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.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The Connecticut-based hedge fund manager who had his assets frozen by the SEC last month, Francesco Rusciano, was released to the custody of his parents on a $500,000 bond after a federal court hearing.
According to the SEC’s complaint, Francesco Rusciano solicited investments for two hedge funds, Ponta Negra Fund I, LLC and Ponta Negra Offshore Fund I, LTD, which is the principal of Ponta Negra Group, LLC, located at his residence in Stamford, Conn.
The hedge fund manager also sent out an e-mail to investors saying that his Ponta Negra hedge funds had $59 million in assets under management as of February 2009. According to the SEC’s complaint, the hedge funds had less than $10 million.
The SEC says that Rusciano forged brokerage account statements to make it appear that another hedge fund account had more than $43 million in assets, when it had less than $3 million.
"Rusciano went to great lengths to deceive investors, and the SEC is committed to ensuring that money managers who provide inaccurate information to investors and fail to uphold their fiduciary duties are held responsible for their misconduct," said Rose Romero, Director of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The SEC has frozen the assets of a Connecticut-based hedge fund manager, alleging that he forged documents, promised false returns, and misrepresented assets managed by the funds to illicitly raise more than $30 million from investors.
According to the SEC’s complaint, Francesco Rusciano solicited investments for two hedge funds he controls, Ponta Negra Fund I, LLC and Ponta Negra Offshore Fund I, LTD, which is the principal of Ponta Negra Group, LLC, located at his residence in Stamford, Conn.
The hedge fund manager also sent out an e-mail to investors saying that his Ponta Negra hedge funds had $59 million in assets under management as of February 2009. According to the SEC’s complaint, the hedge funds had less than $10 million.
The SEC says that Rusciano forged brokerage account statements to make it appear that another hedge fund account had more than $43 million in assets, when it had less than $3 million.
"Rusciano went to great lengths to deceive investors, and the SEC is committed to ensuring that money managers who provide inaccurate information to investors and fail to uphold their fiduciary duties are held responsible for their misconduct," said Rose Romero, Director of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Insurance giant Aviva could end the practice of lending shares to hedge funds in a move against short-selling.
Aviva shares were battered on the stock market earlier this month – losing 40pc of their value in two days – amid claims that short-sellers were looking to make quick profits by driving down the company’s share price.
Now Aviva directors are said to favour bringing to an end the company’s involvement in lending shares from its own investment portfolio to hedge funds.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – One of Hong Kong’s largest independent financial institutions, Sun Hung Kai Financial, is teaming up with hedge fund Paulson & Co, launching a distressed asset investment fund, according to a Reuters report.
John Paulson will act as the new $100 million offshore fund’s investment manager. The fund will only be open to professional investors and will feed into Paulson’s existing “recovery fund”, which invests in distressed financial assets, according to the report.
With approximately $29 billion in assets under management Paulson hedge fund has offices in New York, London and Hong Kong. Sun Hung Kai has over HK$50 billion ($6.45 billion) in assets under management, Reuters said, together, the funds plan to invest globally, but are focused mainly on the United States.
Rizal Wijono, Managing Director at SHK Fund Management Limited, the Sun Hung Kai’s asset management business said, “There is a lot of turmoil in the U.S., which is Paulson’s home market. They’ve been looking at a approximately 100 financial institutions who they think are going to be the survivors and the failures,” he said, “To date, they’re looking into Asia, but they haven’t identified potential positions yet. If you’re looking for maximum appreciation, the obvious place is the developed world.”
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CNNMoney.com – ACF Industries and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) are suing hedge fund Steel Partners, accusing the fund of fraud by failing to tell investors of plans to go public, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Reuters says ACF, which court documents say is affiliated with Carl Icahn, invested $15 million with Steel Partners Offshore Fund Ltd, which became Steel Partners II (Offshore) Ltd. In the suit, Bank of America, acting as trustee for ACF’s employee pension fund, accuses Steel Partners of failing to give proper notice of plans to become a publicly traded partnership.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Wall Street Journal columnist Gregory Zuckerman and Ely Razin, senior director of strategy, Westlaw Business, will deliver a luncheon presentation on "State of the Hedge Funds for 2008" at a upcoming Hedge Fund General Counsel Summit, according to Incisive Media, publisher of Corporate Counsel magazine.
The event will take place September 25, 2008 at The Sheraton Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. Targeted to general counsel and deputy counsel in the hedge fund industry, the one-day conference will present insights into the current state of the industry in today’s uncertain times.
Zuckerman writes the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal and authored two recent articles on hedge funds: "Shakeout Roils Hedge Fund World" and "Hedge Funds Are Caught in a Tight Spot." He recently won the NY Press Club Journalism award, and was nominated for a 2008 Gerald Loeb award for coverage of the mortgage meltdown. Zuckerman is a frequent commentator for CNBC on hedge funds and stocks.
Additional industry experts and practitioners who will be speaking at the conference include, Tia Breakley, vice president, The Blackstone Group LP, David Brooks, managing director & deputy GC, Fortress Investment Group LLC, and Simon Lorne, vice chairman and chief legal officer, Millennium Management LLC.
Corporate Counsel’s Hedge Fund General Counsel Summit is part of Incisive Media Conferences & Trade Shows, a producer of educational and networking events for business leaders and professionals.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Bloomberg – The brother of former Bayou Group LLC finance chief Daniel Marino, who is serving 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he helped conceal a $400 million fraud at the bankrupt hedge-fund firm.
Matthew Marino entered his guilty plea yesterday in U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York, federal prosecutors said. Marino faces as long as three years in prison when he’s sentenced on Dec. 4, according to prosecutors.
Marino admitted “that he knew a fraud was being perpetrated on Bayou investors,” U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said yesterday in a statement.
Daniel Marino was sentenced in January to 20 years in prison for defrauding investors. Bayou co-founder Samuel Israel is serving a 20-year prison term.
Bayou, based in Stamford, Connecticut, was among the biggest hedge-fund firms to come under federal scrutiny for missing money. Bayou filed for bankruptcy in May 2006, prompting lawsuits claiming it operated a Ponzi scheme that paid off old investors with money from new ones.
Defense attorney Eugene Riccio said yesterday in a phone interview that Matthew Marino pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony for failing to report the crime. Marino faces as long as 27 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, Riccio said. He declined to comment further.
Bloomberg – Rogers Investment Advisors Y.K., a Tokyo-based hedge fund adviser, has hired Yoshiaki Iizuka and Eric Chong as it expects to more than double assets by the year-end.
Iizuka, 52, joined Rogers Investment on Aug. 1 as a managing director and head of Japanese research in Tokyo, after his most recent stint as chief investment officer of Tokyo-based Traders Investment Management Co., now JPS Asset Management Co., Ed Rogers, chief executive officer of Rogers Investment, said in an interview in Tokyo. Iizuka was chief executive officer of American Express Financial Advisors Japan Inc., Rogers said.
Chong, 36, joined Wolver Hill Advisors in New York, the U.S. counterpart of Rogers Investment, in mid-July, as a risk manager, Rogers said. He was most recently a risk manager at Societe Generale Asset Management Inc. in New York, where he was responsible for risk evaluation and analysis for a $5 billion fund of hedge funds, according to Rogers. Prior to that, Chong was a vice president at Stamford, Connecticut-based K2 Advisors LLC, a $6 billion multi-strategy fund of hedge funds.
Bloomberg- Hunter Shively, global co-head of UBS AG’s commodities business for the past seven months, is resigning to join a start-up hedge fund that is raising money to trade energy futures.
Shively, 38, will stay on for two months to oversee the handover of the commodities unit’s North American energy operations, Jerker Johansson, head of UBS’s investment bank, said today in a memo to employees. Todd Morakis, who was named commodities co-head with Shively in November, will run the Stamford, Connecticut-based unit, according to the memo, which was confirmed by Sarah Small, a spokeswoman for UBS in London.
UBS, which has had the biggest net losses of any bank from the U.S. subprime-mortgage crisis, said in January it will reduce trading in power and natural gas in Canada, and pull out of some European energy markets. Shively plans to join Sasco Energy Partners LLC, a Westport, Connecticut-based firm that is looking to raise $750 million, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified.
