28/11/2011 Author: Will Wainewright

HFMWeek Daily Snapshot - 28 November

NEWSPAPERS AND WIRES
The founder of one of London’s biggest hedge funds has given qualified support for a European tax on financial transactions, breaking ranks with many of his peers fiercely opposed to such a measure, writes the FT. David Harding, the chief executive of the $26bn Winton Capital, said he did not object to moves by European Union politicians to levy the tax – dubbed by UK chancellor George Osborne a “bullet aimed at the heart of London” earlier this month.

Netflix stock could double in a few months as its streaming business grows and it becomes an attractive buyout target, Barron's said on Sunday, according to Reuters. It quoted Whitney Tilson, head of hedge fund firm T2 Partners, as saying although the video rental company's overall subscriber count dropped in the third quarter, the streaming business continues to grow "nicely" with gross subscriber additions rising 30-40% year over year, each quarter.

The “Darwinian” shake-up of the hedge fund industry over the past few years is prompting increased interest from investors in “next-generation” managers hoping to be the next Alan Howard or George Soros, reports the FT. New firms such as Edoma Partners, set up by former employees of Goldman Sachs, have found their funds oversubscribed within months of opening, as investors compete for the chance to access above-average returns from smaller, nimble funds. But for those without the requisite millions – or risk appetite – necessary for early-stage investment in these funds, there are ways to benefit from new launches.

With new reporting obligations on the horizon for private fund advisers, compliance departments need to make some new friends, writes Reuters. Completing the new Form PF, developed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will require compliance professionals to reach out to other company units, or even hire new blood, to accurately field questions on topics ranging from risk to counterparty credit exposure. "It's not something (for which) you can just push a button and the information comes out of your systems," said Marcy Engel, COO and general counsel for New York-based hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management.

LAUNCHES
Carl Huttenlocher, the former Asia head of hedge fund Highbridge Capital Management, said on Monday he can now launch a vehicle planning to raise up to $2bn next year following the all-clear from regulators following allegations of improper valuations at Highbridge, reports the Wall Street Journal. Huttenlocher received the license to launch Myriad Asset Management from 1 December on Friday, three months later than originally planned.

Japanese hedge fund FGI Capital Partners has launched an Asia event-driven fund, aiming to tap fresh demand from institutional investors including Japanese and foreign pension funds, a top executive said, reports Business Insider. The fund started trading on 1 November and has capacity to take in up to $500m, Hideyuki Omokawa, representative director and president of FGI Capital, told Reuters in an interview. "Uncertainty prevails in markets overall. In this kind of situation, we thought the event-driven strategy would be more in demand to generate alpha," said Omokawa, a former Nikko Securities and Goldman Sachs executive.