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 – Abax Global Capital Ltd., a Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager backed by Morgan Stanley, plans to start a private equity fund in China that invests in companies making environmentally friendly products such as clean energy.
The yuan-denominated fund aims to raise about 500 million yuan ($73 million) from Chinese investors by its first close in two months, Donald Yang, Abax’s Hong Kong-based president, said in a phone interview Aug. 21. It will be sponsored by a large Chinese financial institution, whose name he declined to reveal because of pending regulatory reviews of the plan.
Bloomberg – Commoditrade Inc. plans to introduce an energy hedge fund in the fourth quarter, complementing a fund that invests in industrial metals.
The new fund will use the relative-value strategy followed by the metals fund, Chief Executive Officer David Phipps said yesterday in a phone interview. He declined to comment on the performance of the metals fund, the AMCO Commodity Fund, which Georgetown, Grand Cayman-based Commoditrade bought in February.
Commoditrade and competitors are opening energy funds as oil futures listed in New York rebound from the worst slump ever. Galena Asset Management Ltd. started an energy hedge fund this month that it said may expand to more than $1 billion. Andrew Serotta, who worked for Vitol Group, aims to raise $100 million for an oil hedge fund called Logista Capital.
Bloomberg - Banco Santander SA’s hedge fund unit used risk software that according to its developer may have “waved red flags” about Bernard Madoff investments.
“You definitely would have seen it,” Riskdata SA Chief Executive Officer Ingmar Adlerberg said in a phone interview from Paris. Many of the company’s 80 customers have thanked it for flagging risks linked to Madoff, he said. He refused to name them or comment specifically on Santander.
Santander offered on Jan. 27 to pay 1.38 billion euros ($1.8 billion) to private banking clients hit by Madoff-related losses through the Spanish bank’s Optimal Investment Services hedge fund arm. Geneva-based Optimal said Riskdata’s FOFiX product was key to “quantitative risk analysis” for hedge fund investments in a 30-page due-diligence questionnaire filed last April with the Alternative Investment Management Association.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- The Managed Funds Association (MFA) and the Coalition of Private Investment Companies (CPIC) called on SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in a letter to not extend the emergency order on short selling beyond the announced expiration date.
"While we recognize that the financial sector is undergoing an extraordinarily difficult period," Richard H. Baker, MFA President and CEO, said, "we believe that these difficulties are the result of poor fundamental conditions and not a mysterious conspiracy or, more to the point, the inadequacy of current rules related to short selling."
"Such action would severely burden short selling activity, which the SEC itself repeatedly has acknowledged plays a vital role in the stability of securities markets." James S. Chanos, CPIC Chairman said, "Restrictions on short sales distort the fundamentals that drive market prices and are, in the long run, counter-productive because they remove liquidity and healthy skepticism from the marketplace."
The current expiration date is 11:59 pm on July 29, 2008.
CPIC is a coalition of private investment companies whose members and associates are diverse in both size and investment strategies managing or advising an aggregate of over $100 billion in assets.
MFA members represent the majority of the largest hedge fund groups in the world who manage a substantial portion of the approximately $2 trillion invested in absolute return strategies. MFA is headquartered in Washington, DC, with an office in New York.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- The Managed Funds Association MFA and CME Group (CME), a Strategic Partner member, recently arrived back from a jointly arranged trip to meet with Chinese government officials, policy makers and financial services representatives.
The MFA and CME co-sponsored a conference, "Global Markets and the Role of Alternative Investments" was held in June with the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government and China Foreign Exchange Administration Magazine.
"The conference agenda helped us to continue a dialogue about the important role of alternative investments in the capital markets and to strengthen relationships in China as its economy and financial markets grow." Richard H. Baker, MFA President and CEO, said.
Members who participated in the conference included; Citadel Investment Group, L.L.C.; Fairfield Greenwich Group (FGG); Harbinger Capital Partners Funds; Moore Capital Management, LLC; Tudor Investment Corporation; the D.E. Shaw Group; Paulson & Co., Inc.; and S.A.C. Capital Advisors, LLC.
"MFA’s visit to China is part of its ongoing international outreach with policy makers and its mission to provide information about the global alternative investment industry." MFA said.
MFA is the voice of the global alternative investment industry. Its members include professionals in hedge funds, funds of funds and managed futures funds. MFA Members represent the majority of the largest hedge fund groups in the world who manage a substantial portion of the approximately $2 trillion invested in absolute return strategies.
