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.
Report On Business – Onex Corp. is offering retail investors a chance to put their cash beside its executives’ money in a distressed-debt fund that has recently delivered eye-popping returns.
The country’s largest private equity firm said yesterday that it plans an initial public offering of the OCP Credit Strategy Fund, which will offer individuals access to strategies that have returned 41 per cent so far this year.
The new fund is run by a team known as Onex Credit Partners, an 11-person group based in New Jersey that has managed an internal portfolio for Onex since 2001 that now holds $65-million. Backers of this fund include Onex founder and chief executive officer Gerry Schwartz and other senior Onex executives.
Gulf News – Kuwait Global Capital Management Ltd, the alternative investment funds arm of Global Investment House, has announced positive results for Global Umbrella Europe Hedge Fund.
The fund has returned about 6.6 per cent year to date 2009, outperforming its respective benchmarks.
It outperformed Eureka Hedge Europe, Multi strategy fund of funds index (2.78 per cent) which represents the funds in Europe by over 100 per cent and the MSCI Europe index (4.3 per cent), a Europe focused equity index by over 50 per cent.
Globe and Mail – When Salida Capital Corp. beat all other bidders in a charity auction last month to score lunch with Warren Buffett, the $1.68-million (U.S.) win sent a signal to Bay Street: Salida is back.
Salida, the once high-flying, resource-focused hedge fund manager known for its appetite for risk, became one of Canada’s high-profile victims of last year’s market meltdown when its flagship Multi Strategy Fund plunged 67 per cent and three of its hedge funds got locked up in the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy.
That was followed by a rapid exodus of key staffers and by dwindling assets under management.
Reuters – Fundraising by new European hedge funds may be picking up, according to an industry survey, after hitting a record low in a first half of the year overshadowed by the Madoff scandal.
The survey, released on Monday by data group EuroHedge, shows $2.09 billion (1.26 billion pounds) was raised in new funds in the first six months of 2009, the lowest in the poll’s 10-year history, while 47 new funds were launched.
A year ago 106 funds were launched, raising $10.8 billion, including $2.5 billion raised by the Brevan Howard Multi-Strategy fund.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Golden Hedge Umbrella Sicav has launched a multi-strategy hedge fund and is currently looking for seed investors.
The Golden Hedge Multi-Strategy Fund, Malta domiciled, is the first subfund of the umbrella structure, run by Andreas Koettner and Dr. Bernhard Goetsch, the new hedge find specializes in relative value commodity trading and stock index arbitrage strategies.
Targeting an annualized return of 15% with volatility at 8%.The quantitative strategies are designed to generate returns with low correlation to traditional CTA and hedge fund styles. Inception of trading was in May 2009.
Minimum investment starts at EUR100,000 ($142,000) with monthly liquidity. The auditor is Ernst & Young, prime broker MF Global and fund administrator Valletta Fund Services.
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – One of the first no-load, open-end mutual funds designed to replicate broad-based hedge fund performance characteristics, the ‘IQ ALPHA Hedge Strategy Fund’ (IQHIX) has marked its one-year anniversary on June 30th, 2009.
For the trailing 12-month period, the fund was down -2.58 percent, compared to a loss of -26.21 percent for the S&P 500.
“The performance over the past year can be attributed to a number of factors, including the ability of the fund to hold both long and short positions, and the liquidity of the ETFs used to represent asset class exposures,” said Adam Patti, IndexIQ’s Chief Executive Officer. “As a result, we were able to continuously execute our strategy during the period, something not all hedge funds could do.”
The fund works by optimizing the relative index weights among six hedge fund strategies, Equity Long/Short; Global Macro; Emerging Markets; Fixed Income Arbitrage; Equity Market Neutral; and Event Driven.
The funds do not invest in hedge funds, but use ETFs and a variety of other highly liquid financial instruments to provide exposure to the components of the index in approximately the same weighting. It employs leverage totaling 25 percent of the portfolio to magnify returns.
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Reuters UK – Highbridge Capital Management, one of the world’s biggest hedge fund firms, saw its flagship fund rise 20.5 percent in the first half of the year, according to an investor letter, as performance in the industry rebounds.
Highbridge’s $7 billion (4 billion pound) multi-strategy fund returned 3.4 percent in June, the letter said, having last year fallen 25 percent and stopped clients from withdrawing all their cash.
Reuters UK – Highbridge Capital Management, one of the world’s biggest hedge fund firms, saw its flagship fund rise 20.5 percent in the first half of the year, according to an investor letter, as performance in the industry rebounds.
Highbridge’s $7 billion (4 billion pound) multi-strategy fund returned 3.4 percent in June, the letter said, having last year fallen 25 percent and stopped clients from withdrawing all their cash.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – ALTIN, the London and Swiss-listed fund of hedge funds, has released a full disclosure of its underlying investments and weightings. ALTIN has adopted a position of total transparency, and holds one of the world’s longest track records as an exchange-listed fund of hedge funds.
ALTIN has reduced its cash allocation from 14% on 1 March 2009 to 6.3% on 1 July 2009, as part of an active investment programme into hedge funds to benefit from the current investment opportunities. The portfolio, featuring more than 30 underlying funds representing 10 different strategies, is particularly well diversified and boasts a positive performance of +5.18%[1] to date in 2009.
Only approximately 20% of funds held by ALTIN have restricted redemptions of one form or another. This relatively low proportion does not affect ALTIN as, being a fixed-capital investment company, it is not faced with redemption requests.
The portfolio’s great liquidity allows the investment manager to perform a dynamic management and benefit from the current investment opportunities. The manager has thus launched a significant investment programme in the past months.
ALTIN AG was launched in December 1996 and has been listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange since its inception as well as on the London Stock Exchange since 2001. ALTIN is a multi-strategy fund of hedge funds investing in more than 30 hedge funds representing various investment styles. The Company holds one of the world’s longest track records as an exchange-listed fund of hedge funds. Its objective is to generate an absolute annual return in US dollars terms with lower volatility than equity markets.
ALTIN is managed by 3A SA (Alternative Asset Advisors), a management firm specialised in alternative investments and member of the SYZ & CO Group.
3A currently manages more than USD 2.1 billion in hedge fund assets. 3A also provides alternative research and due-diligence services on an additional USD 4 billion in alternative investments.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – I recently conducted an interview with Colleen Sorrentino, CIO, and Charles M. Wright, CFA, of FoHF’s Advanced Strategies II, LP (AS II) as part of a manager interview to be featured on our HedgeCo.net Manager Database. I thought to publish some excerpts in advance.
On the topic of the FoHF’s positive 5 year track record, Wright said, "Our goal is to achieve 75 to 80% in the bull market and we have met that through the history of the fund, beating the S&P 500 about 8.54% last year. Our 5 year track record Feb 2004-2009 beat the S&P 500 by 35%."
As a multi-strategy fund with $36 million under management, a 1.50% management fee and a minimum initial investment of $250,000, AS II recently celebrated its 5 year track record this February.
"We are not afraid of volatility and our edge is in our long-short policy, we don’t use leverage as much as other funds." Sorrentino said, "AS II is a great fit for family offices, institution investors, foundations and high net worth individuals."
"Our strategy is combination of art and science," Sorrentino continued, "We put a lot of time into into our managers and their selection in order to generate maximum return. We are not a hot fund, moving from manager to manager, we do complete background checks at the start, following up with a focus on due diligence, meeting on site on an annual basis as well as with independent advisers."
AS II stays away from over-leveraged funds, with no leverage at the fund level. "We do not place money with hedge funds that invest a substantial portion of their assets in esoteric investments such as derivatives, structured investment vehicles, CDOs, or managers that utilize black box quantitative models. We have been managing funds of hedge fund portfolios since 1992. The Firm’s partners and employees maintain a substantial stake in AS II." the FoHF’s website states.
AS II’s parent company, Wall Street Access Advanced Strategies LLC (WSAAS), has been managing fund of hedge funds portfolios for over 15 years. WSAAS is also an affiliate of Wall Street Access, which is a New York Stock Exchange member. G&S Fund Services is Fund Administrator.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@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!
Reuters India – New Vernon Bought stakes in Indage Vitners and Orbit Corp. Deutsche Sec bought 11% into UB Group.
Private equity and hedge funds seem to be playing their parts in the brief rally that the Indian stock markets are witnessing. Multi-strategy fund New Vernon has picked up minor stakes in two
companies. New Vernon bought little more than 3% stake in Indage Vintners for Rs 2.76 crore. Indage Vintners, formerly known as Champagne Indage, is one of the oldest wine producer in the country.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - London hedge fund manager ACP Partners, which is soon to merge with TriAlpha Investment Advisors, said that their long/short eguity strategy fund, ACP Financial Opportunities, has beaten its benchmark by over 65% in its first six months.
Since the fund launch on 1 September 2008 through 28 February 2009, the new fund, which invests across a group of portfolio managers focused on the financial sector, returned 4.9%. Its benchmark, the S&P 1200 Global Financials, returned -60.7% over the same period, and the HFRI Equity Hedge Index -22.2%.
"Financials account for around 20% of global equity market capitalisation and, despite benefiting from significant diversification, the financial sector as a whole exhibits a high degree of complexity and is under-covered by specialist investors." Stephen Greene, partner and CIO of the ACP’s Multi Manager business, said, "Having undergone an unprecedented shock, resulting in severe price dislocations, such conditions are ideal for sector specialist hedge fund managers to add value."
"The key to achieving positive returns has been portfolio construction. The portfolio was specifically structured to benefit from the expected market volatility as we placed significant emphasis on sourcing managers with trading orientated approaches, ‘macro-aware’ processes and short term catalysts for value realisation. Unusually, our fund was one of only a very few fund of funds to be market neutral over this period of turmoil." Greene concluded.
As examples, the portfolio currently shorts banks that lack balance sheet integrity and takes a long position on banks that have been through the exercise of write-downs and capital raises. The underlying managers also hold long positions in property and casualty insurers and reinsurers, who have strong balances sheets and will benefit from a firming of insurance premiums and decreased competition. Conversely, they have taken short positions in life insurance companies whose shorter term liabilities now far outweigh their available liquid assets. Several of the managers have been shorting consumer sensitive sectors, such as credit cards and consumer finance.
The fund has a minimim investment of $1,000,000 (or equivalent) with quarterly redemptions, and a managment fee of 1% and performance fee of 10%.
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