Summit Notebook

2010 Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity kicks off

Some of the world’s leading names in the hedge funds and private equity industries are visiting the Reuters bureaus in New York, London and Hong Kong this week to discuss the outlook for the sector in a series of exclusives interviews as part of the 2010 Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit.

Private equity is still struggling with the triple problem of raising funds, exiting investments and striking deals — although the last has become a little easier of late. M&A has picked up and there have been a few single-digit billion LBO deals struck in recent months. Still, volatile markets have been making for an uphill struggle to exit investments, and raising money for new funds is uphill. On top of that, executives are facing the possibility of higher tax and tougher scrutiny on their firms.

Investors whose portfolios were decimated during the financial crisis are searching for better returns and are now ready to send new money into hedge funds. However despite the industry’s strong returns in 2009, investors are still asking managers for greater insight and transparency at a time regulators and legislators are also putting the industry under a new spotlight.

Will the industry continue to post high returns? Have expectations for performance changed?

from Global Investing:

Reuters Funds Summit: Madoff, the silent presence

Master-fraudster Bernie Madoff is the invisible guest at an annual fund fest in Luxembourg, the European capital for fund administration.

Even though the former Nasdaq chairman is under arrest thousands of miles away from this discreet financial centre nestled between Belgium, France and Germany, his presence was omnipresent. Fund managers just can't stop mentioning him.

 One example: "The hedge fund bubble has popped. The market bubble has popped, and to put a cherry on the top you had the Madoff probe in December," said Ken Kinsley-Quick from hedge fund Thames River Capital.

Other speakers have gone into deep soul-searching, accepting that more transparency and due diligence is needed. But few would openly beat their chest and admit any wrongdoing as they all seemed to agree that if the Securities and Exchange Commission could not catch Madoff's wrong doing over 20 years, no-one could.

"Except for a few whistle blowers no-one had expected anything. I really do not think that custodians did not take their role seriously. But it's not helping the industry," Yves Francis, a partner from Deloitte said.

Even Luxembourg's budget minister, Luc Frieden, got into the act, suggesting that a deal should be made out of court to compensate Madoff investors who had gone through Luxembourg-based investment vehicles.

He clearly wanted Madoff to just go away.