Bloomberg – Darwin Capital Premier LS1 Fund, a hedge fund investing in Japanese stocks, has returned 31 percent since opening to investors in January as bets on companies including JP-Holdings Inc. and Daiken Medical Co. paid off.

The fund, advised by DarWin Capital Partners Ltd., began on Jan. 20 after running under a limited partnership structure since June 2006, according to Takafumi Sahoda, founding president of Darwin Capital in Tokyo. Prior to the January start, the strategy returned 224 percent in the 27 months through October 2008 compared with a 54 percent slide in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average in the same period, he said.

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Tags: bets, bloomberg, capital-partners, daiken, darwin, hedge fund, investors, japanese stocks, jp, limited partnership, ls1, medical co, nikkei 225, partnership structure, stock average, tokyo

Bloomberg – The Children’s Investment Fund Management UK LLP, a $9.5 billion London-based hedge fund, has about $1.2 billion of short positions in Japanese stocks including Toshiba Corp., according to exchange filings.

The fund, better known as TCI, has shorted 13 Japanese stocks, data based on exchange filings compiled by Bloomberg show. Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan’s second-biggest bank by revenue, and Sony Corp., the world’s second-biggest consumer- electronics maker, are also among the short positions.

The bets against Japanese stocks by activist fund TCI, which lost a proxy battle with Japanese utility Electric Power Development Co. last year, come as the Nikkei 225 Stock Average completed its worst fiscal year since March 2001, losing 35 percent. TCI’s fund fell 43 percent in 2008, as global hedge funds were battered by client withdrawals and the worst market losses since the 1930s.

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Tags: 1930s, activist, development co, financial group inc, fiscal year, investment fund management, japanese stocks, management-uk, market-losses, mizuho financial group, nikkei 225, proxy battle, sony-corp, stock average, stocks data, tci, toshiba corp, withdrawals