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 – Artradis Fund Management Pte, RAB Capital Plc’s Northwest unit and Cannizaro (Hong Kong) Ltd. are cutting fees and locking up investors’ money for longer in new hedge funds that will buy bonds after prices fell in Asia.
Merrill Lynch & Co.’s prime brokerage unit has been approached by at least eight money managers about starting such funds in Asia to buy beaten-up fixed-income securities such as convertible bonds, said Eddie Guillemette, the firm’s regional co-head of global markets financing and services. Some of the hedge fund managers are offering to reduce management and performance-based fees by as much as 50 percent, he said.
“You’ve got people who are now setting up vehicles with long lockups to take advantage of distressed or stressed asset classes where the pricing is now at a multidecade level of cheapness,” said Richard Johnston, Hong Kong-based Asia head of hedge fund consulting firm Albourne Partners Ltd. The UBS Convertible Asia ex-Japan Index is down 37 percent in dollar terms this year.
Bloomberg – Artradis Fund Management Pte, RAB Capital Plc’s Northwest unit and Cannizaro (Hong Kong) Ltd. are cutting fees and locking up investors’ money for longer in new hedge funds that will buy bonds after prices fell in Asia.
Merrill Lynch & Co.’s prime brokerage unit has been approached by at least eight money managers about starting such funds in Asia to buy beaten-up fixed-income securities such as convertible bonds, said Eddie Guillemette, the firm’s regional co-head of global markets financing and services. Some of the hedge fund managers are offering to reduce management and performance-based fees by as much as 50 percent, he said.
Hedge Funds Review Magazine – Troubled Swiss-based alternative asset management group Gottex Fund Management Holdings said assets under management (AUM) were down over $2 billion to $13.5 billion at September 30, 2008, compared with $15.6 billion at June 30, 2008. The fall represented a 13.6% decrease.
The fall was mainly caused by “negative performance in extremely challenging markets”, according to a company statement on third quarter trading. The poor performance was despite Gottex’s market neutral and directional products performing better than or in-line with the broader market indices and relevant hedge fund benchmarks.
AUM change across Gottex strategies during the quarter 2008 included declines in market neutral and directional strategies (-13.1%), asset based strategies (-15.8%), advisory mandates (-15.2%) and enhanced index strategies (-3.2%).
Bloomberg – The Artradis AB2 fund, run by Singapore’s biggest hedge-fund firm, gained 4.96 percent in September, when Asian equities had their worst month in 18 years, two people with knowledge of its performance said.
The $2.2 billion hedge fund, managed by the firm’s co- founders Stephen Diggle and Richard Magides, returned 20.64 percent in the first nine months of the year, the people said, asking not to be identified because details are private. Asia’s hedge-fund average returns fell 16.2 percent this year, the region’s worst annual performance, according to Singapore-based data provider Eurekahedge.
Hedge funds such as those run by Artradis Fund Management Pte, which manages more than $4 billion, tend to outperform when markets are falling because they trade on volatility, which increases when prices decline. The 30-day volatility of the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index, a gauge of the average fluctuation of 990 stocks, has almost tripled to 55 percent, from 21 percent at the end of August.
Reuters – The Hedge Fund Standards Board, the body set up to develop voluntary standards in the industry, said on Wednesday it now represents about half of hedge fund assets in Europe.
The announcement comes as hedge funds attempt to head off tougher regulation in the wake of turmoil in the global financial system.
The industry has come under intense scrutiny, most notably for the impact of short-selling employed by many managers. In September, regulators in the U.S. and Europe imposed a temporary ban on shorting financial stocks.
Ten new signatories to the HFSB include Blackrock Investment Management UK, New Star Asset Management and Sabre Fund Management. They join 14 existing members including Man Group Plc, the world’s largest hedge fund manager, GLG Partners and Marshall Wace.
Reuters – LaSalle Investment Management has raised a $3 billion (1.64 billion pounds) "opportunity" fund for Asian property, saying it is interested in investing in Japan, China and South Korea.
The fund management unit of property services firm Jones Lang LaSalle said in a statement on Friday that the fund would use borrowing to boost its spending power to as much as $12 billion.
The company told Reuters in June that it expects assets under management in Asia to double in the next three years from about $11 billion now.
"Asia remains a key strategic priority for our business and we have a very active plan to grow our operations in the region," LaSalle’s managing director Philip Ling said in the statement.
Reuters UK – DEGI, a fund management unit of Aberdeen Property Investors, has bought one of Warsaw’s biggest business parks for 167 million euros (135 million pounds) in a bid to boost its exposure to Poland’s fast-growing economy.
The 43,700 square metre Marynarska Business Park was bought from developer Ghelamco on behalf of investors in DEGI’s open-ended international property mutual fund.
The newly built property is 99 percent let to Polish and international tenants specialising in the services sector, DEGI said in a statement. Yield details were not disclosed.
Investment Week- Collins Stewart Fund Management has appointed Mike Brown as head of fund sales.
He will lead sales of the multi-asset, multi-manager funds and specialist equity, fixed interest and hedge funds from the offshore group.
Products under his remit will include Collins Stewart’s European, UK value, Absolute return bond and UK small cap funds.
He brings over 22 years’ experience, joining from Investec, where for the last eight years his responsibilities have included distribution into the UK, Middle East, the Channel Islands, other offshore centres, Scandinavia and the Americas.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- Asia-based funds are getting bigger according to Alpa Magazine. Several of the funds on the list are relative newcomers and five members of the Asia 25 ranking were not on the list last year.
The 25 largest funds in Asia collectively had $52.2 billion in assets as of March 31, up from $35.5 billion a year earlier and $22.6 billion at the start of 2006.
Tokyo-headquartered Sparx Group Co. ranks No. 1 on the Alpha 2008 Asia Hedge Fund 25 for the second year in a row, with $8.1 billion in assets under management. Hong Kong-based Value Partners, which controls $5.9 billion, is No. 2 again, also retaining its 2007 ranking. Singapore’s Artradis Fund Management climbs from eighth to third by almost quadrupling its size, to $4.7 billion. And although Singapore-based Arisaig Partners slipped from third to fourth, it nearly doubled its assets under management, to $4.3 billion.
Sparx’s lead is precarious. The company is in negotiations to sell a majority stake in its $3 billion Seoul-based Cosmo Investment Management Co., a move that would drop it into second place behind Value Partners and only slightly ahead of Artradis.
FINalternatives- London-based VCM Fund Management is prepping a trio of hedge funds to invest in alternative energy, macro futures and emerging hedge fund managers.
The firm next month will launch two hedge funds in partnership with K2 Capital, the alternative energy hedge fund shop founded by former Vantage Derivatives head trader Andrew Swaine. First up, the firm will offer the VCM K2 Alternative Energy Segregated Portfolio, a thematic, global equity long/short and derivatives trading strategy investing in companies positively affected by climate change with a specific focus on the energy sector. It uses a bottom-up approach to stock selection focusing on value companies in the long book, with an emphasis on large cap stocks.
“The portfolio’s large cap bias naturally creates a low volatility, which is further enhanced through protective hedging,” said the firm.
MSN India- ICICI Venture Fund Management is planning to list its $1.5 billion real estate fund on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
According to sources, the fund house will be providing the flexibility in the document to list the realty fund anytime during its life span.
ICICI Venture, the largest PE fund in India, currently manages about $2.5 billion in assets.
Its investment focus areas span across private equity, buyouts, real estate and mezzanine financing. The country’s largest private equity fund plans to raise $3 billion for two funds When contacted, an official spokesperson for ICICI Ventures offered no comments.
