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.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – A survey by RSM McGladrey, a financial services consultancy, found that hedge fund managers are surprisingly ready to work with SEC regulators to cooperate with authority, despite wide-spread wariness about over-excessive regulation from the Obama administration.
However, the Obama financial regulatory plan was a top concern with 75%, fearing that further regulation will go too far and stifle the market’s recovery.
The survey polled more than 100 hedge fund managers during the last month and focused on hedge fund industry sentiment toward the Obama administration regulation.
Fund managers are also optimistic about the industry’s prospects, according to the survey. 60% believe the current environment provides more investment opportunities than challenges. An overwhelming majority (69%) see the U.S. economy returning to positive growth by Q2 2010.
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The China Post – Asia-Pacific banks, brokerages, insurers and private equity firms are more optimistic about mergers and acquisitions as they seek to expand following a decline in asset prices, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
About 42 percent of financial institutions in the region expect to make an acquisition over the next year, compared with 38 percent a year earlier, according to a PwC survey of 215 senior executives conducted in Jan. and Feb. Still, 83 percent of the respondents expect the global credit crunch and economic slump to last for another one to two years.
Wall Street & Technology – Global investors boosted their equity holdings for the second month running in December and cut bonds, thanks to signs of stabilising stock markets and tumbling government bond yields, Reuters polls showed on Monday.
Surveys of 44 leading investment houses in the United States, Japan, continental Europe and Britain showed an average mixed-asset portfolio holding 56.0 percent in stocks, up from 54.8 percent in November. However, it still remained below the long-term average holding of almost 60 percent.
Bond holdings fell to 33.0 percent in December from 34.3 percent the previous month, above the long-term average of around 32 percent.
Cash rose to 5.4 percent from 5.3 percent.
A rise in the respondents’ equity holdings comes as world stocks, measured by MSCI, rose nearly 20 percent after hitting a 5-1/2 year low on November 21.
A round of central bank interest rate cuts worldwide and the introduction of fiscal stimulus packages in major developed and emerging economies have helped convince many investors that stock markets might bottom before long.
Reuters - An unprecedented cash crunch is choking the ability of banks to lend and creating an opportunity for hedge funds to launch, or ramp up corporate lending facilities.
Companies that have relied on bank borrowing to grow, or even maintain their business, are turning to hedge funds in a move that some say may signal a broad shift of lending from banks to asset managers.
"I have a very strong belief that the new investment banks will be the absolute return hedge funds and the managers of private equity," said Thomas Priore, Chief Executive at ICP Capital, an investment firm that manages $13 billion in fixed income assets, in New York.
News.com.au – Takeover target Ausdrill has blamed a fall in the company’s share price on hedge fund selling after comments from suitor Macmahon that its bid was unlikely to succeed.
Ausdrill said that it believes selling from hedge funds accounted for the "majority" of the "large number" of shares traded in the belief that Macmahon’s offer would fail.
The drilling contractor’s share price sank 20 per cent from a closing price of $2.50 on Tuesday to close at $2.00 yesterday.
Ausdrill chairman Terry O’Connor said the impact of hedge fund selling on the share price was likely to be "short term" and that the price did not reflect the group’s excellent outlook and earnings.
Shares in Ausdrill gained nine cents to $2.09 by 10.41am (AEST), while Macmahon put on 1.5 cents to $1.815.
Macmahon is offering 1.65 of its own shares for every Ausdrill share, valuing the company at $511 million at Macmahon’s previous closing price of $1.80.
Reuters UK- Investors are responding to the sharp falls on equity markets around the world by shifting from what are now being seen as vulnerable emerging markets to relatively safer developed ones.
The moves — which can be seen in a variety of investment flow data — are evidence that an earlier belief that emerging economies and markets could decouple from troubles in the dominant U.S. economy is on rocky ground.
In its monthly poll of fund managers, released last week, Merrill Lynch noted that there are now more investors overweight U.S. equities than there are those who are overweight emerging markets.
