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.
Reuters – Quarterly profit at asset manager Sprott Inc was down by half as some hedge funds were hurt by rallying stock prices, while the company said opportunities still exist on the long side of the market.
Eric Sprott, who is president and chief executive of Sprott Inc and a consummate Bay Street bear, said some hedge funds did not fare well during the quarter due to the "massive rally in the market," and as short positions were hurt by the upswing in stock prices.
A short position is the sale of a borrowed security with the expectation that the asset will fall in value.
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.
Forbes – Plummeting stock prices in Eastern European should have made the region full of rich pickings for Western investors, but hedge funds and private equity firms have been sitting on the side lines for the last few months, fearful that things would continue to deteriorate. Now the tide is finally changing, and the some of the first investors dipping their toes back in are from the private-equity sphere.
Italian insurer Assicurazioni Generali has just put 300 million euros ($419.8 million) into a joint private-equity fund to invest in Central and Eastern Europe. It is launching the 615.0 million euro ($874.7 million) fund with PPF Group of the Czech Republic, which has already invested some 400.0 million euros ($568.9 million) into the region, focusing on mid-cap companies, a PPF spokesman said.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Target Corp. asked shareholders yesterday to reject a proposed slate of directors nominated by Pershing Square Capital head William Ackman. Ackman’s hedge fund, who holds a 7.8 percent stake in the discount retailer, is continuing his proxy fight in an effort to boost stock prices and investor returns.
Ackman has suggested selling the land underneath Target locations, prompting the company to warn shareholders against his “risky agenda.”
“Ownership of the land under our stores and distribution centers allows Target to benefit from the value that we create on those sites, and provides necessary flexibility to make significant improvements to our stores to drive our strategy and protect our brand,” Target said in its regulatory filing yesterday.
Hedge fund Pershing Square IV, which is invested solely in Target, rose almost 50% last month after posting record losses last year. Earlier this year, Ackman told investors they could withdraw as much of their capital as they wanted, after the fund plummeted 90 percent. He threw in $25 million of his own money to help pay clients back.
On Monday, Pershing Square proposed a slate of five candidates to the board, all of whom claim to have the retail experience necessary for the company to succeed. Meanwhile, Target is hoping the shareholders will ignore the hedge fund’s advances and instead elect their proposed slate of four.
Ackman’s candidates for the board include himself, Richard Vague, a former bank executive, former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, Ronald Gilson, a law professor, and Michael Ashner, CEO of Winthrop Realty Trust.
“We believe Pershing Square’s sizable derivative positions create an incentive to favor risk-taking to affect short-term share price performance, even if it harms Target in the long run,” Target added.
Target shares jumped 5.27 percent today in morning trading to $39.58. Shares are still recovering from their tumble in 2008, when they reached almost $60 in September.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge funds can expect to be kept on a tighter leash in the near future, as leaders from all over the world met at the G20 summit in London to discuss the next steps towards remedying the worst financial crisis in six decades.
Agreeing that lax regulation on all levels helped to fuel the credit crunch, the 20 leaders agreed to vamp up national regulators and to keep a watchful eye on any practices that may threaten international markets.
To some, this includes hedge funds, who have taken much of the blame for market meltdowns thanks to domino effects that stem from imploding funds and the practice of short selling which some say can create enough speculation and fear to cause plummeting stock prices.
The Financial Stability Forum, which has been around for over a decade, will be renamed the Financial Stability Board, and will have the task of overseeing international markets, banks, and to some extent, hedge funds.
The FSF has already stated that hedge funds must disclose how much leverage they are using, so that investors can better gauge the risks involved.
In an effort to quell outrageous bonuses and pay, the FSF has said that an executive’s pay must directly reflect the risks they are taking, halting any million dollar pay days for a risky wager. They also vowed to closely monitor the credit ratings agencies, whose actions contributed greatly to the economic meltdown.
The leaders also pledged to boost the war chest of the International Monetary Fund by adding $500 billion, promised to crack down on offshore tax havens and those individuals who failed to disclose information, and threw in $250 billion to help kick start trade over the next two years. An agreement was made not to introduce any new policies that would restrict trade through 2010.
Although the FSF has not drafted any rules as of yet on hedge funds or tax havens, they did agree that “systemically important hedge funds” will be regulated.
"Today the largest countries of the world have agreed on a global plan for economic recovery and reform," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
President Obama agreed, saying that “the London summit was historic.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is an advocate on stricter regulations for hedge funds added, “The G20 countries have decided on a profound reform of the international financial architecture, which has not been done to such an extent since the Bretton Woods accords in 1945.”
U.S. stocks surged following the summit and the promise of a renewed economy that came with it. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot past 8,000 for the first time since February 10. It ended the day up 2.8 percent.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds! Be sure to check out our sister sites. www.hedgefundlounge.com, www.hedgefundtools.com, and www.hedgefundemployment.com
Bloomberg – Tadashi Mukai, returning to run his own his hedge fund after being the nation’s top performer in 2007, posted a 2.1 percent gain in March for his Wisdom of Japan Fund by betting on rising and falling stock prices.
The Epic Partners Investments Co. fund, which employs a so- called market-neutral strategy, doubled initial assets to 850 million yen ($8.5 million) since starting March 2, according to Mukai. The 44-year-old, who joined Epic in August and has managed market-neutral funds for eight years, aims to raise 10 billion yen from investors for the fund within a year.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Pershing Square Capital head William Ackman is planning to nominate himself, along with four others to the Target Corp. board of directors, in which the hedge fund holds a near 10 percent stake.
Ackman has confirmed that he is nominating former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, Winthrop Realty Trust CEO Michael Ashner, former bank exec Richard Vague and Ronald Gilson, a professor of law at both Stanford and Columbia, to the discount retailer’s board.
Ackman has been vocal about his intent to spruce up Target’s management in an effort to boost share prices and returns for his investors, while giving the company a better chance at competing with fellow discount chain Wal-Mart.
While Target has experienced lagging stock prices and lower-than-expected sales this past year, they are “disappointed that Pershing Square has decided to pursue a costly and disruptive proxy contest, especially in light of our previous dialogue,” according to a statement. They also said they have been responsive to shareholders while partaking in discussions with the hedge fund over the last 20 months.
Ackman has already allowed investors in his Pershing Square IV Fund to withdraw their capital when the fund, which was invested solely in Target, turned out to be “one of the greatest disappointments of [his] career,” after plunging over 90 percent this year.
Ackman stated that despite the performance, he still has confidence in Target and believes that the new slate of directors will bring an experience to the board that the company is currently lacking.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds! Be sure to check out our sister sites. www.hedgefundlounge.com, www.hedgefundtools.com, and www.hedgefundemployment.com
Bloomberg - Myojo Asset Management Japan Co., whose assets shrank 86 percent in 2008, plans a new fund focused on global technology stocks as the firm rebuilds after the hedge fund industry’s worst year on record.
Noriya Nishi, a former technology analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in Tokyo, will run the Myojo Super Cycle Fund, set to start on March 1. Nishi, 44, said in an interview yesterday he’ll use a long-short strategy, betting on rising and falling stock prices of firms including NEC Corp. and Intel Corp.
Myojo joins U.S. funds including Prentice Capital Management LP and Tontine Associates LLC in seeking to raise money after the $1.5 trillion hedge-fund industry contracted about 20 percent in 2008. It will start with “several hundreds of millions of yen,” including Nishi’s own money, and invest in 55 Japanese technology-related stocks and 25 companies abroad.
Market Rap – In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). He said, over and over, that the crime was destroying public companies and had the potential to trigger a systemic meltdown of our financial markets.
Soon after, I began to investigate a network of short sellers, journalists, and miscreants. I concluded that many of the people in this network were connected to two famous criminals – “junk bond king” Michael Milken and his associate, Ivan Boesky. I also began taking a close look at the Mafia’s involvement in naked short selling.
