Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
And the award for best hedge fund goes to….
Take a bow George Soros, Trafalgar Capital, King Street, Credit Agricole and a host of others.
Those lovely people at Lipper (wholly-owned by Thomson Reuters, I should note) have handed out the gongs for the top hedge funds in 2009. The awards pick out the managers delivering the best consistent returns over three years among participants the Lipper TASS database, divvying up the goodwill between strategies and regions to give a global snapshot of the leading performers.
Soros Fund Management is picked for best offshore multi-strategy fund while King Street gets the prize for best North American event-driven fund. Credit Agricole’s CAAM Invest VaR 20 I EUR fund wins for Global Macro in Europe.
There are too many winners to list here, so click the link above to look at the definitive guide. Worth noting though that B & P Asset Management (Bermuda) looks like the only firm to grab two accolades, for fixed income arbitrage and multi-strategy funds of funds in Europe.
Morning Line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Madoff friend Picower dead, found in pool – Reuters
Probe widening in Galleon case – WSJ
Hedge funds edge closer to recouping crisis losses – WSJ
UK hedgie loses out in sale of Irish Continental stake – Irish Independent
Hedge fund prices decline for fourth month, Hedgebay data show – Bloomberg
from Global Investing:
Away from the flock
Companies need to actively encourage dissent and aspire to heretical rather than consensus views if they want to avoid being as unprepared as they were for the financial meltdown.
Noreena Hertz, professor of finance, sustainability and globalisation at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, kicked off the CFA Institute's second annual European Investment Conference in Frankfurt with a wake up call for the assembled asset managers and bankers.
from Summit Notebook:
Private bankers chanting new mantra
Private bankers still getting their ears bashed from clients enraged about massive portfolio losses now are chanting a new mantra.
Murmur along with me, those seeking inner peace and appeased clients: the word is “holistic".
Morning line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Mark Dampier: Hedge your bets on a stock picker – Independent
Once high-flyers Lehman traders grounded at Mizuho – Reuters
SEC needs a real hunger to hunt Madoffs – Sunday Times
Rentals abound in hedge fund hub - NY Times DealBook
“Capitalism is evil” says Michael Moore’s new film – Reuters
Madoff NOT dying of cancer – Prisons Bureau
The latest update on the health of convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff, from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is that Madoff is NOT dying of cancer.
A spokeswoman said in a written statement: “Bernie Madoff is not terminally ill, and has not been diagnosed with cancer”, although the bureau didn’t deal with every point raised in the New York Post story.
Madoff ‘dying of cancer’ – NY Post
One story from the New York Post understandably attracting plenty of interest, despite official denials: Bernie ‘Dying’ in Jail.
The Post reports the jailed fraudster, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence, has told fellow inmates he is dying of cancer. One inmate says Madoff was taking “about 20 pills a day” and “not doing very well”.
Morning line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Hedge funds soar in ’09, most still in the red – Reuters
Madoff brought to book – Daily Telegraph
Hedge funds enjoy third straight month of inflows – Finalternatives
Greed can backfire on hedge fund seeders: Man – Reuters
Terminator producers sue hedge fund backer - NY Times
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.
Lugano: Billions in Madoff losses
The sleepy town of Lugano, in the Italian-speaking Ticino region of Switzerland, has emerged as a key collection centre for Madoff-related funds.
Between $2 billion and $5billion lost in the Madoff fraud was gathered in the town–population 52,000–much of the money coming through the Italian cities of Milan, Turin and Rome, according to private banking and investment management sources who requested anonymity.
