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.
Jamaica Gleaner – The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela pledged Saturday to invest US$100 million each in a special fund in hopes of boosting cross-border trade as the world economic crisis slashes global demand for their exports.
The cash will help create small businesses and should finance infrastructure projects along the border, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said after four hours of talks in the Caribbean port of Cartagena with his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.
"Nobody knows where this crisis might go," Chávez told a televised news conference.
Trade between the two nations reached a record US$7.2 billion in 2008, and Chávez said they should aim for US$10 billion a year in 2009 and 2010.
Reuters – British hedge fund manager Man Group Plc said on Tuesday banks were more highly geared than hedge funds and bank deleveraging had been the main driver of asset-price declines.
"Hedge fund deleveraging has put pressure on asset prices as clients have redeemed. But the main point is banks are deleveraging and they are many times more leveraged than hedge funds," said Man Group Chief Executive Peter Clarke.
Speaking at the Hedge Funds World conference in Zurich, Clarke also said leverage across the hedge fund industry is now at around a third of leverage levels in 2007.
Myrtle Beach Sun News – The financial turmoil has pushed the Obama campaign into the lead, and this is mostly justified. Barack Obama is more thoughtful on the economy than his opponent, and his bench of advisers is superior. But there’s a troubling side to the Democratic advance. The claim that the financial crisis reflects Bush-McCain deregulation is not only nonsense. It is the sort of nonsense that could matter.
The real roots of the crisis lie in a flawed response to China. Starting in the 1990s, the flood of cheap products from China kept global inflation low, allowing central banks to operate relatively loose monetary policies. But the flip side of China’s export surplus was that China had a capital surplus, too. Chinese savings sloshed into asset markets ’round the world, driving up the price of everything from Florida condos to Latin American stocks.
That gave central bankers a choice: Should they carry on targeting regular consumer inflation, which Chinese exports had pushed down, or should they restrain asset inflation, which Chinese savings had pushed upward? Alan Greenspan’s Fed chose to stand aside as asset prices rose; it preferred to deal with bubbles after they popped by cutting interest rates rather than by preventing those bubbles from inflating. After the dot-com bubble, this clean-up-later policy worked fine. Not so with the real estate bubble.
Reuters – GAM, the hedge fund firm owned by Julius Baer AG, is preparing to launch a distressed debt fund of funds after watching asset prices reach "extreme levels", a company letter seen by Reuters said.
In a letter to investors seen by Reuters on Monday, GAM chief executive David M. Solo said: "We are completing a thorough review of a range of the best managers in the U.S. and Europe so as to create a diversified vehicle to benefit from this unique opportunity."
In the letter dated Oct. 2, Solo said GAM clients had been requesting a distressed fund for more than a year. That the firm is now preparing to dip its toe in the water could encourage other players in the field to feel asset prices are nearing bottom.
A source familiar with the plans indicated that a launch for the fund has been mooted for the end of this year or early in 2009, although that was subject to change. The source could give no figure for target assets under management.
