Ivy and Crédit Suisse suffer losses

Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Author: HFMweek.com

NEW YORK: Ivy Asset Management, a fund of hedge fund and alternative investment manager with some $14bn assets under management, has suffered huge redemptions due to its investment in Amaranth, according to an HFMWeek source.

When asked if $350m was a reasonable sum to describe the redemptions suffered by Ivy, the exact figure could not be confirmed but it was not as low as $350m, a source close to Ivy explained. “Redemptions totalling the sum of $1bn have been hinted at,” our source added. Ivy declined to comment.

Separately, SAPIC-98 Master Fund, the proprietary fund of hedge fund of Credit Suisse which had a 1.7% allocation to Amaranth International, noted that Amaranth off-loaded YTD returns of -62.53% to its portfolio in 2006. The losses suffered from Amaranth meant SAPIC was only able to deliver 3.71% YTD to its investors, its lowest returns since its inception in 2001.

SAPIC has been invested in Amaranth since its launch and returned 8.52% to investors last year when Amaranth was one of its strongest investments, returning 18.18% in 2005.

As a result of SAPIC’s losses through Amaranth, the portfolio has increased its overall allocation to multi-strategy managers from 6.2% in October to 6.5% in November, while allocating more capital to two other multi-strategy hedge funds. Its largest multi-strategy allocation is now in the DE Shaw Oculus International Fund, according to an investor document.