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.
Reuters UK – The Dutch pension fund sector has joined criticism of a European Union regulatory directive for hedge funds and private equity, saying the new rules may cut investment opportunities and raise costs.
The EU’s draft “Alternative Investment Fund Managers” directive published in April aims to tighten regulation and increase information disclosure for hedge funds and private equity firms to quell public anger over financial market excesses.
The Australian – Global hedge funds made an estimated 9.73 per cent in returns for the year to June 24, according to figures published by data provider Hedge Fund Research.
Individual managers, including Britain’s Henderson Global Investors, have seen funds rise by more than 60 per cent this year. In the wake of these results, the £1.8 billion ($3.68bn) Avon Pension Fund has been advised to stick with its 10 per cent allocation to hedge funds after putting them under review, while the Clwyd Pension Fund said it would keep 5 per cent in funds of hedge funds and is looking for a single-manager hedge fund.
AltAssets – Florida’s State Board of Administration has launched a $250m growth capital fund of funds that will invest in technology and growth-related businesses with a presence in the US state.
The Florida Growth Fund, to be managed by private equity fund of funds manager Hamilton Lane, will invest on behalf of the Florida Retirement System Pension Fund.
“Florida needs leadership to develop economic growth, because this is one of the biggest issues currently facing our state,” said Attorney General McCollum, one of the SBA’s Trustees. “We have to find a balanced way to stimulate our economy and solve these problems rather than simply relying on federal handouts.”
MONACO (Reuters) – Former Insight Investment fund managers Patrick Armstrong and Ana Cukic-Armstrong have launched a new fund management business that will invest in a broad range of assets and seek to beat inflation.
The firm, Armstrong Investment Managers, will try to combine hedge fund-style flexibility with the liquidity and lower fees of traditional asset management. It will launch funds for retail, high net worth and pension fund investors at the end of the summer, Patrick Armstrong told Reuters on Tuesday.
The pair were co-heads of the multi-asset group at Insight Investment, now owned by Lloyds Banking Group. They ran around 1.2 billion pounds in assets including the Diversified Target Return fund, which over the past three years fell 2 percent, beating an average 11 percent fall among peer funds.
"We think there is a middle ground between traditional funds and hedge funds," Armstrong said. "Hedge funds have been opaque, illiquid and had very high charges."
Reuters – New York state’s pension fund has cut its so-called fund of funds investments to about $500 million from $5 billion since January 2008, after deciding direct investments were preferable, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Fund of funds invest money in hedge funds on behalf of their investors, and they helped the state gain access to "blue chip" funds when former Comptroller Alan Hevesi began using them in 2005, said Robert Whalen, a spokesman for the current Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
New York Daily News – State Controller Thomas DiNapoli is booting 10 hedge fund managers from doing business with New York’s scandal-scarred $122 billion pension fund, the Daily News has learned.
Four of the 10 firms were listed, but not charged, in an indictment the state attorney general’s office brought against two top associates to former Controller Alan Hevesi.
The four are Consulting Services Group, HFV Management, Olympia Capital Management and Pequot Capital Management.
Daily Telegraph – Mr Ralfe estimates that under "true market valuations" the hole in BT’s pension could have ballooned to over £11bn – more than the market capitalisation of the former state-owned telecoms company.
The claims came ahead of BT today revealing the results of a three-yearly review of its pension fund alongside a disastrous set of full-year results.
American Chronicle – A Los Angeles businessman has pleaded guilty to corruption charges in a pension fund scandal that began in New York and is heading west.
Julio Ramirez Jr.’s guilty plea to securities fraud, revealed Tuesday in New York, tightened the connection between that state’s scandal and the pension fund industry in California. The charges arise from Ramirez’s work as an unlicensed "placement agent" for Wetherly Capital Group of Los Angeles, a politically connected firm that has secured investment business from CalPERS and CalSTRS.
Pensions & Investments – While every move of the New York State Common Retirement Fund is in the spotlight these days, what the bright lights don’t reveal are the dramatic improvements in the fund during the past two years.
An alleged massive pay-to-play scheme centered on the fund’s alternatives investments while Alan G. Hevesi held the New York state comptroller’s position from 2002 through 2006 has dominated the news about the pension fund for more than a month.
Mr. Hevesi’s successor, Thomas P. DiNapoli, immediately began reforming the investment department of the Albany-based fund once he took the helm in February 2007.
Reuters – Berkshire County Council’s 1.05 billion pound pension fund has made a decisive move into hedge funds as part of a new 17.5 percent allocation of assets to alternative investments.
The scheme has decided to allocate 7.5 percent to hedge funds alone, at the highest end of exposure currently taken by traditionally conservative pension funds.
It has also more than halved listed equities exposure in a bid to generate more stable returns and diversify its portfolio.
Seeking Alpha – According to "Calpers Weighs Expanding Own Hedge-Fund Investments" by Jenny Strasburg and Craig Karmin (Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2009), the giant California pension fund may be the first stop for fledgling hedge fund managers who seek start-up resources. Described as a way to have "more control over its money," incubating hedgies would "mirror an approach the $175 billion pension fund has taken with private-equity managers."
Pensions & Investments – CalPERS is boldly going where no pension fund has gone before with hedge funds.
The $175 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, will be the first pension fund to move its $4.6 billion portfolio of 26 direct hedge funds to separately managed vehicles (managed accounts in hedge fund parlance) from commingled hedge funds, according to sources.
The proposed creation of a CalPERS-owned multistrategy hedge fund that will provide an incubation platform for promising emerging hedge fund managers is another first among pension funds, industry observers said.
