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 – Harvard University’s multibillion dollar endowment is adopting a strategy of selling off some holdings in hedge funds, private-equity firms and other money managers to bring more money under the control of internal investing staff over the next few years, the Wall Street Journal said.
Jane Mendillo, head of Harvard endowment, told the paper the university’s move would allow it to be more nimble, have better transparency into the portfolio and more liquidity.
Wall Street Journal Blogs – Are hedge-fund managers making a comeback with investors? The great recession hammered the hedge-fund industry in 2008. Returns tumbled, redemptions soared and investors began questioning the very underpinnings of the industry. Active managers promise to beat, rather than match, the market’s overall returns and charge fees that can be at least 10 times higher than those of index funds.
The WSJ reported in June that an increasing number of big investors are concluding that stock and bond pickers failed to add any value in the market turmoil and are shifting to index funds. A survey by Greenwich Associates at the time found that about one in five institutional investors said they recently had shifted money away from active managers and into passive index strategies. That was up from just 4% who expected to make that shift when asked from July to October 2008.
Bloomberg – Volkswagen AG has seen a doubling of short interest in its stock by hedge funds since the middle of last month, with 2 percent of the company’s shares, and almost a third of the common stock available for borrowing, out on loan, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Dataexplorers, a firm of analysts.
Reuters – New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, probing illegal marketing and sales of auction rate securities (ARS), is likely to file a lawsuit on Monday against Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW.O) for civil fraud, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
As a part of the lawsuit, Cuomo will likely present transcripts of recordings between Schwab brokers and customers that allegedly show how the ARS were misrepresented by brokers as easy-to-sell alternatives to cash, according to the paper.
News1130.com – The Securities and Exchange Commission is continuing its investigation of possible insider trading involving hedge fund Pequot Capital Management and its founder Arthur Samberg, according to a letter to investors obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The SEC has been examining whether Pequot traded Microsoft Corp. shares on confidential information provided by a former employee of the computer company who was later hired by Pequot.
Wall Street Journal – Jeffrey Gendell’s new hedge fund returned more than 25% during its first quarter, as bets on energy and a steady economic recovery paid off, according to a letter the manager sent recently to investors.
Gendell, who suffered big losses last year and is still winding down some old hedge funds, also criticized some of President Barack Obama’s policies and argued that political ”gridlock” could help equity markets in 2010.
The manager opened the new Tontine Total Return Fund in April after some of Tontine’s other funds lost more than 60% last year. The new fund, which focuses on more liquid, or easily tradable, securities, returned 25.3% in its first quarter after management fees, Gendell said in a July 20 letter to investors.
Wall Street Journal Blogs – From its 17th-floor offices in the New Beijing Poly Plaza building, the monolithic landmark commissioned by the state-owned conglomerate China Poly Group Corp., China’s massive sovereign-wealth fund has established itself as a prime destination for overseas hedge-fund managers hoping to come home with big checks in their pockets.
Droves of hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers have made the pilgrimage since last year, when China Investment Corp. moved into its new offices, which is itself just two years old.
CIC, established in 2007, wields control over $200 billion, making it one of the world’s youngest but biggest sovereign-wealth funds. It also is emerging as one of the new hedge-fund emperors, a source of fresh cash for an industry thirsty for it.
Marketwatch – China’s sovereign wealth fund has selected Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group LP to oversee hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The $200 billion China Investment Corp. has finalized an additional allocation of $500 million to Blackstone’s /quotes/comstock/13*!bx/quotes/nls/bx (BX11.42, +0.46, +4.20%) fund-of-funds unit, and an additional allocation of money has been earmarked for investment through Morgan Stanley’s /quotes/comstock/13*!ms/quotes/nls/ms (MS28.31, +1.15, +4.23%) asset-management unit, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the situation.
The sovereign wealth fund is also in discussions to potentially invest billions more in hedge funds, possibly doling out money directly to managers rather than using a fund-of-funds vehicles, the report said.
Wall Street Journal – China Investment Corp.’s $200 billion sovereign-wealth fund is reaching out to old friends in the U.S. as it ventures into hedge-fund investing.
The fund has selected Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group LP to oversee hundreds of millions of dollars in new private-fund investments, people familiar with the matter said.
Reuters – CIT Group Inc (CIT.N), which is looking at selling off some assets, is most likely to sell its aviation-finance and rail-finance operations, the Wall Street Journal said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The people, who said evaluations were still in the early stages, told the paper that CIT was approached by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) and Leucadia National (LUK.N) to buy parts of the company, but spurned the offers because of low bids.
CIT, which is a lender to nearly a million small- and mid-sized businesses, averted a crisis and bought some time this week with a $3 billion emergency financing from large bondholders to restructure its debt and avoid bankruptcy, after the collapse of rescue talks with the U.S. government.
Bloomberg – Gold climbed in Asian trading as equity gains and an improving economic outlook boosted demand for the metal as a hedge against accelerating prices.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of equities gained for a sixth day after an index of leading economic indicators in the U.S. topped projections, indicating the country may be emerging from recession. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the central bank “will need to tighten monetary policy” to prevent inflation.
Forbes – Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp is poised to invest around $500 million into a Blackstone Group hedge fund unit, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the news and said it was part of a broad effort to put cash to work, and that the hefty injection would be welcome news for hedge funds.
