General News

	Hedge Funds Attack EU Draft	Apr 24/09
	The hedge fund and private equity industries attacked a draft European Commission directive designed to regulate their activities and due to be published next week. Trade associations representing both sectors on Thursday ch...Read more
	European pension funds increase weightings in alternatives	Apr 24/09
	European pension schemes are increasing their allocation to non-traditional asset classes to manage their risks more effectively, according to Mercer's annual European asset allocation survey. The survey of over 1,000 ...Read more
	Demand for Hedge Fund Separate Accounts ‘a Knee-Jerk Reaction’	Apr 24/09
	Hedge fund investors’ growing demands for separate accounts may be an overreaction to increasing redemptions and fraud, participants said at an industry conference in Hong Kong this week. Investors are demanding accounts tha...Read more
	Pengana Aims to Grow Volatility Hedge Fund Amid Market Swings	Apr 24/09
	Pengana Capital Ltd., a Sydney- based asset manager that oversees A$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion), aims to increase the amount of hedge fund assets that bet on market swings by six times in two years. Pengana is seeking to ...Read more
	Disgraced NY lawmaker joins hedge fund-report	Apr 24/09
	Vito Fossella, a former U.S. congressman representing sections of New York until a drunk driving conviction last year, has joined controversial hedge fund Superfund Investment Group, the Staten Island Advance reported this wee...Read more
	Coming Soon: Madoff, the Movie	Apr 24/09
	Ready or not, a biopic of the life and times of Bernard L. Madoff is apparently already in the works. Earlier this month the film’s executive producer and writer, Edmund Druilhet, told The Insider that “Madoff: Made Off With ...Read more
	Power to the Hedge Funds!	Apr 24/09
	Long demonized, they may be the model firms of the future. Newsweek.Widget.FontSizeSlider.init(document.getElementById('FontSizeSlider'), 40, 9) Newsweek.Widget.EmailArticle.init(); ...Read more
	Hedge fund redemptions down, FoHF withdrawals up	Apr 24/09
	Investors continued to withdraw capital from hedge funds in the first quarter of 2009, redeeming nearly $104 billion, according to data released by Hedge Fund Research. In the same period withdrawals from the fund of hedge f...Read more
	Octagon, Run by Ex-GIC Staff, to Start Hedge Fund	Apr 23/09
	Octagon Capital Management Pte, run by former managers of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.’s quantitative-investment group, plans to start a fund that seeks to profit from broad economic trends. Octagon, ...Read more
	"Alpha" Magazine Announces 2009 Hedge Fund 100, the World's Largest Hedge Funds	Apr 23/09
	"Alpha" (www.alphamagazine.com) released the results of the 2009 Hedge Fund 100, the magazine's eighth annual ranking of the world's biggest single-manager hedge fund firms. Although most hedge fund managers in 200...Read more
	Hedge funds urged to adopt global standard	Apr 23/09
	Historically hedge funds out of ignorance, or simply because they could not perceive any benefit, have largely ignored Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS), ethical standards for investment performance presentation...Read more
	Morningstar: Hedge Funds Rise In March	Apr 23/09
	The Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index rose 2.1% in March (0.1% YTD), while the currency-hedged Morningstar MSCI Asset-Weighted Hedge Fund Composite Index increased 0.1% (0.5%) as hedge funds took modest advantage of March's up...Read more
	Hedge fund body attacks drafting of EC directive	Apr 23/09
	The drafting of the European Commission's directive on the hedge fund industry has been "rushed through" without adequate consultation, industry body the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) said. ...Read more
	Outsource the SEC, for Hedge Fund Exams and Systemic Risk	Apr 23/09
	Hennessee Group LLC, consultant and adviser to direct investors in hedge funds, re-released a summary of recommendations to reduce fraud and systemic risk in the hedge fund industry. Charles Gradante, co–founder of Hennessee...Read more
	Hennessee pays fine for Bayou advice	Apr 23/09
	Hennessee Group, which advised clients to invest in the Bayou hedge funds that were later discovered to be fraudulent, has agreed to pay $814,644 in fines to settle charges that it failed to properly investigate the funds. Th...Read more
	Investor confidence index rises from 70.2 to 79.6 in Apri	Apr 22/09
	Global investor confidence rose by a healthy 9.4 points from 70.2 in March to 79.6 in April, according to the State Street Investor Confidence Index. Confidence was up in all three regions tracked. Among North American invest...Read more
	Schemes increasing allocations to non-traditional asset	Apr 22/09
	Schemes are increasing their allocation to non-traditional asset classes in a bid to manage their risks more effectively, Mercer says.The consultant’s European Asset Allocation Survey – which polled around 1000 schemes from 11 c...Read more
	Hedge Fund Redemptions Slowed on Outperformance	Apr 22/09
	Hedge fund redemptions slowed in March as industry returns outperformed global benchmarks this year, according to Eurekahedge Pte. The industry lost $136 billion in the first quarter, shrinking 32 percent from a pe...Read more
	Funds of Hedge Funds Get $85 Billion in Withdrawals Post-Madoff	Apr 22/09
	Investors pulled a record $85 billion from firms that invest in hedge funds in the first quarter after the disclosure of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion fraud, according to data compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc. Th...Read more
	Lessons to be learnt from plunging portfolios	Apr 22/09
	THE events of the past 18 months provide many lessons for investors in risk management and the way that investment portfolios are created. Risk is a rather esoteric concept that has different meanings. It may be see...Read more
	Hedge fund gains fail to offset record FoF withdrawals	Apr 22/09
	Investors continued to withdraw capital from hedge funds in the first quarter of 2009, redeeming nearly USD104bn, according to data released by Hedge Fund Research, a hedge fund industry data provider. The USD104bn redemption...Read more
	Hedge Fund’s Book May Have Fallen 75%, FRM’s Tomlinson Says	Apr 22/09
	Assets owned by hedge funds including borrowings may have fallen by 75 percent to a decade- low, with less competition paving the way for better returns, said Blaine Tomlinson, chairman of Financial Risk Management Ltd. ...Read more
	ME investors' share in hedge funds to hit $194b	Apr 22/09
	The Middle East investors’ share of hedge fund assets is set to rise almost 30 per cent to $194 billion by the end of 2013, according to a new global study by Bank of New York Mellon/Casey Quirk. The study entitled 'The Hedge F...Read more
	Why Hedge Fund Strategy ETFs Are Catching On	Apr 22/09
	The first hedge fund linked index exchange traded fund (ETF) launched a few weeks back in the United States, and now Index IQ has created a plan greatly expand their hedge fund replication ETF family. Index IQ’s first hedge fund...Read more
	Bank cutbacks aid hedge funds	Apr 22/09
	Managers of some of the world's leading hedge funds say they are reaping a benefit from the financial crisis in the form of substantially less competition from the once-mighty proprietary trading desks of investment banks.Durin...Read more
	EU hedge fund rules attacked	Apr 21/09
	The European Commission’s plans to regulate hedge funds and private equity threaten to become a key issue in the European parliamentary election campaign after key MPs on Monday criticised draft proposals as “almost worthless”. ...Read more
	UBS Must Transfer Madoff-Linked Funds to Liquidator	Apr 21/09
	UBS AG’s Luxembourg unit must transfer the assets it holds for LuxAlpha Sicav-American Selection, a fund that invested with Bernard Madoff, at the request of the fund’s liquidator, a Luxembourg court ordered. UBS,...Read more
	Are Pension Funds the New Venture Capitalists?	Apr 21/09
	According to "Calpers Weighs Expanding Own Hedge-Fund Investments" by Jenny Strasburg and Craig Karmin (Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2009), the giant California pension fund may be the first stop for fledgling hedge...Read more
	S&P in bid for FOHF transparency	Apr 21/09
	Standard & Poor's Fund Services is to expand its fund of hedge funds rating process to include in-depth leverage analysis in the light of the rampant degearing in the sector. Randal Goldsmith, lead analyst, said t...Read more
	Building a Do-It-Yourself ETF Hedge Fund	Apr 21/09
	Even now, despite the recent financial calamities, hedge funds continue to occupy a special and sometimes romanticized place in the hearts of many investors. A recent article explored how use of short and ultra-short ETFs, toget...Read more
	AIMA: Historical low levels of leverage in global hedge fund industry	Apr 21/09
	The world’s hedge fund industry has historically low levels of leverage, and the idea of the industry as highly-leveraged is a misconception. That is according to the Alternative Investment Management Association (“AIMA”), the ...Read more
	Edhec paper lists negative consequences of short selling ban	Apr 20/09
	An in-depth study of short-selling activities by Edhec finance professor Abraham Lioui has called into question both the reasons for the decision to ban short selling and the prejudices that weigh on those who short. Among the con...Read more
	RBC Hedge 250 Index returned 0.46 per cent in March	Apr 20/09
	RBC Capital Markets has reported that for the month of March 2009 the RBC Hedge 250 Index had a net return of 0.46 per cent. This brings the year-to-date return of the index to 0.75 per cent. Convertible arbitrage returned 6.36 pe...Read more
	Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index confirms March performance up 0.65 per cent	Apr 20/09
	Final performance for the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index was up 0.65 per cent in March, according to Credit Suisse Index. Hedge funds posted slight gains in March, bringing year-to-date returns to 0.85 per cent. As market...Read more
	Canadian hedge funds underperform in March	Apr 20/09
	The Scotia Capital Canadian Hedge Fund Performance Index finished March up 1.39% on an asset weighted basis and 2.39% on an equal weighted basis, underperforming both the S&P/TSX composite and the S&P 500 index in both res...Read more
	Global Hedge Fund Assets Will Reach $2.6 Trillion by 2013	Apr 20/09
	Hedge fund assets will bottom out at roughly $1 trillion in 2009, after which capital appreciation and $800 billion in net inflows over the next four years will push global levels to $2.6 trillion by 2013, according to a new study...Read more
	Warren Lichtenstein's fund proposal resisted: report	Apr 20/09
	Investors owning more than half the assets in Warren Lichtenstein's largest hedge fund have asked to pull out, resisting a push to convert the fund into a publicly traded partnership, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday. ...Read more
	Investing in Uzbekistan; Hedge Funds Resillient	Apr 20/09
	Hedge fund manager Ansher Fund Management says that March has been positive all across the markets and AREF (Ansher Regional Equity Fund) was able to gain to gain 3.2%. The hedge fund manager increased holdings in Kazakhstan...Read more
	Global Macro in 2009. Think again	Apr 20/09
	In the recent investor surveys a number of hedge fund strategies stand out as strategies which investors expect will do well going forward and which they intend to increase their exposure to. Among these are distr...Read more
	Ackman’s Reputation May Get Marked Down in Target War	Apr 17/09
	William Ackman sent a letter to clients in February telling them he lost 90 percent of their money in a $2 billion fund set up to invest solely in Target Corp. In the five-page statement he explained why he remained con...Read more
	A Hedge Row at Highland	Apr 17/09
	Hedge fund Highland Capital is scrambling to quell a dispute among investors grousing about who gets what during the liquidation of the firm's imploded flagship fund. Dallas-based Highland told investors during a conference ...Read more
	Regulating prime brokers	Apr 17/09
	Politicians love to grouse about regulating hedge funds. They have yet to explain exactly how they intend to do it. One idea is to force hedge funds to register with the authorities. That might protect investors. But it doe...Read more
	Top UK fund may invest upt o 20 pct in alternatives	Apr 17/09
	The UK's largest pension scheme, the BT (BT.L) Pension Scheme (BTPS) could invest up to 20 percent of its assets in alternative asset classes including hedge funds, a senior executive in charge of its investments said. Fr...Read more
	Hedge fund manager predicts rally may be start of bull market	Apr 17/09
	THE hedge fund manager who made a fortune short-selling shares in Bradford & Bingley predicts that the current rally in stock markets may be the start of a new bull market. Crispin Odey, founding partner at Ode...Read more
	CalPERS to Launch Hedge Fund	Apr 17/09
	Giant California pension fund CalPERS is considering creating its own internal hedge-fund. According to public documents from CalPERS, the fund is looking to provide start-up money to new and relatively unknown teams of traders an...Read more
	Hedge Funds Set to be Back in Game	Apr 16/09
	The worst may be over for hedge funds with redemptions recording a decline for the third consecutive month in March and industry players expecting stability to return soon.Net investor redemptions and liquidations in March were...Read more
	Odey hails the return of a bull market	Apr 16/09
	The modest recovery staged by world stock markets in recent weeks may mark the beginning of a new bull market for equities, one of the UK's best-known hedge fund managers said yesterday. Crispin Odey, the founder of Odey As...Read more
	Shariah Fund Beats Peers	Apr 16/09
	With year-to-date (YTD) return of 15.76 per cent by the close of March, the world's first Shariah-compliant gold hedge fund – the Dubai Shariah Asset Management (DSAM) Kauthar Gold Fund (DKGF) has outperformed its peers in the ...Read more
	IndexIQ Plans To Launch 15 More Hedge Fund ETFs	Apr 16/09
	Are you ready for some more hot sauce on your exchange-traded funds smorgasbord? IndexIQ, which recently introduced the first ETF to replicate hedge funds, has filed to launch 15 more. Each will effectively splice and ...Read more
	Ruling clears PwC in Portus lawsuit	Apr 16/09
	A recent decision by an Ontario judge to dismiss a lawsuit against the auditor of collapsed hedge fund company Portus Alternative Asset Management Inc. will make it even harder for investors to sue auditors, says a lawyer invol...Read more