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.
Wall Street Journal - If you thought the collapse of one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in history would be devastating for merger-arbitrage hedge funds, you’d be right. But pure merger arbitragers weren’t the only hedge funds hurt.
The $41 billion buyout of Canadian telephone company BCE Inc. (BCE) has been officially nixed, sending the stock down to its lowest levels in six years. Even investors who don’t typically play merger deals have gotten hurt.
That’s because starting in mid-September, the spread between the deal price and BCE’s share price had widened considerably, thanks to what turned out to be legitimate
Bloomberg – Public pension funds in the U.S. are increasing bets on high-risk hedge funds and real estate in an attempt to fill deficits in retirement plans and make up for their worst performance in six years.
New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is asking lawmakers to increase a cap limiting the amount of so- called alternative investments in the state’s Common Retirement Fund, the third-biggest U.S. public pension at $153.9 billion. South Carolina’s retirement system adopted a plan in February to invest as much as 45 percent of its $29 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and other alternatives, from nothing 18 months ago.
“We need some more flexibility,” DiNapoli said at an Aug. 4 press conference in Albany. The Common Retirement Fund, whose 2.6 percent gain in the year ended March 31 was its worst since 2003, is authorized to invest as much as a quarter of its assets in alternative investments. DiNapoli declined to say how much he wants the limit increased. The fund doesn’t have a deficit.
Blayney Chronicle- Chris Cuffe cannot escape his tag as the $33 million man. But six years after the former head of Colonial First State left the funds manager with a notorious golden handshake, he is back in the business – only this time doing it for charity.
What is more, he has convinced 15 leading fund management companies also to work pro bono, potentially forgoing more than $1million a year in fees for a good cause.
Mr Cuffe, now executive director of the non-profit organisation Social Ventures Australia (SVA), set up the Third Link Growth Fund with two aims: to provide retirees and other investors with a high-growth investment fund and to contribute almost all the fees received from investors to SVA.
Mr Cuffe today announces the names of the fund managers he has chosen to work free, among them Goldman Sachs JBWere, Colonial First State, Perennial Investment Partners and Pengana Capital.
International Herald Tribune- Samuel Israel 3rd bilked his investors out of $250 million, but they are hoping to recoup some of their money from one of Wall Street’s deepest pockets: Goldman Sachs.
Bayou’s creditors were taking aim at Goldman even before Israel, the former manager of the Bayou Group hedge fund firm, surrendered to the authorities on July 2. His faked suicide on a Hudson River bridge 40 miles north of Manhattan and subsequent disappearance on the day he was to start a prison term had set off an international manhunt.
Bayou’s unsecured creditors committee sued Goldman in late May, claiming the investment bank had failed to detect Israel’s fraud, one of the biggest ever in the hedge fund industry, and to investigate signs that something was amiss at Bayou.
For six years, Goldman acted as the so-called prime broker for Bayou, clearing trades, taking custody of securities and providing reports on the fund firm’s investments. The claim seeks $20 million.
