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.
Guardian.co.uk – The secretive hedge fund manager and philanthropist Chris Hohn last year donated almost half a billion pounds to the children’s charity run by his wife, it emerged yesterday.
The £486m gift follows hefty profits at Hohn’s hedge fund TCI in 2007, and beat the previous year’s donation of £276m. The financier has now donated more than £1bn in total, more than the gross domestic product of countries including Greenland and Antigua.
The funds will be given to the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the charity that Hohn co-founded with his wife Jamie to help children in poor and developing countries, mostly in Africa, Asia and Central America.
Globe and Mail – The ranks of the world’s millionaires shrank at the fastest rate in 2008, with North America suffering the biggest wealth loss worldwide, according to a survey by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co.
The global slump in property and equity markets last year cut the number of millionaires by 15 per cent to 8.6 million, wiping out two years of increases, the firms said in their 13th annual World Wealth Report published Wednesday. The value of the world’s millionaires’ assets slid 20 per cent to $32.8-trillion (U.S.), after a 9.4-per-cent increase the previous year, the survey said.
Bloomberg - Man Group Plc, the largest publicly traded hedge-fund manager, said it will cut its workforce by about 15 percent after fiscal year profit dropped and assets under management declined by a third.
Assets fell to $48 billion in the period ending March 31, from $75 billion the previous year, London-based Man Group said in a trading statement. Pretax profit will be $1.2 billion, down from $2.1 billion. The median estimate from four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News had forecast assets of about $48.6 billion and a $1.14 billion profit.
Boston Globe – TODAY American International Group releases third-quarter results. The insurance giant is expected to post a loss of 90 cents a share, compared with a $1.35-a-share profit last year.
Starbucks Corp. releases fourth-quarter financial results and is expected to earn 13 cents a share, down from 31 cents last year.
TOMORROW TJX Cos. reports third-quarter results. Last year, the Framingham retailer posted net income of 54 cents a share.
WEDNESDAY The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on mortgages.
Macy’s Inc. is expected to report a third-quarter loss of 19 cents a share, compared with year-ago net income of 10 cents a share.
THURSDAY The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds a hearing on regulation of hedge funds.
Bloomberg – Aozora Bank Ltd., the Japanese lender controlled by U.S. buyout fund Cerberus Capital Management LP, said first-quarter profit fell 75 percent as fees declined and returns on investments in hedge funds withered.
Net income dropped to 9.33 billion yen ($86.6 million) in the three months ended June 30 from 37 billion yen a year earlier, Aozora said in a statement today. The Tokyo-based bank left unchanged its full-year profit forecast of 44 billion yen.
Aozora’s stock slumped 18 percent during the quarter, the biggest decline of any Japanese bank, after a parent operating loss of 25 billion yen in the year ended March 31. Chief Executive Officer Federico Sacasa and other executives took pay cuts after annual profit plunged 93 percent, the bank said last month.
Reuters Dubai- Bahrain-based investment bank Investcorp’s INVB.BH profit in the six months to June 30 fell to about a third of the year-ago period as asset-based income dropped on global economic woes.
The company, which generates most of its income from investing Gulf Arab wealth in the West, made $63.3 million in the period, down 71.5 percent from $222.49 million in the year-earlier period.
The Bahrain- and London-listed firm made net income of $151.1 million in the fiscal year to June 30 compared with $302.3 million in the previous fiscal year, it said in a statement on Thursday.
Bloomberg- Assured Guaranty Ltd., which owns one of two bond insurers to have retained Aaa credit ratings, said its second-quarter profit would surge by more than 14 times because of gains in credit derivatives.
The company, whose second-biggest shareholder is billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, expects to post net income ranging from $515 million to $565 million, or $6.18 per share, for the quarter ended June 30, due to unrealized gains between $475 million and $525 million on credit derivatives, according to a statement today. Profit was $32.8 million, or 47 cents a share, in the same period of 2007.
