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 – Wolver Hill Japan Multi-Strategy Fund, run by Deutsche Bank AG’s former prime brokerage sales chief in Tokyo, resisted the worst month for the nation’s stocks in almost 15 years to be little changed in September.
The $11 million fund of hedge funds, which invests in 14 hedge funds with a combined $5.8 billion of assets, slipped 1.4 percent in September based on preliminary figures, said Ed Rogers, chief executive officer of Wolver Hill’s local advisory firm, Rogers Investment Advisors Y.K. The Topix index of 1,714 companies tumbled 13 percent.
Foreseeing a decline in equity prices, Wolver Hill made a shift during the past year into hedge funds that use trading- focused strategies, and away from so-called long-short funds that depend on rising and falling stock prices, Rogers said. Trading- focused funds, including so-called event-driven strategies, trade securities of companies going through events such as mergers, acquisitions and management changes.
Bloomberg – Hedge-fund managers Gottex Fund Management Holdings Ltd. and Acorn Capital Group LLC are among at least 20 investors the FBI said may have been victimized by a fraudulent lending scheme that could exceed $2 billion.
The alleged fraud was disclosed last week after an FBI raid at the Minnetonka, Minnesota, headquarters of Petters Group Worldwide, a closely held investment company that owns Polaroid Corp. and Sun Country Airlines Inc. Chief Executive Officer Thomas Petters resigned on Sept. 29, according to Petters Group spokeswoman Andrea Miller.
Petters, 51, had been running a fraudulent investment operation since at least the mid-1990s, siphoning off money for his own use, according to an affidavit by Timothy Bisswurm, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bisswurm said in the affidavit that investors made loans to companies owned by Petters, believing the money would be used to buy merchandise and sell it to retailers including Costco Wholesale Corp. and Sam’s Clubs, a unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The purchases were never made, Bisswurm said in the affidavit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. Instead, Petters used the money “for his other business ventures and to support his extravagant lifestyle,” according to the Sept. 19 affidavit.
Bloomberg.com: UK & Ireland – Citadel Investment Group LLC, the $19 billion hedge-fund firm run by Kenneth Griffin, hired three senior executives from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to boost its fixed-income team.
Timothy Bryan Wilkinson, former head of fixed income proprietary trading at Lehman Brothers, will work on the same business at Citadel’s proprietary trading group along with John Alexander Goodridge, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. Alex Maddox, 38, formerly head of European mortgage-bond trading, will become Citadel’s head of securitized products in Europe. The team will report to Patrik Edsparr, Citadel’s global head of fixed income and European chief executive officer.
Banks and hedge funds are hiring Lehman executives as the bankrupt U.S. securities firm cuts 750 jobs in its European fixed income division after talks to find a buyer failed.
Norwalk Advocate – Some hedge funds are reducing their management and incentive fees to keep investors for longer periods during turbulent times on Wall Street.
Typically, hedge fund managers require investors to lock their money into a hedge fund for a year while charging a 2 percent management fee and keeping 20 percent of hedge-fund profits as an incentive fee – if it reaches a pre-determined point.
Camels Capital LLC, a Greenwich-based hedge fund, and Ore Hill, a New York-based fund, among others, have restructured these terms to keep investors.
"Ourselves, Ore Hill and a few other funds have taken a step to do that in this period of liquidity to lock in investors," said Richard Brendan, chief executive officer for Camels Capital. "We’ve been able to lock in our investors for a period of time to participate in opportunities with them."
Brennan would not comment on the specifics of the agreement between the hedge fund and his investors.
Scott Baker, a principal with Greenwich-based hedge fund investment firm Cookpine Capital, said many hedge funds are coming up with innovative ways to secure investor capital for longer periods.
Professional Pensions – RMB Asset Management has launched a diversified target fund in a bid to help schemes manage funding volatility.
The asset management firm said the multi-manager RMB Diversified Target Return Fund has exposure to equities, bonds and alternatives such as commodities, hedge fund of funds and property.
It is aimed at both defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes – and is targeting return of LIBOR (London interbank offered rate) plus 3pc over rolling three year periods.
The underlying managers are researched and monitored by RMB’s multi-manager research team which is headed up by chief executive officer Tom Joy.
Bloomberg – Credit-default swap dealers reduced the volume of outstanding contracts for the first time amid efforts to reduce risks in a market used to hedge against bond losses and speculate on corporate creditworthiness.
The volume of outstanding trades fell to $54.6 trillion from $62 trillion in the first half, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said in a statement yesterday. It was the first decline since ISDA started surveying traders in 2001.
“This decrease primarily reflects the industry’s efforts to reduce risk by tearing up economically offsetting transactions and demonstrates the industry’s ongoing commitment to reduce risk and enhance operational efficiency,” ISDA Chief Executive Officer Robert Pickel said in the statement. “We expect to see more effects of this over time.”
Bloomberg – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to jumpstart a hunt for suspected manipulation of financial stocks, will require hedge fund managers, brokerages and institutional investors to describe under oath their bets on the firms.
Investors with “significant” trades in the companies’ securities or credit default swaps must disclose their positions and provide “certain other information” in written statements, the regulator said yesterday. SEC spokesman John Nester declined to say who would receive the requests.
The SEC issued a series of emergency measures, rules and warnings to hedge funds this past week as lawmakers including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and executives such as Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack said traders may be spreading misinformation and using abusive tactics to attack companies. On Sept. 17, the agency said it may also force funds to hand over their communications.
Bloomberg – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may require hedge funds to disclose their short-sale positions and plans to subpoena the funds’ communication records in an effort to stem turmoil in stock markets.
Hedge funds and investors managing more than $100 million in securities would be “required to promptly begin public reporting of their daily short positions,” Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement yesterday. The proposed disclosure is in addition to three SEC rules that took effect today aimed at reducing manipulative trades betting on a drop in share prices.
Lawmakers including U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and executives such as Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack say short sellers may be spreading false information and using abusive tactics to attack companies. Hedge funds say poor business strategies are to blame and an industry spokesman said the SEC announcement was “abrupt.”
“The consequences of a hasty or ill-considered rule in this environment could be extremely harmful to the capital markets,” said Jim Chanos, chairman of the Coalition of Private Investment Companies, which represents 20 funds with assets in excess of $120 billion. “Such a requirement is akin to the government suddenly requiring Coca-Cola to disclose their secret formula for free to all their competitors.”
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Recruiters at WhiteRock Group are seeing increased opportunity for job-seekers and hiring firms.
The meltdown in sub-prime mortgages, and the ensuing credit crunch, has led to uncertainty and turmoil throughout financial markets worldwide, says WhiteRock, but as with any deal, what’s bad news for one party is often very good news for another.
"There’s never been a better time to look for a job on Wall Street, or the Asian financial markets," says Gustavo Dolfino, founder and chief executive officer of WhiteRock Group. And amazingly, there’s never been a better time to be looking for talent either."
To understand why the recruitment business is booming even as the industry appears to be retrenching, one must understand that the overheated markets of the past few years have actually made recruiting more difficult.
Dolfino, who was quoted last week in Crain’s New York Business as well as the Wall Street Journal and is frequently interviewed for market perspective by CNBC, Bloomberg News and other financial news services, explains.
"With markets soaring these past few years, the price of top talent went through the roof. Everyone had golden handcuffs. Nobody wanted to work for anything but a top-tier firm. Now, you’ve got a situation where suddenly all those people who were ‘unhirable’ might be available. And they don’t necessarily want to work at a top-tier firm – those are the ones who’ve been in the paper everyday, mostly with bad news. Right now, the smart money is picking people up."
Dolfino pointed out that the greatest growth is currently in Asia, especially China, where "If you can get a CFO on the phone, you can get a job." He adds, "And we have everyone’s phone number."
To keep up with this still exploding demand, WhiteRock Group has opened three new offices, all in Asia, and brought on more top recruiting talent. The company is now nearly fifty professionals strong and expects to add to that number before year’s end.
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Bloomberg – RAB Capital Plc is trying to freeze client redemptions for three years to avoid liquidation of its flagship hedge fund, which lost almost half its value this year.
RAB fell as much as 14 percent in London trading after it said investors have until Sept. 29 to vote on the plan, which would cut fees and postpone redemptions until Oct. 3, 2011.
Special Situations, RAB’s largest fund, has lost more than $1 billion this year from investments in Northern Rock Plc, a mortgage lender nationalized by the U.K. government, and small natural-resources companies such as Oxus Gold Plc, a miner down 68 percent this year. RAB Chief Executive Officer Philip Richards stepped down this month to focus on the fund, once one of London’s best performers, returning 1,475 percent in 2003.
“If the investors reject the proposal, the group would then have to liquidate the portfolio,” said Irfan Younus, an analyst at NCB Stockbrokers in London who has a “reduce” rating on the stock. “In a worst-case scenario, unwinding of this could pose a significant threat to the franchise.”
RAB plans to liquidate the investments if it’s unable to get investor support for the new structure, the company said. It didn’t disclose how many investors had to approve the changes.
We “regret the impact that the performance will have on investors,” Richards said in a statement. “We believe that the underlying thesis of investment in early-stage natural resources is one that will repay patient investors over time.”
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund broker MF Global Ltd. has appointed Michael Roseman as its new chief risk officer.
“Michael has very broad experience managing risk around the asset classes that this company brokers,” said Kevin R. Davis, chief executive officer, MF Global. “I’m delighted that he has decided to join MF Global and believe he will make a strong addition to our executive management team.”
Mr. Roseman is responsible for the overall management of MF Global’s risk department worldwide including market, credit and operational risk. He will also oversee the company’s compliance function and will report directly to the CEO.
Prior to joining MF Global, Mr. Roseman served as chief risk officer for the Americas at Newedge Group. He joined Newedge, then Fimat, USA, in 2004 prior to its merger with Calyon where he oversaw all aspects of risk related to their Americas brokerage business.
MF Global Ltd. is diversified across products, trading markets, customers and regions. Its worldwide client base of more than 138,000 active accounts ranges from financial institutions, industrial groups, hedge funds and other asset managers to professional traders and private/retail clients.
MF Global operates in 12 countries on more than 70 exchanges, providing access to the largest and fastest growing financial markets in the world. It is the leader by volume on many of these markets and on a single day averages eight million lots, more than most of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges.
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Gulf Daily News – Developing markets are fertile ground for hedge funds, if the funds have experienced managers, according to Paulson and Company founder and chief executive officer John Paulson."Underdeveloped markets are less efficient and create more opportunities," Mr Paulson said in an interview in the forthcoming issue of The Report Bahrain 2008.
"In markets such as London and New York, which are very efficient, the arbitrage opportunities are very thin. However, in developing markets, the arbitrage opportunities are greater. A developing market could benefit from an experienced manager who is able to navigate the market to create value for investors."
He outlined many of the hedge fund strategies, and pointed out that, for GCC hedge funds, underdeveloped debt markets should not pose an obstacle as hedge fund managers can focus in the areas where there is sufficient liquidity.
Mr Paulson said that, with the hedge fund sector among the fastest growing industries in the world, there was a demand from many investors from outside the Gulf region to diversify and invest in promising areas of the world.
