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June 16 (Bloomberg) — Arvind Raghunathan , former head of Deutsche Bank AG’s global arbitrage business, will open his new hedge-fund firm next month with more than $1 billion, a sign that investors are trickling back after record losses last year.
Roc Capital Management LP’s assets will include $500 million in a separate account from Deutsche Bank, according to people familiar with the New York-based firm, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. It’s the largest hedge-fund startup this year, one of at least eight expected to raise more than $250 million each, according to brokers who provide credit and lend securities to managers.
The ventures are being set up by executives who left banks that scaled back trading to conserve capital, or hedge funds whose 2008 losses will limit bonuses for at least another year. Investors see them as an opportunity to get in early with the next George Soros or Paul Tudor Jones, who have outperformed rivals for most of their careers.
St. George Daily Spectrum – According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private equity firms donated $2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. Obama, vocal critic of the campaign finance practice known as "bundling," accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago.
In an extraordinarily candid open letter to Obama, hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness defended his industry from the president’s "backwards and libelous" charges. "Managers have a fiduciary obligation to look after their clients’ money as best they can, not to support the president, nor to oppose him, nor otherwise advance their political views," Asness wrote. He has oversight of some $20 billion at AQR Capital Management, LLC, which is not involved in the Chrysler case.
