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Reuters – Investors almost halved the money they put into Asia-focused hedge funds in the second quarter compared to the first three months of the year as a selloff in stocks hurt appetite for risky assets, data showed.
Asia-focused hedge funds received a net $530 million from investors in the April-June quarter, down from $1 billion in the first quarter, Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research said in a statement released late on Thursday.
Asian hedge funds grew by approximately $200 million to $100.48 billion, up just 0.25 percent from the first quarter, as inflows were mostly offset by a decline of nearly $320 million due to poor performance.
"Asian hedge fund investors reacted to continuing market volatility by adjusting allocations opportunistically to those regional markets that had posted sharp year-to-date losses," said Kenneth Heinz, president of Hedge Fund Research.
InvestorDaily- While Australian superannuation funds and institutional investors have discovered hedge funds, their participation is not to the extent of most of their developed market peers.
But the current market downturn may change that behaviour, because the juicy returns they had become used to from the traditional asset classes have disappeared for the moment.
"The industry super funds were early adopters of hedge funds, but for most other dealer groups and institutions, they didn’t have the imperative in 2003-2007 to look fully into alternative assets, because traditional ones were motoring along so well," Lonsec head of investment consulting Amanda Gillespie says.
"When you’ve got investors and advisers looking at the phenomenal returns we’ve seen in traditional markets – up until the last 12 months – it’s been a really hard sell to talk them into making really big allocations to alternatives in that environment. But I think that more of them are ready to look at alternative investment categories now."
BusinessWeek- Assets invested in Asia-focused hedge-fund strategies fell about 10% in the first quarter of 2008, with industry assets under management plummeting from $110 billion to $100 billion, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research.
Net allocations to Asia-only strategies also decreased in the first three months of the year, although net allocations to global emerging-market strategies, which include Asian markets, increased by $1 billion.
On a global basis, the hedge-fund industry attracted a net of $16.5 billion in the first quarter (versus receiving $194 billion throughout 2007), with total capital under management virtually flat over the quarter at $1.9 trillion.
Money Management- A survey of some of Australia’s biggest superannuation funds has found that they intend to increase their average allocations to hedge funds from 2.5 to 3.5 per cent over the next two to five years, according to a survey by the University of New South Wales Business School.
The survey, commissioned by the Australian chapter of the hedge fund industry body Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), researched the plans of some of Australia’s major superannuation funds.
