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.
ForexHound – I admit I had not heard of this fellow until I saw this interview on Zerohedge, but apparently this is the key brain behind the massive bet against subprime mortgages that made John Paulson both famous and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
The man who “made billions of dollars for John Paulson shorting real estate,” Paolo Pellegrini of PSQR LLC, discusses his economic outlook and investment strategies.
Reuters India – SkyBridge Capital, a firm that provides money for early-stage hedge funds, on Friday said it invested $50 million (33 million pounds) in WyeTree Asset Management Ltd, a London-based fund focused on distressed mortgage securities.
WyeTree seeks out distressed residential mortgage assets that may be oversold for technical reasons, SkyBridge said. WyeTree is currently investing in U.S. subprime mortgages, but in time will also seek assets in other markets.
Bloomberg – Distressed assets offer the best investment opportunities this year as the global recession deepens, billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson said.
“The decline in the market has created a very good buying opportunity,” Paulson, 53, whose New York-based Paulson & Co. oversees about $30 billion, said in a speech at a hedge-fund seminar hosted by Societe Generale and Lyxor Asset Management in Tokyo today. “Distressed opportunity in the U.S. is shaping up to be the best opportunity in a lifetime.”
Paulson said he’s focused on assets such as mortgages and debt from bankrupt companies, while in the equities markets he cited the utilities, consumer staples and pharmaceutical industries. Financial stocks remain risky, Paulson said.
In the 15 years since starting its first funds, Paulson & Co.’s one down year was 1998. All his funds were profitable in 2008, with the flagship fund returning about 38 percent, compared with a loss of 19 percent for hedge funds worldwide on average. The 2008 returns came after his funds made more than $3 billion for the firm in 2007 by anticipating the collapse of the U.S. housing market and subprime mortgages.
Investors are chasing distressed assets after more than $1.1 trillion in losses at financial firms globally and frozen credit markets helped drag the U.S., Europe and Japan into their first simultaneous recessions since World War II.
Connecticut Post – It was with amusement that I read that freshman U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, will now be a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Why? Because of his expertise? Does anyone realize that he was trained and made millions of dollars at Goldman Sachs? Yes, one of the firms that is responsible for the mess this country is in with exotic investments and subprime mortgages and plenty of greed!
We will never learn and the taxpayers will get fleeced again. Himes can work closely with Rep. Barney Frank and Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Charles Schumer and others who managed to create quite a mess with a lack of oversight on subprime mortgages that were originated and sold in pieces on Wall Street.
Interactive Investor – Paolo Pellegrini, who played a crucial role in helping to implement bets against subprime mortgages that netted Paulson & Co about $15 billion in 2007, resigned from the hedge-fund firm on Dec. 31, the Wall Street Journal said.
Pellegrini, who along with John Paulson was the co-portfolio manager of the two Paulson Credit Opportunities funds, is expected to start his own hedge fund, the paper said.
The departure was amicable, the paper said, citing people close to the matter.
Interactive Investor - Man Group aims to win more business from big Asian investors such as pension funds and insurers even as global financial turmoil spurs some existing clients to redeem holdings and seek safety in cash.
The world’s largest listed hedge fund group recently hired an institutional salesperson in South Korea because of the potential it saw there and was studying the long-term opportunity in China, said Tim Rainsford, managing director, Asia Pacific for Man Investments.
"It’s certainly a challenging time. At the same time, the brakes are not on in the business. We will launch products when they’re appropriate," he told the Reuters Finance Summit on Monday.
Bloomberg – Man Group Plc, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund manager, began selling a managed futures fund with a capital guarantee to Hong Kong individuals seeking protection from falling stock markets.
Man AHL Guaranteed Futures 3 Ltd. will trade mostly futures and option contracts on currencies, bonds, stocks, interest rates, metals, energy and agricultural products using computer-driven models, according to a fund sale brochure.
Credit Suisse Group will provide a guarantee for 90 percent of the initial investment in the dollar shares of the fund. The Australian dollar shares will be 105 percent capital guaranteed.
A 22 percent decline in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index since its Oct. 30 peak is forcing the city’s residents to reduce stock holdings and seek capital protection of their investments.
"We’re seeing strong demand for products that allow investors to diversify away from equities,” said Giselle Lee, head of sales for Man Investments (Hong Kong) Ltd. The protection of the initial capital investment adds comfort, "especially for first-time investors in alternative products.”
Managed futures funds bet on the directions of markets for various assets by trading instruments such as futures, options and forward contracts. Man Group began selling its capital guarantee fund in Hong Kong yesterday.
