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.
SearchDataCenter.com – A large, worldwide hedge fund company needed to reduce its server memory latency to keep investors from experiencing costly trading delays. It found the answer from the small Oregon-based software startup RNA Networks and is using their technology to replace aging Tibco software.
The hedge fund’s Unix group is in the process of standardizing on RNA Networks’ product, RNAmessenger, to replace Tibco software in all the company’s data centers, including those in New York City, London, Singapore and various colocation facilities. The company’s CTO, who wished to remain anonymous, hopes to complete the rollout over the next 12 months.
SearchDataCenter.com – A large, worldwide hedge fund company needed to reduce its server memory latency to keep investors from experiencing costly trading delays. It found the answer from the small Oregon-based software startup RNA Networks and, in the process, is now replacing aging Tibco software.
The hedge fund’sUnix group is in the process of standardizing on RNA Networks’ latest product, RNAcache, to replace Tibco software in all the company’s data centers, including those in New York City, London, Singapore and various colocation facilities. The company’s CTO, who wished to remain anonymous, hopes to complete the rollout over the next 12 months.
Bloomberg – Asian hedge funds are attracting growing interest from investors as managers focusing on the region outperform global peers, said Andrew Hill, director of prime finance for Asia-Pacific markets at Citigroup Inc.
“There are pockets of proprietary money looking to be put to work in Asia,” Singapore-based Hill said in a June 12 interview. “There is going to be an outsized investment back into Asia. Some of the big pensions are going to be looking at Asia; it’s coming onto the radar screens.”
Asia-focused hedge funds gained 12.4 percent in the first five months of the year, outpacing returns in the U.S. and Europe, according to Eurekahedge Pte. That’s a reversal from last year, when clients withdrew almost $24 billion from the region’s hedge funds as managers posted bigger losses than global peers, the Singapore-based industry data provider reported.
Bloomberg – Hedge funds returned an average 5.2 percent in May, the best performance in more than nine years, as they attracted more money and global markets rallied, Eurekahedge Pte said.
The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index, tracking more than 2,000 funds, has advanced 9.2 percent this year, according to a preliminary report by the research firm based on the 27 percent of funds that reported May performance. The industry recorded net inflows for the first time in 10 months in May, gaining $1.5 billion, while total assets rose by $5 billion, the report said.
“Numbers of this magnitude clearly won’t last, but I do think the industry will have a very good year,” said Peter Douglas, principal of GFIA Pte, a Singapore-based hedge-fund consulting firm. “What we like at the moment is equity long- shorts, and Asia is an equity story.” Long-short equity funds bet on rising and falling stock prices.
Bloomberg – Flowering Tree Investment Management Pte, set up by the co-founder of New York-based Sansar Capital Management LLC, plans to grow its Asian equities hedge fund by about 20 times its starting capital within the next two years.
The Singapore-based fund made its first bets on rising and falling stocks in Asia outside Japan last month, starting with $12.5 million sourced from founding members, family and friends, founder Rajesh Sachdeva, 40, said in an interview yesterday. It will grow to $15 million to $16 million by July, and plans to reach $200 million to $300 million in two years.
Bloomberg – Indea Capital Pte, an India-focused hedge fund that manages about $300 million, plans to buy shares even if India’s election results disappoint investors, said Chief Investment Officer Raj Mishra.
The ruling Congress party-led coalition and the main opposition-led group may have each failed to secure enough votes to form a government, based on exit polls after a five- week election that ended May 13.
“The bias is to buy when there’s a post-election decline rather than to panic,” said Singapore-based Mishra, whose six- year-old Absolute Return Fund has returned an average 14.75 percent annually since it was set up. “Once the election is complete and we have better clarity about the strength of the government, then probably potential long-term investors will feel more comfortable.”
Bloomberg – Switzerland is the world’s most attractive financial center for the “mobile wealthy,” beating London, Singapore and New York, according to a new survey by Scorpio Partnership.
The Alpine nation ranks highest for economic and political stability, legal issues, children’s education and infrastructure, the London-based wealth management adviser said. Switzerland placed fifth for tax and immigration, behind Monaco, Singapore, Cayman and Hong Kong.
“To the mobile wealthy, Switzerland is very nearly all things to all people,” said Scorpio Director Stephen Wall. It “has been and will continue to be the biggest beneficiary of moves away from London.”
Hong Kong Standard – Hong Kong remains the largest hedge fund center in Asia, with managers in the city overseeing US$22 billion (HK$171.6 billion) in assets as of December 2008, the Alternative Investment Management Association Hong Kong said.
The city had 245 hedge fund managers by December, versus 150 in Singapore and 145 in Australia. There were 30 hedge fund startups in Hong Kong in 2008, raising the most assets for Asian hedge fund managers with US$1.6 billion, the London-based AIMA said yesterday, citng AsiaHedge data. Singapore came second with US$638
Bloomberg – Hari Kumar, a founding partner of New York-based asset manager TPG-Axon Capital Management LP, is starting his own hedge fund with $75 million of initial capital from him and a partner, said two people familiar with the plan.
LionRock Capital Pte, based in Singapore, will begin investing June 1 with the money from Kumar and Julian Snaith, the people said. The multistrategy fund will focus on trading Asia-Pacific stocks, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.
LionRock may raise capital from external investors at a later date, though the timing and terms haven’t been decided, they added. Kumar and Snaith declined to comment when reached through e-mail.
Reuters – The number of Asian hedge funds could increase by 10 percent this year as more unemployed bankers and traders launch new funds and the cost of doing business slumps, an industry expert said on Monday.
"It’s much better to be a small hedge fund manager than an unemployed investment banker," Peter Douglas, founder of hedge fund consultancy GFIA told the Reuters Private Equity and Hedge Funds Summit in Singapore.
"We are beginning to see quite a strong wave of managers’ formation, which is entirely consistent with what we saw after the Asian crisis."
He said these bankers could add to around 700 hedge funds already based in Asia, as battered global banks shed staff who have strong relationships with potential investors, cash from bonuses, and friends to start off small funds.
Reuters UK – London-based Coller Capital, which specialises in buying private equity from investors making early exits, said on Monday it expects to launch a new fund this year to tap growing interest in the "secondary" market for private equity.
The firm’s $4.8 billion (3.3 billion pounds) Coller International Partners V fund, which closed in April 2007, is currently more than 50 percent invested, Alex Sao-Wei Lee, the firm’s Singapore-based principal, said at the Reuters Private Equity and Hedge Funds Summit.
Time – On the northern fringe of Singapore, overlooking the slate-gray waters of the Johor Straits, the public-housing estate where Anthony Fulwood lives is so far from the city’s affluent expatriate enclaves that cab drivers are stunned when he announces his address. "’For god’s sake, why do you live there?’ they regularly ask me," says Fulwood. "’You’re white!’"
