New York Times – Russell Herman, the chief executive of the hedge fund firm Dawson-Herman Capital Management, is the latest manager to shutter his fund after heavy losses last year and differences with the firm’s founder, Jonathan Dawson.

Mr. Herman told clients in a letter last week that he was shutting the Southport Millennium Funds and returning capital to investors. The move was first reported by Dealbreaker.com on Friday. The firm currently has about $902 million of capital under management after reaching a height of $3.2 billion at the beginning of 2008.

Like many in the hedge fund industry, Dawson-Herman suffered big losses last year. The main Southport fund was down more than 35 percent and has failed to make up for the losses this year. “We have not been able to build the portfolios with high conviction ideas and themes to the degree that is satisfactory to me and in line with our historical standards,” Mr. Herman said in the letter.

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Tags: capital-management, chief-executive, conviction, heavy losses, hedge fund, investors, jonathan, jonathan dawson, millennium, new york times, portfolios, russell herman, shutter, southport

London Free Press – The instability plaguing financial markets seems to have spilled over into the environment, making the winter forecast from Environment Canada a crapshoot of sorts, one of this country’s top weather gurus said yesterday.

And with the markets and federal political scene on a wild ride, senior climatologist David Phillips said Canadians are, for the first time in his career, more preoccupied with Ottawa and Bay Street than what’s falling out of the sky.

"I mean, my gosh, it seems to be politics right now or at least the economy, and weather’s taken the back seat," he said. "In this country, I never, ever thought I’d see that."

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Tags: akers, carnage, financial-consulting, likelihood, millennium, pariah