Bloomberg – Erik Verhaar, a former energy trader at Ospraie Management LLC and Deutsche Bank AG, started a hedge fund this week in the Netherlands as investors are returning to commodities.

His new Falckon Capital BV bets on U.K. natural gas and European power, emissions, coal and oil and has attracted one investor so far, Verhaar said yesterday in an interview.

Verhaar, 46, started at Cargill Inc. in 1987 as a cocoa trader and worked for Goldman Sachs Inc. and Nuon NV before joining Deutsche Bank in London in 2000, advancing to managing director for gas and power. He joined Ospraie’s biggest commodities fund in March 2008, six months before it closed in September last year. Verhaar’s energy investments at Ospraie gained 15 percent net of fees while he was there, he said.

Read Complete Article

Tags: bets, bv, cargill inc, coal, cocoa, commodities, deutsche bank, deutsche bank ag, emissions, energy trader, energy-investments, falckon, goldman sachs inc, goldman-sachs, hedge fund, management llc, managing director, natural gas, nuon, ospraie-management

NineMSN – Ospraie Management is launching two funds focusing on commodities and other liquid securities just eight months after it was forced to close its flagship fund amid huge losses on commodities trades.

The US hedge fund’s move, announced in a letter to investors, is a sign of growing confidence within the hedge fund industry.

"After much reflection and with a number of lessons learned, we see a set of opportunities today that we believe could create significant value for investors in coming years," Dwight Anderson, Ospraie’s founder, wrote in a letter last week obtained by the Financial Times.

Read Complete Article

Tags: commodities, confidence, dwight-anderson, eight-months, financial times, investors, losses, ospraie-management, quot, reflection

New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Over $84 billion worth of U.S. hedge funds shut down last year, compared to just $18.7 billion in 2007, according to the latest data published by Absolute Return Magazine, a unit of HedgeFund Intelligence.  More than 200 funds closed up shop in 2008, with 20 percent or $16 billion of those assets deriving from Madoff feeder funds.

The largest fund closure was Fairfield Greenwich Group’s Fairfield Sentry fund, which once managed $6.9 billion in assets, and fed almost all of their investments to Madoff funds.  The other major Madoff feeder funds that faltered included Tremont Group’s Rye funds, which once managed $3.1 billion and Kingate Management’s Kingate Global Fund which was worth about $2.7 billion.

The largest failure unrelated to the Madoff scandal was Drake Management, who was forced to close funds that once oversaw $4.7 billion.  Citigroup’s Old Lane Partners, another Multi-strategy hedge fund founded by its Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, decided to liquidate after unimpressive returns and mounting write downs by the bank.  It once managed $4.4 billion in assets.

Here are the top 10 hedge fund closures of 2008 according to Absolute Return Magazine:

1.  Fairfield Greenwich Group, Fairfield Sentry  
    
Madoff feeder fund
    
6.9 Billion

2.  Drake Management, Global Opp, Low Volatility, Abs. Return
    
Macro/Multi
    
4.7 Billion

3.  Citigroup, Old Lane Partners
    
Multistrategy
    
4.4 Billion

4.  D.B. Zwirn, Zwirn Special Opp. Fund
    
Multistrategy
    
4.0 Billion

5.  Tontine Capital Management, Tontine Capital, Tontine Partners
    
Equity Long/Short
    
4.0 Billion

6.  Ospraie Management, Ospraie Fund
    
Commodities
    
3.8 Billion

7.  Highland Capital Management, Crusader, Highland Credit    
    
Credit
    
3.5 Billion

7.  Peloton Partners, Peloton ABS, Peloton Multistrategy   

ABS, Multistrategy
    
3.5 Billion

9.  Tremont Group Holdings, Rye Investment Management
    
Madoff feeder fund
    
3.1 Billion

10.  Kingate Management, Kingate Global Fund
    
Madoff feeder fund
    
2.7 Billion

Tags: absolute-return, capital-management, citigroup, commodities, crusader, drake, fairfield greenwich group, feeder, global fund, hedgeco, kingate, ospraie-management, sentry, tontine capital, tontine partners, volatility

Reuters – In spite of suffering more than most markets in the global downturn, hedge funds are likely to bounce back faster than other markets.

That is the view of Barclay’s Capital director Frank Gerhard whose company is a major player in the regional hedge fund market and is in the process of launching a Sharia-compliant hedge fund platform along with Sharia Capital.

"We have been running a roadshow around the region and there is still a lot of institutional and high net worth individual interest in the sector.

"What we are likely to see is hedge funds bouncing back in the first quarter of next year even if equity markets remain depressed.

"Each time there is a major market downturn, like the Asia crisis of 1998 or the slump after the dotcom bubble burst, we have seen alternative investments like hedge funds bounce back far quicker than other investments.

Read Complete Article

Tags: chief-investment-officer, fortis, fund-specialist, investment-arm, ospraie-management, proponents, reorganization, screws, washington-post, yevgeny