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.
Reuters – The current rebound in stock markets is a bear rally and could turn by September, according to hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry, who has recently cut exposure to agricultural stocks.
Hendry, who is partner and chief investment officer at Eclectica Asset Management, said that while stock markets have rallied in recent months on hopes for an economic upturn, developed economies are still heading for a 1930s-style depression.
"To date we are maintaining the profile of the economic contraction that we witnessed in the 1930s. Nothing as yet has changed that profile. It’s still a profile of concern to me," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the GAIM 2009 conference in Monaco.
Bloomberg – China Investment Corp., the nation’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, may invest as much as $500 million in hedge funds including those run by Blackstone Group LP, said two people familiar with the matter.
CIC aims to allocate $6 billion to hedge funds by the end of 2009, company adviser Felix Chee said two days ago at the GAIM International hedge fund conference at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum. Chee, who is a special adviser to the chief investment officer of CIC, said he will initially run CIC’s hedge fund and proprietary trading effort.
The move adds to signs of improved confidence by CIC Chairman Lou Jiwei, who said in December that he didn’t “dare to invest in financial institutions” after losing money on investments in Blackstone and Morgan Stanley. CIC raised its stake in Morgan Stanley earlier this month by buying an additional $1.2 billion shares.
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.
Bloomberg – Felix Chee, an adviser to China’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, said it aims to make investments in hedge funds.
“We will have a preference for managed accounts,” he said in an interview today at the GAIM International hedge fund conference at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum. “The platform would like a core of single-manager funds and fund-of-funds.”
Chee, who said he will initially run China Investment Corp.’s hedge fund and proprietary trading effort, is a special adviser to the chief investment officer of CIC.
“It’ll be across the spectrum of strategies,” he said. “We’re looking for the best managers and a handful of fund of funds, and when I say handful I mean five or less.”
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.
Reuters – Hedge fund managers, administrators and investors have gathered in Monaco for the annual GAIM industry conference following a tough year marked by poor performance and client outflows.
Below are selected quotes from the first day of the conference:
JONATHAN FEENEY, INVESTCORP INVESTMENT ADVISORS:
"In the last five years or so … everything was flying and no one cared about risk management. It’s only when problems arise that it suddenly becomes a focus, and then it’s too late.
"With a new manager, it’s horrible to say this, but it’s got to the stage now where you want to check the office exists. It’s the paranoia now post-Madoff."
June 17 (Bloomberg) – Felix Chee, an adviser to China’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, said it aims to make investments in hedge funds.
“We will have a preference for managed accounts,” he said in an interview today at the GAIM International hedge fund conference at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum. “The platform would like a core of single-manager funds and fund-of-funds.”
Chee, who said he will initially run China Investment Corp.’s hedge fund and proprietary trading effort, is a special adviser to the chief investment officer of CIC.
“It’ll be across the spectrum of strategies,” he said. “We’re looking for the best managers and a handful of fund of funds, and when I say handful I mean five or less.”
Chee previously managed the University of Toronto’s endowment, where he managed a portfolio of about $1 billion in hedge fund assets. Asked if he was daunted by the prospect of running a $200 billion portfolio, he said “I try not to look at the zeros.”
MONACO (Reuters) – Former Insight Investment fund managers Patrick Armstrong and Ana Cukic-Armstrong have launched a new fund management business that will invest in a broad range of assets and seek to beat inflation.
The firm, Armstrong Investment Managers, will try to combine hedge fund-style flexibility with the liquidity and lower fees of traditional asset management. It will launch funds for retail, high net worth and pension fund investors at the end of the summer, Patrick Armstrong told Reuters on Tuesday.
The pair were co-heads of the multi-asset group at Insight Investment, now owned by Lloyds Banking Group. They ran around 1.2 billion pounds in assets including the Diversified Target Return fund, which over the past three years fell 2 percent, beating an average 11 percent fall among peer funds.
"We think there is a middle ground between traditional funds and hedge funds," Armstrong said. "Hedge funds have been opaque, illiquid and had very high charges."
Stuff – Hedge funds meeting for their annual get-together in Monaco this week are hoping recovering profits will help placate clients, after the industry was heavily culled and suffered its worst year on record.
An exodus of investors followed a year in which hedge funds saw performance losses of 19 percent, a stark contrast to a decade in which people scrambled to get access to an industry that claimed it could make money in any market.
Significantly, one entire session of the June 16-18 GAIM conference in the Mediterranean resort is titled "The Rise of Investor Power."
Reuters – Hedge funds meeting for their annual get-together in Monaco next week are hoping recovering profits will help placate clients, after the industry was heavily culled and suffered its worst year on record.
An exodus of investors followed a year in which hedge funds saw performance losses of 19 percent, a stark contrast to a decade in which people scrambled to get access to an industry that claimed it could make money in any market.
Significantly, one entire session of the June 16-18 GAIM conference in the Mediterranean resort is titled "The Rise of Investor Power."
Bloomberg – Switzerland is the world’s most attractive financial center for the “mobile wealthy,” beating London, Singapore and New York, according to a new survey by Scorpio Partnership.
The Alpine nation ranks highest for economic and political stability, legal issues, children’s education and infrastructure, the London-based wealth management adviser said. Switzerland placed fifth for tax and immigration, behind Monaco, Singapore, Cayman and Hong Kong.
“To the mobile wealthy, Switzerland is very nearly all things to all people,” said Scorpio Director Stephen Wall. It “has been and will continue to be the biggest beneficiary of moves away from London.”
Indopia – Britain’s leading entrepreneurs are considering to leave the country as a mark of protest against UK Chancellor Alistair Darling’s new 50 per cent tax rate, a media report says.
" Hugh Osmond, the pubs to insurance entrepreneur, is thinking about a move to Switzerland. Peter Hargreaves, the 10 million-pound-a-year co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, the financial adviser, is looking at the Isle of Man or Monaco," the Sunday Times said adding," More are likely to follow."
As per the latest budget, from next year anyone earning more than 150,000 pounds a year will have to pay 50 per cent as income tax. The move replaced the 45 per cent tax bracket threatened in the pre-budget report last November.
Businessmen have warned that raising taxes on the rich would do nothing to boost the exchequer, as the wealthy can always find ways to avoid it.
