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.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge Fund firm Tudor Investment Corp. has suspended investor redemptions from its $10 billion BVI Global unit until March 31st, giving the company time to split the fund into two.
BVI Global was hit by a wave of client redemption requests after investors moved to withdraw 14 percent of their capital, according to a recent letter to investors. The hedge fund posted a loss of about 5 percent this year, while hedge funds as a whole lost an average of 22 percent through November 24th according to Hedge Fund Research Inc.
Tudor Investment Corp., run by Paul Tudor Jones, wants to separate the corporate bonds and loans from emerging markets and start a new fund called Legacy, according to a recent letter to investors. The BVI flagship fund will stick with its staple of stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities.
The company is asking clients to approve the split within the next two months. Capital would be placed into both the BVI Global Fund and the Legacy Fund, depending on the division of assets.
Tudor Investment Corp. manages approximately $17 billion. Jones’ Tudor Futures Fund has posted gains of 21 percent this year while the firm’s Tensor Fund Ltd has seen returns of about 34 percent, according to people familiar with the matter.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
Bloomberg – Tudor Investment Corp., the firm run by Paul Tudor Jones, temporarily suspended redemptions from the $10 billion BVI Global Fund Ltd. as it splits the hedge fund into two, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Tudor is planning to put hard-to-sell investments, mostly corporate bonds and loans from emerging markets, into a new fund called Legacy, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. BVI Global, which started in 1986, would focus on easier-to-trade stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.
More than 80 firms have liquidated funds, restricted redemptions or segregated assets following stock-market declines and a credit freeze that started with rising defaults on U.S. subprime mortgages. Emerging-markets securities have fallen as commodity prices plunged and investors shunned riskier assets on concern the global economy is entering a recession. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index has dropped 58 percent this year.
Bloomberg – Credit markets have fallen so far that they are providing a "once in a lifetime opportunity," and investors are still selling.
Prices of loans rated below investment grade declined to a record low 66.1 cents on the dollar, virtually guaranteeing investors get their money back, based on historical recovery rates, according to data compiled by Standard & Poor’s. Yields on corporate bonds show investors expect 5.6 percent of the market will go bust, the highest default rate since the Great Depression, according to Christopher Garman, chief executive officer of debt research firm Garman Research LLC in Orinda, California.
While central banks injected $3 trillion into the global economy, credit markets are tumbling because banks are clamping down on lending, forcing investors to unload assets they bought with borrowed money. The Federal Reserve said Aug. 11 that its quarterly survey shows most "domestic institutions reported having tightened their lending standards and terms."
Reuters – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc agreed on Wednesday to sell its 45 percent stake in hedge fund R3 Capital Partners for $250 million in cash and a $250 million investment in another fund managed by R3.
Lehman, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, acquired the stake in May in return of a roughly $1 billion investment, according to document filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
R3 Capital is run by Richard Rieder, a former head of global principal strategies at Lehman.
Lehman owned the non-voting, minority ownership stakes in the master fund, general partner, special limited partner and management company of R3 Capital Partners, an asset manager of funds investing primarily in corporate bonds and loans.
Trading Markets – Morgan Stanley is looking at scaling back its prime-brokerage operation, selling assets or buying a faltering regional bank, the New York Post said citing sources.
The firm may also try to work out a way to piggyback on to the $1.3 trillion deposit base of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the paper said citing people familiar with the matter.
Mitsubishi UFJ took a 21 percent stake in Morgan Stanley for $9 billion earlier this week.
The firm is also eyeing trimming its balance sheet and exiting, or scaling back, from businesses that don’t provide high returns, like prime-brokerage, trading of corporate bonds and high-yield debt, the paper added.
Bloomberg- South Korean life insurers are shunning U.S. and European corporate bonds because of a rising risk of default and plowing money into domestic debt.
Samsung Life Insurance Co., Korea’s biggest insurer, is diverting $500 million into 10-year government bonds, said Koo Sung Hoon, head of investments at the company. Kyobo Life Insurance Co., the third-largest, is reconsidering plans to invest the equivalent of $1 billion overseas and may put the money to work at home instead, said Cho Ok Rae, chief of international investments.
“Risks are increasing so we are now rebalancing our fixed- income portfolios, which means we are selling corporate bonds we hold in the U.S. and Europe,” Koo said this month in an interview in Seoul. “Corporate default risk will rise.”
FINalternatives- Another pair of Citigroup fixed-income executives is to set up its own hedge fund shop.
Jeff Jacob and John Humphrey, who run the global special situations group they established at Citi four years ago, will leave the firm in about two months. Citi is splitting up their proprietary-trading desk, which focuses on distressed corporate bonds and loans, and restructuring the group to focus on customer trading. The move is just one of a variety of risk-cutting moves by Citi, which has taken some $43 billion in writedowns and losses resulting from the credit crisis.
Jacob and Humphrey, who came to Citi in 2004 from Merrill Lynch, will launch their distressed-debt hedge fund early next year. The fund will be seeded by Citi, although the terms of that investment are still being negotiated, though all of its current assets will remain with Citi.
