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CNBC - The hedge fund industry has been battered this year, suffering heavy losses in part due to redemptions by investors as they asked for their money back amid the market turmoil.
According to a Singapore-based hedge fund research firm Eurekahedge, the industry has lost some one-fifth of its assets this year to $1.55 trillion. About $125 billion of the losses came from redemptions.
The scandal surrounding Bernard Madoff is certainly not helping the industry. The investment adviser and former Nasdaq stock market chairman has allegedly swindled clients out of $50 billion through a bogus fund. It’s forgivable if seasoned high-net worth investors get cold feet and steer clear of this form of investment.
Stephen Gollop, CEO of Tyche, expects one-third of the hedge funds to disappear in the first-quarter of next year.
Pittsburgh Tribune Review - On Oct. 5, philanthropist and hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller sat in his New York den, watching the Steelers play in Jacksonville.
Two weeks before, he yanked an offer worth more than $800 million to buy the fabled Pittsburgh franchise, and now the quarterback of his beloved Black and Gold was scrambling to escape the clutches of the Jaguars, en route to a narrow 26-21 victory in Florida.
But during every commercial, Druckenmiller scrambled to a nearby room, where computer screens tracked the daytime tumult of Asia’s financial markets — Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 average crashing more than 11 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tanking, the Bombay Sensex plummeting.
Reuters Tokyo - The yen dipped against higher-yielding currencies on Monday while the Australian dollar surged as leaders from Europe to the United States rushed out plans to shore up banks and stem the panic gripping investors.
After many stock markets suffered their worst weekly losses ever last week, leaders from Group of Seven industrialised nations set out a plan of action.
European officials offered to guarantee some bank debt and inject public funds into individual banks if necessary.
The United States said it would take stakes in banks in a first such move since the Great Depression, Australia guaranteed bank deposits and Britain was set to pump more than 40 billion pounds into its four biggest banks.
The flurry of initiatives to contain the worst financial crisis since the 1930s increased investor appetite for risk, though analysts were uncertain whether the improving mood would last very long.
Reuters Tokyo - Global buyout firm Advent International said it has raised 60 billion yen (317 million pounds) for its first private equity fund in Japan.
The fund, which opened its office in Tokyo in 2001, will target companies with enterprise values from 5 to 50 billion yen, but could be involved in larger deals through co-investment with other Advent funds, it said in a release.
Advent, with nine professional staff in Tokyo, said it will target four main sectors — health and life sciences, industrial, retail and consumer, and support services.
Private equity firms have spent $8.7 billion in buying Japanese companies since the beginning of this year, down 19 percent from the same period last year, Thomson Reuters data shows.
Bloomberg - Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. will shift more of its 11 trillion yen ($100 billion) in assets to hedge funds and scour the globe for bargains as the credit squeeze forces down prices.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., a unit of Japan’s biggest casualty insurer, may boost its investments in hedge funds by as much as 30 billion yen annually, said Fumihiro Nakajima, who runs the firm’s hedge fund investment group. The insurer has almost 200 billion yen in this asset class, he said.
“Our goal is to gradually increase hedge funds investments,” said Nakajima, 44, in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. “In the wake of subprime loan problems, there will be an opportunity to invest in hedge funds that invest in the credit market,” including high-yield bonds and credit-default swaps.
Bloomberg - Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co., with more than 30 trillion yen ($274 billion) in assets, will invest more money with hedge funds to safeguard returns as financial markets falter.
Tokyo-based Dai-ichi Mutual, Japan’s second-largest life insurer, currently invests in more than 100 hedge funds as well as funds of hedge funds, Yuji Hirai, manager of the firm’s structured and alternative investment department, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. He declined to provide specific targets for hedge fund allocations.
“Our goal is to increase our allocation to hedge funds,” said Hirai, 40. “We’re in a difficult market, no doubt, but for hedge funds chasing absolute returns, this is the time to prove their outperformance.”
Bloomberg - Aozora Bank Ltd., the Japanese lender controlled by U.S. buyout fund Cerberus Capital Management LP, said first-quarter profit fell 75 percent as fees declined and returns on investments in hedge funds withered.
Net income dropped to 9.33 billion yen ($86.6 million) in the three months ended June 30 from 37 billion yen a year earlier, Aozora said in a statement today. The Tokyo-based bank left unchanged its full-year profit forecast of 44 billion yen.
Aozora’s stock slumped 18 percent during the quarter, the biggest decline of any Japanese bank, after a parent operating loss of 25 billion yen in the year ended March 31. Chief Executive Officer Federico Sacasa and other executives took pay cuts after annual profit plunged 93 percent, the bank said last month.
Bloomberg- Mitsubishi Asset Brains Co., an investment advisory firm of the Mitsubishi financial group, plans to start a fund of hedge funds as it seeks to invest in managers that can make money in falling markets.
The company aims to start advising a fund in the next “two- to-three years” with the aim of raising “several tens of billions of yen,” Akihiro Nishi, executive director at the Tokyo-based company’s investment advisory division, said in an interview in Tokyo. The company has hired a hedge fund manager who will start in August, he said.
Mitsubishi Asset Brains aims to tap growing demand for funds of hedge funds since the credit crunch that stemmed from U.S. subprime loan problems prompted investors to seek diversified investments to secure steady returns. The money managed by funds of hedge funds has grown more than 800 percent since 2003, according to Singapore-based research firm Eurekahedge.
Reuters Tokyo- Tokio Marine Holdings Inc plans to buy non-life insurer Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp for about $4.7 billion (2.4 billion pounds), in the largest acquisition by a Japanese financial firm in the United States.
Tokio Marine, Japan’s largest non-life insurer, said it would pay $61.5 in cash for each share of Philadelphia Consolidated Holding, a 73 percent premium to the issue’s closing price on Tuesday of $35.55.
Tokio Marine President Shuzo Sumi told Reuters earlier this month that he was looking at opportunities to acquire U.S. and European competitors to expand outside Japan, where it generates four-fifths of its profits.
TOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Japan has relaxed its tax code so foreign asset managers and hedge funds can avoid dual taxation, as part of Tokyo’s push to revive itself as a global finance centre.
In a two-step process that began in April with the revision of a cabinet order and finished on Friday, the government has retooled tax rules so offshore funds can avoid being classified as having a "permanent establishment" in Japan.
Commonly referred to as a "PE" in tax law, the classification would force offshore funds — which already pay taxes in their home countries — to pay domestic taxes on any returns made in Japan.
Faced with sluggish growth and a rapidly shrinking population, the world’s second-largest economy is desperate for foreign investment and is especially keen to woo hedge funds, which have an estimated worth of $2 trillion globally.