West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – When surveyed about what they think about fee levels and value for money offered by investment managers, investors believe that managment fees are too high.

Two surveys were conducted by bfinance in December, questioning institutional investors and asset managers from Europe, North America, and the Gulf Region.

"The results indicate that pension funds believe investment management fees are too high and need to come down, and a majority of managers seem to agree." David Vafai, CEO of bfinance commented.

With regards to hedge fund and fund of hedge fund fee levels, pension funds generally feel that all fees need to be reduced. 77% of respondents state their first priority is for lower base fees, followed by 52% who indicate their desire for performance fees to be reduced and for there to be an increase in hurdle rates. Also, 65% of investors say that these performance fees should be calculated over a four or five year period.

"Clearly, investors are still willing to pay performance fees to reward long-term skill but are no longer willing to pay active fees for beta or for ‘luck’", commented Olivier Cassin, Managing Director, Research and Development for bfinance.

Hedge fund managers agree that fees would likely go down and indicate they expect the median level for base fees for FoHFs to decline 9% to 95bps and for the median level of performance fees for hedge funds to decline 25% to 13%.

Vafai concluded, "Although the study indicates disenchantment with the industry in general, and disenchantment with Fund of Hedge Funds and GTAA managers comes out particularly clearly, the study also rather paradoxically suggests that allocations to FoHFs, as well GTAA, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Equity FoFs are set to increase in the future. This confirms the results of our recent study on the impact of the crisis on pension fund asset allocation."

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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The Morgan Stanley Frontier Emerging Markets Fund, Inc. (the “Fund”) has issued 7,100,000 shares of common stock at a price of $20 per share resulting in gross proceeds to the Fund of approximately $142,000,000.  The Fund’s shares began trading on August 25, 2008 on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FFD.”

The newly organized, non-diversified closed-end fund’s investment objective is to seek long-term capital appreciation. "There can be no assurance that the Fund’s investment objective will be achieved." Morgan Stanley said as the Fund’s lead underwriter.

The Fund will seek to achieve its investment objective by investing, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies operating in frontier emerging market countries.

Frontier emerging market countries in which the Fund currently intends to invest include: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ecuador, Estonia, Ghana, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macao, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

The Fund’s assets are managed within Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Emerging Markets Equity team. “We have a long tradition of emerging markets investing dating back to the mid-1980’s, with the objective of helping investors capture growth opportunities in developing economies,” said Ruchir Sharma.

“We launched a Frontier Fund to invest in markets that we believe are continuing to grow and are not currently on most investors’ radar screens. The Fund’s registration in over 30 frontier markets across geographical regions gives us a wide footprint to make active country allocation decisions, and we are excited about the potential opportunities."

Alex Akesson

Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: alex@hedgeco.net

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Oceanic Hedge Fund was named Best Energy Hedge Fund on a Risk Adjusted Basis at the eighth annual Hedge Funds Review’s European Performance Awards in 2008.

The fund – which focuses on energy and shipping – was launched in August 2002 with less than US$ 5 million in net assets, but now has assets of $1.7 billion.

Its investment manager is Oceanic Investment Management, a subsidiary of Tufton Oceanic, based at St George’s Court in Douglas.

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