Bloomberg – Hedge funds in Singapore will “almost certainly” need to be licensed as the central bank seeks to tighten regulation of the industry, according to the local chapter of the Alternative Investment Management Association, the largest trade group for hedge funds.

Hedge-fund managers are currently exempt from holding a capital-markets services license, provided they manage funds on behalf of 30 or less of what the Monetary Authority of Singapore describes as “qualified” investors.

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Tags: fund-managers, investment management association, investors, singapore hedge funds

Reuters – Global assets of hedge funds may drop to $1.2 trillion by the end of the first quarter, down 35 percent from 2007 as the number of managers decline and funds rely less on strategies that use leverage, a UBS executive said on Tuesday.

"We are gonna see a reduction in hedge fund assets, we are gonna see decline in the number of hedge funds, we are gonna see some strategies that will not work in this environment," Timothy Bell, global head of hedge funds advisory at UBS Wealth Management, told reporters in Singapore.

Hedge funds had assets worth $1.9 trillion at the end of 2007, which peaked at $1.93 trillion in the middle of 2008, according to data from Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. These assets dropped to $1.4 trillion at the end of 2008.

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Tags: decline, first quarter, fund-assets, global assets, global-head, hedge-fund-research, leverage, reuters, singapore hedge funds, timothy bell, trillion, ubs, ubs wealth management