10/03/2010
NEWSPAPERS & WIRES
Gartmore Group, the hedge fund and mutual fund manager that listed its shares on the London Stock Exchange in December, reported a drop in operating earnings for 2009 but said its business is firmly on the mend and has taken in £273m ($409m) in net new money so far this year, says the WSJ. Gartmore said it managed £22.2bn at 31 December, up 19% from £18.7bn a year earlier. Nearly all of the 2009 gains came from market and investment performance at its funds, with just £252m added from net fund subscriptions.
Preqin’s latest
09/03/2010
NEWSPAPERS & WIRES
UK fund firm Gartmore, which made its market debut in December, swung to a 2009-pretax profit of £47.6m ($71.34m) and said it saw strong net inflows in early 2010 into its hedge fund products, reports Reuters. Chief Executive Jeffrey Meyer told reporters net inflows in the first two months of the year were £273m, of which £210m were in its hedge funds.
Goldman Sachs Group was sued on Monday by a large union pension fund that accused the Wall Street investment bank of overpaying its executives, reports Reuters. The International Brotherhood of Electric Workers
08/03/2010
NEWSPAPERS & WIRES
The Telegraph reports that London's share of the hedge fund 'billion dollar club' has dropped by more than 15% since last year, despite the sector's recovery in recent months. The capital is now home to 55 hedge funds that manage more than a billion dollars, compared to 65 last year, according to a survey of the global sector by Hedge Fund Intelligence. Global hedge funds assets rose by 10% to $1.82trn (£1.2trn) during the second half of last year, although the final figure is only just above the level at the end of 2008.
05/03/2010
NEWSPAPERS & WIRES
Hedge funds have significantly increased their investments in banks in the past year, particularly buying more stock in the fourth quarter, regulatory filings show, the WSJ reports. Hedge funds now own 19% of Popular, more than 9% of SunTrust Banks, 6% of Citigroup and Zions Bancorp, and more than 4% of Wells Fargo & Co "Hedge funds like to buy bargains," said Anton Schutz, a portfolio manager with Mendon Capital Advisors Corp, who bought $3.4m in Citigroup stock and invested in several regional banks such as New York Community Bancorp.
Representative Sander Levin will take
04/03/2010
The $138.6bn Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) has made its first investment in hedge funds and is already on the lookout for more managers.
SBA has hired four activist hedge fund managers; Cevian Capital, Monaco-based Knight Vinke, P2 Capital and Ramius Capital, allocating around $50m -$100m to each manager since the beginning of the year, Kevin SigRist, deputy executive director, announced during the investment advisory council’s (IAC) meeting today.
The new investments are part of SBA’s corporate governance activist mandate that is part of the strategic investments allocation, which also houses SBA’s hedge
04/03/2010
NEWSPAPERS & WIRES
Managers are launching more hedge funds this year than last year at a time when pension funds and other wealthy investors are poised to put fresh money into these portfolios, a top Wall Street executive said yesterday, Reuters reports. "We are seeing very, very strong hedge fund formation right now," said Alex Ehrlich, who heads the prime brokerage business for Morgan Stanley. "The number of launches we are seeing are five times stronger than what we saw last year."
Citadel Investment Group, the hedge fund company founded by Kenneth Griffin, cut the size of
04/03/2010
The surge of UK hedge fund managers into the US continues unabated. The trend, highlighted in last week’s edition of HFMWeek, for European hedge funds and fund of hedge funds (FoHF) managers to expand their businesses in the US gained another follower, as Fortune Group announces aggressive growth plans, HFMWeek can exclusively reveal.
The UK-based hedge fund and FoHF manager, set up by Simon Hopkins and Richard Tarvin in 1996, is looking to form joint ventures with US wealth management firms to distribute to trust clients in the US, as well as set up partnerships with regional
04/03/2010
AlphaMetrix, the managed account provider and CTA specialist, has revealed plans for an aggressive expansion into the traditional hedge fund space, HFMWeek can exclusively reveal.
The Chicago-based firm added its first non-CTA fund, a long/short equity vehicle, to its managed accounts platform on 2 March, and intends to grow its hedge fund pool aggressively over the next few months.
The managed accounts boom shows little sign of abating with news this week that hedge fund firm Ramius plans to roll out a new platform focused on investing in managed futures and global macro
04/03/2010
The Town of Plymouth Retirement Board, which manages around $98.4m in assets, has issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a number of global asset allocation investment management services.
The board for the Massachusetts-based pension is thinking of allocating $10m to the proposed mandate.
According to the RFP, in order to be considered, firms must have a minimum of $500m in AuM, $250m in the proposed global asset allocation strategy, and a minimum of five years’ performance history in the strategy.
The Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (Perac) in Massachusetts has strict guidelines
04/03/2010
Industry lobbyists received a boost last week as Spain admitted opinion over its hard-lined new drafts of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) Directive remains split.
EU Council president Spain, which has redrafted the Directive three times since 1 February, has been criticised by members of the alternatives industry for toughening the Council’s stance on a number of issues, particularly third-country marketing.
In a note released on 26 February, however, Spain announced that among member states “there was not yet a qualified majority supporting an overall compromise”, mainly because of disagreement over three key topics
