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.
Bloomberg – Asian hedge funds are attracting growing interest from investors as managers focusing on the region outperform global peers, said Andrew Hill, director of prime finance for Asia-Pacific markets at Citigroup Inc.
“There are pockets of proprietary money looking to be put to work in Asia,” Singapore-based Hill said in a June 12 interview. “There is going to be an outsized investment back into Asia. Some of the big pensions are going to be looking at Asia; it’s coming onto the radar screens.”
Asia-focused hedge funds gained 12.4 percent in the first five months of the year, outpacing returns in the U.S. and Europe, according to Eurekahedge Pte. That’s a reversal from last year, when clients withdrew almost $24 billion from the region’s hedge funds as managers posted bigger losses than global peers, the Singapore-based industry data provider reported.
FOXBusiness – U.K. life insurance and pensions provider Aviva said Wednesday that it’s agreed with a policyholder advocate that a reattribution offer can be put to policyholders.
The offer gives policyholders in two with-profits funds the right to choose whether to receive a payment now or keep their right to uncertain future payouts.
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.
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.
Chicago Tribune – Strong returns are a mixed blessing this year for investment funds that specialize in trading futures contracts.
While the stock market plunged about 35 percent, managed futures funds posted annual returns of about 16 percent, according to the Credit Suisse Tremont Hedge Fund Index.
That makes them one of the few havens for investors at a time when pensions, retirement savings and even prominent local hedge funds such as Citadel Investment Group and Magnetar Capital LLC have recorded big losses.
But the success of managed futures has also left them vulnerable to client withdrawals. Because market turmoil froze the assets in many portfolios, some institutional and individual investors are pulling money from managed futures.
Globe and Mail- Friday, the Ontario government put out a release announcing that the government is "thrilled’ to welcome to Toronto a new arm of Goldman Sachs Administration Services, the part of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that helps hedge funds with back offices. But from Goldman, aside from a quote in the release, there wasn’t much more info on what fund managers can expect.
A new week brings a little more detail: The office will be a small addition to a roughly 160-person division of GS that will provide such services as portfolio analytics and accounting. The division already has offices in the Cayman Islands, Dublin, Hong Kong, Jersey City and Princeton, N.J., and the word is Goldman wanted to add capacity and liked Toronto’s skilled work force.
