09/02/2012

HFMWeek Daily Snapshot - 9 February

NEWSPAPERS AND WIRES
Hedge fund performance perked up in January, although continued to lag the major stock indexes, according to industry adviser Hennessee Group, reports the Wall Street Journal. Hennessee's hedge fund index rose 2.5% for the month of January, less than the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average, which posted gains of 4.4% and 3.4%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 8% last month. Still, the advancement in January comes after a dismal 2011 for the hedge industry, which has been battered by swiftly changing sentiment on Europe's sovereign debt crisis and other macro concerns around the world.

Moore Capital Management, the New York firm founded by Louis Moore Bacon, invested $800m in a hedge fund begun last year by two of its former traders, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, writes Bloomberg. The investment allowed Stone Milliner Asset Management AG founders Jens-Peter Stein and Kornelius Klobucar to start trading last month with more than $1bn, said the people, who asked not to be named because the firms are private. Moore’s assets are in a managed account, the people said.

A judge with a reputation for being tough on white-collar crime was assigned Tuesday to preside over a $78m insider trading case that rivals the size of the biggest case of its kind ever brought in Manhattan, reports the Wall Street Journal. US District Judge Richard Sullivan took over the case after an indictment was returned against four financial industry professionals, including a hedge fund co-founder, Anthony Chiasson. Three others have already pleaded guilty to charges in the case and are cooperating.

Phil Falcone’s hedge fund, which tumbled by almost half last year because of a troubled wireless venture, is paying a 15% interest rate for a $190m loan, almost triple what the riskiest corporate borrowers pay, said two people with knowledge of the loan, writes Bloomberg. The billionaire borrowed the money from Jefferies Group Inc. after paying off a $400m loan from UBS AG on 30 January.

Before 2008, the one thing The Children’s Investment Fund was not known for was its quietude, according to the FT. The world largest activist hedge fund by assets under management – $10bn at its peak – had, since its inception in 2003, also become one of the world’s most successful. TCI returned, on average, just over 40% annually to its investors thanks to its knack of picking, and winning, very public fights with some of the corporate world’s biggest names.

PEOPLE MOVES
As it mulls a bid for hedge fund administrator GlobeOp Financial Services, SS&C Technologies has added a former hedge fund services executive to its own top ranks, writes FinAlternatives. Punit Satsangi was named managing director of business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Satsangi joins from JPMorgan Chase, where he most recently served as head of EMEA complex deal management. But prior to taking up that role, he was executive director of JP Morgan Worldwide Security Hedge Fund Services.