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 – Hedge fund industry veteran Philip Duff is setting his sights on acquiring an asset management firm at a time he says big corporations are ready to leave the management of their pension funds to someone else.
Duff made his name at legendary hedge fund Tiger Management, as a chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley and the co-founder of FrontPoint Partners, a $5.5 billion hedge fund manager that Duff sold to Morgan Stanley in 2006 as part of the bank’s alternative investments push.
Reuters – Hermes BPK Partners, the fund of hedge funds linked to Britain’s largest pension scheme, wants to bring in 5 billion pounds ($7.89 billion) in assets within the next five years, the firm’s CEO said on Tuesday.
Hermes BPK currently manages about $1.3 billion for the BT Pension Scheme (BTPS), its only client. Matteo Dante Perruccio told Reuters the boutique firm now wants to attract new assets from other corporate and local authority pension funds.
Wall Street Journal – One of the U.K.’s biggest pension plans is moving forward with a strategy to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in alternative assets, potentially including hedge funds for the first time.
The £10.6 billion ($16.8 billion) U.K. pension fund for oil company Royal Dutch Shell Group PLC agreed to a new strategic investment plan over the summer, according to a recent report to members of the pension plan. This includes a 5% allocation to alternative assets — a category that includes hedge funds, infrastructure, and commodity funds. The allocation will come on top of the 5% it already has invested in private equity.
The Shell fund is the latest big investor to give a vote of confidence to the hedge-fund industry, which went through the worst period in its history during the financial crisis last year. Last week, alternative-assets consultancy Preqin published a survey of 50 pension funds, insurers, family offices and other investors, and found that 73% of them said their hedge-fund portfolios had either met or exceeded return expectations, up from 62% that said so last year.
Reuters – The West Midlands Pension Fund, one of the UK’s largest local government schemes, has invested 40 million pounds ($64.28 million) in a fund of hedge funds.
Goodhart Partners said on Thursday the pension fund, which has 7 billion pounds in assets, had invested in its Global Long Short Equity Fund, which comprises 11 hedge fund portfolios.
The move shows some pension funds are continuing to invest in hedge funds despite poor returns last year. Earlier this year Goodhart won a 65 million pound mandate from the UK railway scheme Railpen [nL6341602]. Britain’s universities pension fund, USS, has also indicated it is going ahead with plans to invest in hedge funds.
Examiner – There is a global movement towards the harmonization of best practices and standards in the hedge fund industry amongst investors, hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, policymakers, service providers and regulatory authorities. In response to the global financial crisis, the G20 agrees on the need to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important firms, including hedge funds.
Organizations such as the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), Hedge Fund Standards Board (HFSB), International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), Managed Funds Association (MFA) and the Asset Managers’ Committee of the President’s Working Group (PWG) have individually published viewpoints on how a system of best standards and practices should be adopted.
Bloomberg – The European Union’s plan to regulate hedge funds will cost the bloc’s pension industry about 25 billion euros ($36 billion) a year, the Alternative Investment Management Association said.
The proposed law would drive pension funds toward more traditional assets such as equities and bonds or cut the returns on their investments in hedge funds and private equity, London- based AIMA, the largest trade group representing the industry, said in a statement today.
“This is an estimated figure but it shows the potentially enormous impact that the directive could have on Europe’s pension funds and in the longer term, Europe’s pensioners,” AIMA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Baker said in the statement.
Bloomberg – Kapstream Capital, Australia’s biggest fixed-income hedge fund, will almost double assets under management in the next month as pension funds seek returns in all market conditions.
The Sydney-based firm has secured investments that will take funds it oversees to A$1.2 billion ($965 million), from A$650 million, said founder Kumar Palghat, Pacific Investment Management Co.’s former head of portfolio management in Asia- Pacific. He aims to raise A$1.5 billion by end-2009 as investors switch to managers that made money even as global markets tumbled last year.
“People are recognizing that there are some opportunities in the credit space and they are more willing to start investing in them now,” said Robert Dasilva, managing director of Asia- Pacific fixed income in Sydney at Principal Global Investors, which manages $228 billion in assets globally.
Reuters UK – Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm, reported a rise in sales to private investors and said it expects to return to overall net client inflows in its second half, boosting its shares.
In a statement on Thursday, the firm said it attracted net private investor inflows in its first quarter of $1.9 billion (1.1 billion pounds) into its funds, which aim to deliver positive investment returns whether markets rise or fall. This partly offset net outflows of $3.3 billion from institutions such as pension funds.
TradingMarkets.com – Asset manager Gottex Fund Management Holdings Ltd. (GFMN.EB) said Thursday it has been awarded an investment and advisory mandate by Nestle Capital Advisers S.A.
The investment management mandate applies to one of Nestle Pension Funds’ hedge fund portfolios; it will be managed through a customized fund of funds program, focused on relative value and event driven strategies.
Reuters – Many hedge fund investors burned by last year’s market meltdown will likely demand a system of checks and balances in which outsiders keep a closer watch over assets, data released on Wednesday show.
Pension funds, endowments and wealthy investors that have long funneled money into loosely regulated hedge funds will want to see more data detailing how their investments are valued and priced, researchers at State Street Corp found.
Reuters – Mellon Capital Management, which invests money for pension funds and others, plans to launch a new hedge fund in August, a top executive said on Tuesday.
The new portfolio, which is slated to become the group’s flagship hedge fund offering, will invest in currencies, commodities, stocks, bonds and derivatives.
"This will be the first time that Mellon Capital will offer clients a commodity alpha source," said Eric Goodbar, the firm’s hedge fund strategist.
ZURICH, June 9 (Reuters) – Hedge fund outflows of $116 billion in the first quarter of 2009 were the second highest since 1994, Lipper data show, yet hedgies may yet receive a boost from some pension funds before the end of the year. Aureliano Gentilini, Lipper’s global head of hedge fund research, said on Tuesday he expected hedge fund outflows to taper off in the second quarter and that inflows could return in the third as investor confidence returns.
"Although down 21 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008, outflows were high, but partly because withdrawal restrictions imposed in the fourth quarter were lifted in Q1 of 2009," said Gentilini.
Gentilini also said that, in spite of having their worst ever year in 2008, hedge funds were seeing renewed interest from larger institutions as the dust from the financial crisis settles. Lipper is a Thomson Reuters research firm.
