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 – 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.
AFP – Is it more painful to see the value of your fund disappear as the global economy crumbles, or for another man to punch you as hard as he can in the face?
For Elliot "The Machine Gun" Odell, a 32-year-old Briton working in the hedge fund industry in Hong Kong, the chance to find out was irresistible.
Odell, whose fierce-looking arms are plastered with tattoos normally hidden under his three-piece bespoke suit, was one of a dozen finance workers who recently bashed their way through "Hedge Fund Fight Nite," a charity boxing match.
After five months of training, he was left in little doubt about how easy it was to escape the whirl of the current market turmoil spooking the world’s financial markets.
"Boxing is pretty much the most stress-relieving thing you can do," said Odell, in his strong Essex accent.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Research and Markets announced the addition of a new report, "Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Handbook 2009".
With increased investment and stability in the region, the Asia-Pacific capital markets have experienced rapid growth over the past few years, with many markets emerging as key players in the global economy.
"The economic appetites of the Asian tigers are alive and well in the global economy of the 21st century," it says in the report, "In fact, Asia’s share of the global economy continues to grow at a feverish rate. Asia’s combined gross domestic product (GDP) was over US$5 trillion in 2007, doubling in constant dollar terms since 1998. Asia accounted for over 13% of global GDP in 2007, up over 40% from the 9% recorded in 1998. With this growth in economic activity we have seen unprecedented expansion into the capital markets by Asian countries."
The Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Handbook 2009 is a guide through the key areas of growth and provide you with an insight into the region. With editorial from key players in the industry and contributions from (among others) the Philippine, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean markets, this Handbook is a ‘must have’ tool for your work in the region, says Research and Markets.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Washington Observer Reporter – Wall Street’s initial enthusiasm about a $586 billion Chinese stimulus package fizzled Monday, as investors succumbed to anxieties about how U.S. companies will survive a severe pullback in spending.
Stocks got a short-lived boost from China’s plans to boost its economy through a mix of spending, subsidies, looser credit policies and tax cuts. The package could benefit multinational companies with business in China such as General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Inc.
But Wall Street’s optimism quickly waned, as it has tended to do since the mid-September downfall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and government takeover of the troubled insurance giant American International Group. Market participants realized that while China’s stimulus is a positive sign that governments around the world are working to fix the global economy, the stimulus itself will likely have only a limited effect in the United States.
Chicago Tribune – The credit crunch and global economic recession have squeezed many independent filmmakers, who were already struggling from a glut of films and a shortage of funds even before the global economy went into a tailspin last month.
While the major studios have long-term deals in place to co-finance their movies, independent producers aren’t nearly as fortunate. Most of them do not have easy access to capital and instead must cobble together a patchwork of financing to make one film at a time. That patchwork has become frayed as lenders cool on making loans to filmmakers and foreign buyers grapple with access to credit and depressed currencies.
"The entire ability of independent filmmakers to finance their films has been shaken dramatically," said Mark Damon, chief executive of Foresight Unlimited, a Los Angeles film production company, who produced the 2003 drama "Monster."
Opalesque – For the US financial markets, as the credit crisis unfolded there was, along with the desire for immediate action, a sense that the government was taking temporary steps until the election would decide which administration would be the next to hold office.
As the November 4th election has determined the next US President to be Barack Obama, hedge fund managers gathering at the Walkers "Fighting the Tape" seminar on Thursday (November 6th) will include in their discussions on the outcome of the Presidential Election and the direction of the hedge funds industry.
"I do not look for a President-elect Obama to increase taxes on successful individuals as he has proposed. It is one thing to get elected, another to govern." Professor Jeffrey Rosensweig, Director of the Global Perspectives Program at Goizueta Business School of Emory University told Opalesque. A speaker at the "Fighting the Tape" seminar, Prof. Rosensweig will examine the global economy, market trends, changing demographics and global opportunities for investors and investment managers. "Given the backdrop of looming recession, he will realize this is no time to raise taxes on those who create jobs and/or put capital to productive use, and would face the disincentive of high marginal tax rates which he currently proposes."
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."
RK Capital Management LLP, the metals hedge-fund firm co-founded by Michael Farmer, lost as much as 30 percent last month amid falling copper and aluminum prices, according to an investor with the firm.
The declines cut the combined returns of the firm’s five funds to about 2 percent this year, said the investor, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Red Kite Metals, the company’s biggest fund, dropped about 40 percent, bringing this year’s loss to as much as 7 percent.
The London Metal Exchange Index of six industrial metals fell 6.6 percent last month and is down 3.6 percent in 2008 as the slowing global economy cut demand for materials such as lead and zinc. Ospraie Management LLC, the New York-based commodity hedge-fund firm run by Dwight Anderson, said last week it will shut down its biggest fund after it lost 39 percent this year.
Globe and Mail – Once viewed as a safe haven, crude oil has lost its lustre as investors bet that the crisis in financial markets will hurt an already weakened global economy and drive down petroleum demand.
At the same time, speculators who piled into oil and other commodities on the way up have reversed course, as brokerages and hedge funds are being forced to liquidate those positions to buttress their balance sheets, traders said yesterday.
Lehman Brothers Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. are both major players in the crude oil markets, and both companies are expected to unwind their positions after Lehman sought bankruptcy protection and Merrill agreed to be acquired by Bank of America.
Crude prices fell sharply yesterday on futures markets in London and New York after hurricane Ike blew through the Gulf of Mexico without doing major damage to U.S. oil production there.
Reuters UK – Vulture funds are finally saying debt from Spanish retailer Cortefiel is now cheap enough to buy, after waiting for months to see prices of the struggling company’s debt fall further.
The funds, which have raised billions of dollars to invest on the hopes that a worsening global economy will depress debt prices, are closely monitoring the Spanish group whose debt trades at about 42 percent of its face value.
"At these levels, you have to start thinking," said a hedge fund manager, under the condition of anonymity.
Cortefiel, owned by private equity firms Permira, CVC and PAI Partners is struggling as the Spanish economy slows in the wake of the credit crunch after a real estate bubble in the country burst.
Reuters- Fund managers are gloomier about equities than at any time in at least the last 10 years and aversion to risk is close to what it was during the Bear Stearns crisis in March, a Merrill Lynch poll showed on Wednesday.
In its July poll of 191 global fund managers, the investment bank also found investors’ love affair with emerging markets to be souring and their demand for safe-haven cash at highs.
But the poll also showed that concern about inflation has waned, suggesting that investors are expecting a slowing global economy to squelch the threat of price rises.
"This very much is the age of extremes," said David Bowers, Merrill’s poll consultant.
