DealZone

Some investors may not be fully aware of the risks they face as career-conscious hedge fund managers plump for strategies that build a convincing-looking track record but occasionally backfire badly.

According to a paper by Yale academic Hongjun Yan, hedge fund managers are far more likely to choose so-called 'nickel' strategies than 'black swan' strategies, even if returns are ultimately lower and they risk the occasional huge loss.

Nickel strategies are -- rather like the contrived image of picking up nickels in front of a steamroller -- those that yield small returns most of the time with the occasional disaster.

Yan says the carry trade, merger arbitrage and convertible arbitrage fall into this category.

The problem for unwary investors, as witnessed by last year's big losses by some funds, is that these trades occasionally go wrong, especially if a lot of other funds are doing the same thing.

The fund of hedge funds concept took a serious knock last year with Bernard Madoff's $65 billion fraud, leading high net worth investors to pull out money over concerns that the due diligence hadn't been quite as diligent as one would hope.

Even managers who weren't exposed to Madoff had to calm client fears. This has prompted the bigger, more institutional groups to seek ways of gaining more control over assets that the underlying managers are running.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) is currently building out its separate account platform with the aims of improving hedge fund transparency and ensuring that hedge fund managers' interests are properly aligned with those of their clients. "It gives you much greater leeway to shape the investment guidelines and terms," says Charles Baillie, co-head of alternative investments and manager selection at GSAM, who oversees some $19 billion in hedge fund assets.

The timing of the Alternative Investment Management Association's hedge fund disclosure initiative indicates just how strong the winds of change are blowing in hedge fund land.

Coming just a day after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet called the credit crisis "a loud and clear call" for extending hedge fund regulation, the move shows the hedge fund industry feels it must be more active in deciding the future shape of regulation.

The move, which will include regular -- probably quarterly -- disclosure of systemically significant holdings and risk exposure to national regulators, goes further than that suggested at last month's Treasury Select Committee by Marshall Wace chairman and Hedge Fund Standards Board trustee Paul Marshall, who had proposed aggregating data through prime brokers.

It may not have been a massive surprise, but ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet had an unwelcome message for hedge fund managers today.

The current crisis is, apparently, "a loud and clear call" to roll out regulation to all important market players, "notably hedge funds and credit rating agencies".

For those hedge fund managers who felt, perhaps with a degree of justification, that their industry had been relatively blameless in precipitating the current crisis, that call may have been somewhat quieter and more muffled.

It was always unlikely that a letter of advice was going to change the mind of maverick hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry.

And in his latest letter to investors, Hendry has smartly rebuffed any attempt to 'save' him from his bond investments.

The letter in question -- Gregor.us's monthly note, entitled "Saving Hugh Hendry" -- praises the Eclectica co-founder and CIO as a "brilliant and colourful" hedge fund manager who saw the coming storm and took cover well in advance.

There seems to be an endless wave of bad news hitting the hedge fund industry at the moment -- gates and suspensions, record poor performance, the Bernard Madoff scandal and so forth -- but there are still one or two reasons to be positive.

According to a survey of institutional investors by alternative assets data group Preqin, conducted in January (and therefore after the alleged Madoff fraud came to light), only 8 percent said they were no longer confident about hedge funds and would reduce investments.

By contrast, 26 percent said they would be increasing their allocations this year.

Tuesday's grilling of UK hedge fund executives is likely to create plenty of noise but produce little in the way of new rules.

While media-shy TCI founder Chris Hohn and others will face tough questions from the Treasury Select Committee on financial stability, short-selling and other issues, it nevertheless seems that the pro-legislation lobby's position may be weaker than it has been in recent years.

For one thing, many hedge funds simply do not have the financial clout -- and therefore carry the associated risks seen by some politicians -- that they once did.