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.
The Guardian – The BIS said the retreat from riskier investments such as stocks in favour of safer bonds could pressure stock markets, delaying their recovery. "Similarly, the decline in the pension wealth of households participating in defined contribution plans and of employers sponsoring defined benefit plans has implications for aggregate spending," the BIS said.
Hedge funds did not play a central role in shaping the crisis but they will feel its impact, the BIS said.
After many wealthy individual investors withdrew, the funds are targeting institutions.
"Such a shift engenders demands for greater transparency about the investment strategy and greater scrutiny of risk management processes," the BIS said.
Reuters – The current rebound in stock markets is a bear rally and could turn by September, according to hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry, who has recently cut exposure to agricultural stocks.
Hendry, who is partner and chief investment officer at Eclectica Asset Management, said that while stock markets have rallied in recent months on hopes for an economic upturn, developed economies are still heading for a 1930s-style depression.
"To date we are maintaining the profile of the economic contraction that we witnessed in the 1930s. Nothing as yet has changed that profile. It’s still a profile of concern to me," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the GAIM 2009 conference in Monaco.
Reuters – A Democratic member of the Securities and Exchange Commission called for stricter supervision of hedge funds, particularly large funds that have an impact on the broader financial markets.
Luis Aguilar said the market turmoil of the past year provides evidence that government oversight of hedge funds has not kept pace with the large role they play in stocks, debt and other assets. The fundamental bargain struck some 60 years ago — that hedge funds should be left alone because they only transact privately with the very rich — may no longer be valid, he added.
Reuters – The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), which manages $169 billion in public pension funds, may boost its private-equity investments by around 40 percent as slumping markets create some acquisition bargains.
Calpers’ board next week is scheduled to vote on a plan that would increase the fund’s target for corporate buyout and venture-capital investments to 14 percent from 10 percent.
Spokesman Clark McKinley said the fund’s $22.8 billion of such investments has jumped to 13 percent as the sinking value of stocks and other assets reduced the size of the overall fund.
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.
Stuff – Mauled by the carnage on Wall Street, mutual funds are copying hedge fund strategies in an effort to regain some of the shine they have lost this decade.
Many investors have been burned investing in a single asset class and withdrew $234 billion (148 billion pounds) from U.S. stock funds last year as the deep bear market sparked the first annual outflow of long-term investment in mutual funds since 1988.
But as stocks sank, hedge funds soared. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, a benchmark for the broad U.S. stock market, returned a negative 40 percent this decade through the end of 2008. Hedge funds, meanwhile, gained 55 percent over the same period, Hedge Fund Research’s fund-weighted composite index shows.
Reuters – Some of the country’s biggest and best-known hedge fund managers on Wednesday shared their best investment and short-selling ideas with an audience of some 1,200 hedge fund executives.
The annual Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference raises millions of dollars for pediatric cancer research, but its high wattage speaker list also moves stocks. Last year Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn predicted that Lehman Brothers had more troubles than they had let on, four months before the investment bank filed for bankruptcy
Reuters UK – Mauled by the carnage on Wall Street, mutual funds are copying hedge fund strategies in an effort to regain some of the shine they have lost this decade.
Many investors have been burned investing in a single asset class and withdrew $234 billion (148 billion pounds) from U.S. stock funds last year as the deep bear market sparked the first annual outflow of long-term investment in mutual funds since 1988.
But as stocks sank, hedge funds soared. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX, a benchmark for the broad U.S. stock market, returned a negative 40 percent this decade through the end of 2008. Hedge funds, meanwhile, gained 55 percent over the same period, Hedge Fund Research’s fund-weighted composite index shows.
Reuters – Two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyers are under investigation by federal criminal authorities for allegedly using insider information to trade stocks, a report by the SEC’s internal watchdog said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorney’s Office are conducting an investigation of possible criminal and civil violations.
The report alleges the two lawyers traded in stock of a large financial services company even though another SEC employee became aware of three separate enforcement investigations of that company. That employee told the two enforcement lawyers that she could not buy more stock in this company because she had become aware of these investigations.
But the two lawyers did trade in the financial services company and denied they heard about the investigations, the report alleges.
Tehran Times – Atticus Capital LP sold 23 of the 25 U.S.-listed stocks it owned in the first quarter as the New York-based hedge-fund firm run by Timothy Barakett put more money into cash while equity markets fell.
Atticus sold 1.69 million shares of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Potash, the world’s largest producer of its namesake fertilizer, had been the firm’s top U.S. holding.
Barakett, whose firm oversees about $6 billion in assets, also sold all of his 5.31 million shares of Microsoft Corp. The world’s largest software maker, based in Redmond, Washington, had been the firm’s second-largest U.S. position.
Seeking Alpha – If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. This cliché is the root of folly on Wall Street and in the hedge fund industry in general. Perfect example: The Ospraie Fund’s Dwight Anderson is set to start two new hedge funds in July. Okay, new hedge funds, what’s the big deal? Well, the problem here is that Dwight Anderson lost 39% in his Ospraie Fund in 2008 and had to liquidate the fund. At its peak, Ospraie managed $3.8 billion in commodities. But if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And, that’s exactly what Anderson is set to do.
Anderson will open two new hedge funds in July of 2009, the first of which will focus on stocks of commodity and basic materials companies (The Ospraie Equity Fund). He will also open a fund focused on commodities and derivatives (The Ospraie Commodity Fund). Anderson said that he is starting these funds because he sees significant opportunities in this market, as significant as he has ever seen in his 15 years of investing. These funds will have reduced fees where investors will pay half as much as the typical hedge fund. His new funds will charge a 1% management fee and a 10% performance fee.
Bloomberg – Dwight Anderson, the commodities investor who liquidated his main Ospraie Fund last year after losing 39 percent, is planning a comeback with two new hedge funds set to open July 1.
The Ospraie Equity Fund will buy and sell stocks of commodity and basic-materials companies in industries such as chemicals, mining, paper and natural resources, Anderson said in a May 12 letter to investors. The Ospraie Commodity Fund will invest in commodities and related derivatives, according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News.
