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.
Boston Globe – He is a close political ally and prodigious fund-raiser for state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill. When a blue-chip New York financial firm was trying to persuade Cahill and his staff to award it a lucrative contract to manage state pension money, it hired Anthony S. Rust to push their cause.
In the end, the payday was a big one for everyone involved. Ivy Asset Management was awarded the contract in 2004 to manage $393 million in state pension funds, a deal that would net it about $18.3 million in fees, according to state records. Ivy paid Rust an estimated $2.3 million for brokering the deal, according to the records.
Bloomberg – Former Democratic political adviser Hank Morris and New York State Deputy Comptroller David Loglisci may hold the keys as authorities examine whether private equity firms and hedge funds knowingly paid kickbacks to manage state pension money.
The pair, accused of orchestrating the alleged pay-to-play scheme, is in the best position to explain what firms including Carlyle Group and Quadrangle Group LLC were told while allegedly being led to dole out sham finders fees between 2003 and 2007, attorneys who represent investment advisers said. Both men have said they will fight the state and federal claims.
Albany Times Union – A group of upstate unions claims it lost nearly $1 billion in pension and other benefit funds after an investment manager placed the money with Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
Now, the unions have filed a class-action lawsuit against the adviser, Syracuse-based J.P. Jeanneret Associates Inc. and against White Plains-based Beacon Associates Management, which operated funds that invested pension money with Madoff.
The Australian – ARPAD Busson is angry. He has just looked at the returns of a hedge fund he used to invest in and they’re down more than 60 per cent in the past nine months.
"That a-hole!" Busson says of the New York-based manager, as he walks out of the conference room at the Mayfair offices of EIM, the $US11.5 billion ($16.2 billion) fund-of-hedge-funds firm of which he is founder and chairman. Although EIM yanked its money out of the fund in April 2008, when it was down only 25 per cent, there are too many like it out there, Busson says.
"If these managers are not focused on preservation of capital, they should not have the right to manage other people’s money," he says.
Busson’s opinion matters. Since he launched EIM in 1992 he has been instrumental in luring billions of dollars of public and corporate pension money into his and other funds of funds. The industry, which Busson helped pioneer, allows investors to spread their risk among hedge funds with different strategies.
