Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Apples, pears and Ucits
Ucits funds have undoubtedly benefited from the uncertainty surrounding the AIFM directive.
A number of hedge funds have opted to launch products in the Ucits format — automatically avoiding the directive, which focuses on non-Ucits funds — rather than wait and see how the long-running political battle plays out.
Man Group and Cheyne Capital are among those to have announced plans, while start-up Nexar has said it may launch funds using this structure.
However, at a breakfast meeting at the Townhouse in London’s West End today, Claude Kremer, chairman of Alfi (the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry), confirmed the industry is looking at a voluntary labelling of funds.
A question of trust?
Signs of big-ticket investments from pension funds — New York State Common Retirement Fund has backed emerging market debt manager Finisterre Capital with $250 mln.
Despite 2008′s losses, pension funds are obviously keen to invest, perhaps because equity mutual funds lost them even more money than hedge funds during the crisis.
Morning Line-Up
News and views on the hedge fund industry from Reuters and elsewhere:
Veritas offers UCITS III-compliant hedge fund - Investment Adviser
GLG MMI appoints BNY Mellon as fund administrator - Hedgeweek
Banks boost lending to hedge funds – Wall Street Journal
Hedge fund manager Jim Chanos sounds warning on China - Seeking Alpha
It’s not just the leverage
If private equity is anything to go by, there is plenty of hope for hedge funds operating in the new, post-Lehman world of lower leverage.
A study by the Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies and Capital Dynamics, out today, finds that two-thirds of private equity’s value creation is down to improving companies it owns or rising market multiples.
Morning Line-Up
News and views on the hedge fund industry from Reuters and elsewhere:
N.J. hedge fund up 132% last year - Finalternatives
Penjing Asset ties up with Triple A for seed fund - Reuters
Hedge Funds finish year with a bang - The New York Times
Pension Funds to drive hedge fund growth - Hedge Funds Review
2009 – an annus mirabilis?
There is already hard data out from HFR showing hedge funds received net inflows of $1.1 bln in Q3 (small, but nevertheless a relief after $330 bln of net outflows in the year to June).
Hedge funds suffered their own annus horribilis in 2008. REUTERS/Reuters Photographer.
Morning line-up
Enlightening stories on the hedge fund industry from Reuters and elsewhere.
Rajaratnam, Chiesi indicted in U.S. hedge fund probe – Reuters
Hedge funds win ‘ring fence’ ruling – FT
Asia ex-Japan hedge funds show biggest gains-Eurekahedge – WSJ
Morgan Stanley’s Keller to head U.S. prime brokerage – Reuters
Morning line-up
Enlightening stories on the hedge fund industry from Reuters and elsewhere.
Elena Ambrosiadou’s husband leaves Ikos to start his own fund – Telegraph
Galleon’s Rajaratnam asks U.S. judge to reduce bail - Reuters
Mid-sized hedge funds pulled in most new money-data - Reuters
Hedge funds 2009 review and outlook for 2010 - HedgeWeek
Freshfields: hedge funds will flee Europe in droves under new rules – Times
Go for those nickels!
The hard lessons learnt from the credit crisis might suggest investors shouldn’t be trying to pick up the proverbial nickels on a railway track.
REUTERS/Luke MacGregor
In a blog post in May I pointed to research by Yale academic Hongjun Yan that hedge fund managers are far more likely to choice so-called nickel strategies than so-called black-swan strategies.
Wace wades into HFT debate
High frequency trading strategies have been in the news for all sorts of reasons recently, attracting controversy over their effect on markets, whether some other investors may be disadvantaged, or for the level of fees piled up as the trades tick through in their thousands.
However, Ian Wace, co-founder of Marshall Wace — one of Europe’s biggest hedge fund firms with assets estimated by EuroHedge at $6.5 billion at the end of last year — has leaped to the industry’s defence, citing performance from the firm’s own Eureka fund.
