FT Alphaville – Centaurus Capital is running down its flagship hedge fund after investors with the London activist failed to back an emergency restructuring. Centaurus, founded by former BNP Paribas traders Bernard Oppetit and Randy Freeman, will now repay the bulk of investors in the $1.2bn Centaurus Alpha fund, with only a handful expected to remain.

The failure to persuade half the investors to lock up their money until June, in return for lower fees, is a surprise as others – including the flagship funds of RAB Capital and Henderson – have won investor backing for similar proposals. 

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Financial Times – RAB Capital is planning to restructure its flagship hedge fund, which plunged more than a third this year, and offering investors lower fees in return for agreeing not to withdraw their money for three years.

It is unclear how much of the $1.4bn that RAB Special Situations had at the end of June will be locked up for three years.

But any agreement to limit withdrawals could be good for the London-based fund, much of which is invested in hard-to-sell Aim-listed shares and private equity.

RAB is the latest in a series of hedge funds to offer discounts to investors who agree to stick with a poorly performing manager. Others include Ore Hill, the New York credit fund half-owned by London’s Man Group.

According to people familiar with the requests, RAB could announce the restructuring within a few days.

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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Philip Richards, head of hedge fund RAB Capital, is stepping down and will be replaced with Finance Director Stephen Couttie, according to a statement made by the company yesterday.

Richards ran the $1.4 billion Special Situations Fund, which received poor press and even worse returns when it lost millions thanks to the nationalization of Northern Rock in February.

Richards will still be employed by RAB, serving as an executive director while still managing the Global Mining and Resources funds, which holds assets of around $210 million.  He made headlines recently with his controversial personal stake in Bahamas-based oil exploration company BPC, in which his Special Situations Fund along with Falkland Gold & Minerals facilitated a takeover bid that earned him a hefty paycheck.

RAB currently manages around $5.9 billion in assets, a sharp drop from the over $7 billion it managed in 2007.

Julie Scuderi
Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: julie@hedgeco.net

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