Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
from Emily Chasan:
Fortress CEO: The black box is dead
Famously secretive hedge funds may have to stop being so secretive if they are to continue attracting all that money from their wealthy clients.
Chief executive of Fortress Investment Group, the $41.7 billion hedge fund and private equity group, said investors are demanding a lot more transparency these days.
"The era of the black box has passed," Fortress chief executive Daniel Mudd said at the Barclays Capital Global Financial Services Conference in New York on Tuesday.
"Those investors I've talked to have made it pretty abundantly clear that there's no such thing as too much insight," Mudd added.
Morning Line-Up
News and views on the hedge fund industry from Reuters and elsewhere:
Paulson and Centerbridge to invest $400m in Extended Stay - FT.com
Soros to open Hong Kong office – source - Reuters
Ex-Fortress manager prepping new macro firm - MarketWatch
Morning line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Fortress’s Adam Levinson on the financial earthquake – BBC World Service
Lehman headache for Paulson – New York Post
Hedge funds’ low-arb diet is at an end – WSJ
Many truths about convertible arbitrage have been forgotten – Opalesque
Liquidity key in new Ucits III funds – Citywire
Watchdogs spell out hedge fund investor protection – Reuters
Changing the model
Man Investments has invested another $50 mln into a start-up hedge fund, showing that, for those prepared to take the perceived risks, there may be good opportunities to back talented managers at the moment.
The firm’s RMF Global Emerging Managers seeding fund has backed Hong Kong-based Minerva Macro fund, run by ex-Fortress manager Stanley Ku, having last month put $50 mln with 5:15 Capital Management’s flagship fund.
Madoff shadow looms over UBP
While much of the hedge fund industry starts to draw breath and consider better times ahead, those firms tainted by the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme continue to suffer.
UBP — which had exposure of about 1 billion Swiss francs to Madoff’s firm — on Wednesday said hedge fund assets had slumped by 20 billion Swiss francs in the first half and are now more than half the level achieved at the peak in June 2008. To be fair, the private bank isn’t giving up easily and has hired in new managers to liven up its offering.
