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.
Bloomberg – American International Group Inc., the insurer bailed out by the U.S., benefited from hedge funds for the first time in a year as the company returned to profitability in the second quarter.
AIG earned $121 million from hedge funds in the period after the holdings cost the New York-based insurer $2 billion in the nine months ended March 31, the company said last week. Hedge fund at MetLife Inc., the biggest U.S. life insurer, also improved, beating the company’s forecast.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund manager Integrated Asset Management plc has sold the majority of one of its London fund of hedge funds business to a subsidiary of Sal. Oppenheim jr & Cie S.C.A, for approximately €3.5 million ($4.6 million) in cash and the cancellation of Sal. Oppenheim’s entire share interest.
The transaction does not impact the hedge fund manager’s brokerage operations in Milan which will continue to operate as usual, Integrated said.
The fund of hedge funds business as a whole reported net assets of £24.28 million ($32.3 million). In the 6 months ended 30 June 2008 the fund of hedge funds business reported unaudited net assets of £24.42 million ($32.4 million) and assets under management of $2,402 million ($3.2 million).
“In response to the unprecedentedly challenging market conditions of the past nine months, we have structured this deal with Sal. Oppenheim to benefit both our funds’ investors and the Company’s shareholders." Emanuel Arbib, CEO of Integrated, said. "Once the transaction is completed, Integrated, with a strong and liquid balance sheet, will be well positioned to consider opportunities that are available in today’s marketplace.”
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Dallas Morning News – An Amarillo charitable foundation is suing Dallas-based Highland Capital Management LP to recover more than $1.8 million from a Highland hedge fund that was shut down in October after heavy losses.
The Mary E. Bivins Foundation, which focuses on helping the elderly, had asked to withdraw its investment from a fund called Highland Credit Strategies in March.
Highland agreed to return more than $1.9 million as of July 1 but said it would pay the money back over nine months, the foundation said in a lawsuit filed last month in Amarillo. It has given back only $80,000 so far, the lawsuit said.
International Herald Tribune – Fund manager Polar Capital Holdings said on Friday that assets under management in the nine months to December fell by 22 percent to $2.45 billion (1.65 billion pounds), due to market deterioration.
The fund manager, which runs hedge funds and long-only funds, said it expects $500 million of redemptions in the three months to March.
The resignation of Julian Barnett, manager of its Paragon hedge fund, is expected to bring about a further $400 million outflows when the fund is wound up.
The Australian – ARPAD Busson is angry. He has just looked at the returns of a hedge fund he used to invest in and they’re down more than 60 per cent in the past nine months.
"That a-hole!" Busson says of the New York-based manager, as he walks out of the conference room at the Mayfair offices of EIM, the $US11.5 billion ($16.2 billion) fund-of-hedge-funds firm of which he is founder and chairman. Although EIM yanked its money out of the fund in April 2008, when it was down only 25 per cent, there are too many like it out there, Busson says.
"If these managers are not focused on preservation of capital, they should not have the right to manage other people’s money," he says.
Busson’s opinion matters. Since he launched EIM in 1992 he has been instrumental in luring billions of dollars of public and corporate pension money into his and other funds of funds. The industry, which Busson helped pioneer, allows investors to spread their risk among hedge funds with different strategies.
Bloomberg – Arpad Busson is angry. He’s just looked at the latest returns of a hedge fund he used to invest in; it’s down more than 60 percent in the past nine months.
“That a-hole!” Busson says of the New York-based manager, as he walks out of the conference room at the Mayfair offices of EIM SA, the $11.5 billion fund-of-hedge-funds firm of which he is founder and chairman. Though EIM yanked its money out of the fund in April 2008, when it was down only 25 percent, Busson says there are too many like it out there.
“If these managers are not focused on preservation of capital, they should not have the right to manage other people’s money,” he says.
Greenwich Time – Some hedge funds in the region are looking to sublease their office space as they downsize or shut down in the lagging economy.
John Goodkind, managing principal of Greenwich-based commercial real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank, said about 20 percent of Greenwich hedge funds are considering subleasing all or some of their office space to cut their expenses. He said he expected about half of them to do so in the next six to nine months.
"It’s the immediate wave of the future because the Greenwich hedge fund market is not immune from a meltdown," Goodkind said, adding that space is being offered at 20 percent to 30 percent less than the original lease. "Fairfield County, with Greenwich being the nexus, is in for a very difficult period of time for tenants that are subleasing space."
Seeking Alpha – Sailors out there will know that boats can sail down with the wind - like a leaf being blown across the water – or into the wind at an angle, zigzagging back and forth along the way. Sailing downwind is easier and since it offers a direct path from A to B, and is therefore faster. Zigzagging directly upwind, on the other hand, requires more skill and is much slower. But who would want a boat that could only sail along with the direction of the wind? This is where sailing can offer a useful lesson for hedge fund investors.
Since the beginning of the last bull market, questions have been raised about the high correlation between hedge funds and equity markets. Arguably, this relationship gave birth to the field of hedge fund “replication” (a field that now involves a wide variety of “alternative” betas as well).
But all along, hedge funds have said that when markets rise, why shouldn’t they try to capture all this upside – and then some? The value in alternative investments comes not necessarily from their consistent absolute outperformance, but in the option-like behaviour of their returns. In other words, your “2 and 20″ buys you a market put. Long-only managers, hedgies are apt to say, simply don’t have the ability to make dramatic adjustments to net exposure in response to market gyrations.
