Forbes – Man Group PLC, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, said Thursday that funds under management declined in the first half despite a recent growth in private investor sales.
The group said it had $43.3 billion in funds under management on June 30, down from $44 billion at the end of May and $46.8 billion on March 31.
Private investor sales in the three months ending June 30, the company’s first quarter, were $3.4 billion, producing a net inflow of $1.9 billion. However, institutional sales amounted to just $300 million, with a net outflow of $3.3 billion.
