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 – PetroAlgae is one of those many clean-tech companies that seem to burn through cash faster than a Hummer goes through a gallon of gas. Yet something curious is going on with shares of this Melbourne, Florida-based company, which is hoping to make money from turning algae into oil.
Over the past month, the stock price of PetroAlgae has rocketed from $8 to as high as $32.75 on ultra-thin trading of the shares (as of late Monday it had fallen back to around $10).
PetroAlgae boasts a rather healthy $1 billion market value — after being as high as $3.4 billion earlier Monday — even though it has no revenues, a $34 million accumulated deficit and its auditor isn’t sure the company can continue as a going concern.
Marketwatch – China’s sovereign wealth fund has selected Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group LP to oversee hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The $200 billion China Investment Corp. has finalized an additional allocation of $500 million to Blackstone’s /quotes/comstock/13*!bx/quotes/nls/bx (BX11.42, +0.46, +4.20%) fund-of-funds unit, and an additional allocation of money has been earmarked for investment through Morgan Stanley’s /quotes/comstock/13*!ms/quotes/nls/ms (MS28.31, +1.15, +4.23%) asset-management unit, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the situation.
The sovereign wealth fund is also in discussions to potentially invest billions more in hedge funds, possibly doling out money directly to managers rather than using a fund-of-funds vehicles, the report said.
Reuters UK – HSBC Halbis fund manager Jim Dunsford is favouring trades exploiting price discrepancies, rather than big bets on market movements, because he believes markets are still in unknown territory.
Dunsford manages the 100 million euro (85 million pound) Halbis Global Macro fund, which uses hedge fund-style techniques to try and make money in all environments.
"We prefer non-directional, relative value bets. We’re living in a very unusual environment and directional bets are risky," Dunsford told Reuters.
The Money Times – Short-sellers and hedge funds, though sometimes shadowy, are also sometimes seen as the smartest guys in the room. They did their homework and will bet their capital against the crowd. It’s not the most popular way to go, but the rewards can be quite lucrative.
On Motley Fool CAPS, we have our own brand of investors who found the chinks in a company’s armor and correctly called its fall. "Underdogs" are investors who earned 100 or more CAPS points correctly predicting one or more stocks would underperform the market.
Forbes – Hedge fund firm RAB Capital said on Wednesday that assets under management fell 32 percent in the six months to June but said clients had started putting money into its single strategy funds since April.
The firm said assets fell to $1.3 billion at end-June from $1.9 billion at end-December, in part due to the sale of its Northwest business. A year ago it ran $5.9 billion.
Reuters UK – Hedge fund firm RAB Capital said on Wednesday that clients had started putting money back into some of its funds helped by a recent upturn in performance, adding to signs the industry may be recovering.
The firm, some of whose funds have been hit by poor performance and illiquid markets during the credit crisis, posted a 32 percent drop in overall assets. However, it said it saw positive net flows into its single strategy funds in the second quarter and into July, excluding the effects of recent disposals.
Forbes – Markets around the world have been rallying all year. So how did Polygon’s flagship hedge fund manage to lose money?
Polygon Global Opportunities Master Fund delivered a negative 2.92% net return as of June 30, lagging far behind other so-called multi-strategy funds which invest across a broad spectrum of asset types. Relative value and multi-strategy funds have returned 13.08% in the first half of this year, according to Hedge Fund Research, a Chicago-based firm that tracks the performance of these lightly-regulated investment pools.
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.
Bloomberg – Let’s say you hand a million dollars or more to an investment advisory firm that boasts a sterling reputation, grand results and a promise to thoroughly investigate hedge funds before recommending them.
For all the claims of super due diligence, this fine firm sinks your money into what turns out to be a Ponzi scheme.
Now your money is gone and the hedge fund founder who lost it is serving 20 more than years. Federal regulators belatedly find that your adviser didn’t actually do that much due diligence.
The Bayou Group hedge fund it put you into hadn’t had an independent audit almost since its beginning when an initial auditor noticed consistent losses and was let go, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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.
Reuters UK – Most strategies employed by hedge fund managers globally failed to generate positive returns in June as stock markets moved sideways and commodity prices slid during the month, according to estimates from Lipper on Tuesday.
The best-performing hedge fund strategy was "convertible arbitrage" which returned 0.28 percent, while the worst-performing strategy was "managed futures" which lost 1.59 percent. Long/short equity hedge funds declined 0.23 percent.
Overall, nine of the 13 strategies tracked by Lipper lost money last month.
