Hedge Funds 01 (Aug 08 - Nov 15)

[winston]

Principia plans $750 mln Asia hedge fund launch - sources By Nishant Kumar

HONG KONG, May 27 (Reuters) - Principia Capital Advisors is set to launch a $750 million-plus Asia hedge fund under three strategies later in the summer, three sources familiar with the matter said, making it the second biggest hedge fund start-up in the region so far in 2011.

Principia, named after a famous book by the 16th century French philosopher and writer Rene Descartes, is starting with commodity trading advisers or CTA, a hedge fund strategy betting on long-running trends in markets, credit and equity strategies, the sources said.

PCA will have offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, two of the sources said.

PCA could not be reached for comment. Sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to comment.


Source: Reuters

[winston]

Dont be too hard on yourself. Even the "experts" cant do it right ...

EXCLUSIVE-Ex-Goldman trader's Japan fund slumps 44 pct in March, investors flee By Nishant Kumar

HONG KONG, May 31 (Reuters) - Gaia Capital Management's Japan focused hedge fund, started by former Goldman Sachs trader Kenichiro Nishi, has shed most of its roughly $150 million in assets following redemptions triggered by a stunning 44.34 percent loss in March, according to a letter to investors obtained by Reuters.

Assets in the GAIA J-Multi Strategy Fund fell to $32.65 million through the end of April from $92.06 million at the end of March after sharp portfolio losses, as a devastating earthquake in northeast Japan triggered panic selling and forced the fund to unwind all its positions.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei share index <.N225> plunged 8.2 percent during the month, including a 16 percent tumble between March 14 and 15 following the March 11 earthquake.

The fund suffered major losses in gamma and volatility strategy in March, the investor letter showed.

The fund managed more than $150 million before the earthquake, five sources told Reuters.

Following "the earthquake and the deterioration of the situation at the nuclear power plant that led to radiation leaks, both the index and volatility broke sharply out of their expected ranges on the 14th and 15th," Gaia Capital wrote to investors in March.

"As a result, the fund incurred heavy losses that were beyond our expectations and we had to unwind all positions in the portfolio," it said.

The fund declined to comment after several attempts by Reuters to seek a response. A Reuters reporter visited the fund's office in Tokyo in March but Nishi representatives declined to discuss the fund's performance. E-mails to Gaia Capital bounced back.

Source: Reuters

[winston]

Asian hedge funds cut back on risk-taking post crisis - study

SINGAPORE: Hedge funds investing in Asian markets are taking less risk and allocating more capital to more liquid assets in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 financial crisis, a Singapore-based research institute said on Wednesday.

"Asia-focused hedge funds have broadly trimmed risk exposures post-crisis. They have reduced their exposure to small stocks relative to large stocks, scaled back their loadings on high-yield corporate bonds... and pared their allocation to the Japanese equity markets," according to a study by BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre at the Singapore Management University (SMU).

"At the same time, however, they are now more exposed to Asian equity markets," said the study by Melvyn Teo, a professor of finance at SMU.

Teo's study used information from fund trackers Eurekahedge and AsiaHedge and compared data from the pre-crisis period of January 2000 to September 2008 to the post-crisis period from October 2008 to April 2011.

Asian hedge funds are beginning to find favour with investors after being shunned in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

According to AsiaHedge, newly set-up hedge funds in Asia raised $2.86 billion in the first half of this year, a big jump from $1.1 billion raised in the second half of 2010, with multi-strategy fund attracting two-thirds of the inflow.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 296504.cms

[winston]

Hedge Funds Most Bearish Since 2009 By Nikolaj Gammeltoft

Bets global stocks will fall have surged at hedge funds to the highest level since July 2009 as the economic slowdown and European debt crisis spur the biggest losses in almost three years.

An index of hedge fund assets from International Strategy & Investment Group dropped to 45.8 on Aug. 16, showing the most short selling in two years, down from a 2011 high of 54.2 in February. The research company and broker-dealer surveys 35 firms with about $84 billion under management every week.

Professional investors are pessimistic after the MSCI All- Country World Index dropped 15 percent since July 22 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index had record swings. Equities fell yesterday after Lars Frisell, the chief economist at Sweden’s financial regulator, said it won’t take much to freeze interbank lending and data showed the U.S. economy is slowing.

The index from ISI, based in New York, tracks hedge-fund investments on a zero through 100 scale. Readings of zero show “maximum” short selling, the sale of equities with the hope of profiting by buying them at lower prices later, while 100 means “maximum” bullish bets. At 50, hedge funds are deploying a “normal” allocation to short and long investments.

The ratio of bullish to bearish investments in U.S. equities has dropped to 11.7 from this year’s peak of 13.2 in May, according to New York-based Data Explorers, which provides research on short sales and stock lending. The measure sank to 6.5 in September 2008 after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy spurred the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Getting Nervous

“Hedge funds are bringing down their bullish investments,” Chris Baggini, who manages the long-short Turner Titan Fund at Berwyn, Pennsylvania-based Turner Investment Partners Inc., said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees about $18 billion. “When you are nervous you reduce your long position first, and when you’ve figured out the direction of the market, then you can start to beef up the short side.”

Profit Forecasts

Profit at S&P 500 companies is forecast to rise 17 percent to $99.08 a share in 2011 and 14 percent to $112.90 in 2012, according to average analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

“The bear case is really about European banks, European sovereign debt and then contagion effects to the United States.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-1 ... t-15-.html

[winston]

TOL:-

So how's the redemption as of Aug 15, for October 1st redemption ?

[winston]

Ex-Goldman Traders’ Hedge Fund Shuts in Sydney as Macro Strategy Falters By Jacob Greber

Global Trading Strategies, a Sydney- based hedge fund founded by three former Goldman Sachs JBWere Pty. traders, has returned investors their money after its strategy of betting on global economic trends faltered.

The fund, which peaked at $1.2 billion in 2008 after starting in 2005, finished trading July 31 after more than a year of negative returns, Chief Operating Officer Murray Chatfield said in a telephone interview yesterday. Global Trading employed 24 people at its peak, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-1 ... lters.html

[winston]

TOL:-

How's the redemption at the hedge funds during this two month plunge ?

[winston]

Singapore's Komodo shuts global macro hedge fund

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Singapore-based hedge fund Komodo Capital Management Pte Ltd, is liquidating its flagship global macro fund KC Asia, its founder and chief investment office Angus Cameron told Reuters on Tuesday.

Cameron, who founded the firm in 2006, said the fund had returned money to investors and was moving operations to Australia for "personal reasons".

Komodo Capital managed about $40 million before it started returning money to investors. In 2008, it managed $120 million.

The hedge fund manager, who earlier worked at Millennium Capital Management and Bank of America , said he hoped to start managing money again for clients from mid-2012.

"I will continue to manage my own money which I have been doing since I started the fund, and I will be managing money on a number of platforms and also for several clients," Cameron said.

Source: Reuters

[winston]

Hedge Fund 3 Degrees Asked to Close by Singapore Regulators on Asset Claim By Andrea Tan

3 Degrees Asset Management, a hedge fund which helps manage $215 million, was asked by Singapore’s central bank to shutter its operations following allegations that founder Moe Ibrahim diverted assets.

3 Degrees is trying to overturn a decision by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Finance Minister to withdraw its exempt fund manager status effective Nov. 9 and ask it to wind down, according to a lawsuit filed with the Singapore High Court this month. A closed hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20.

The MAS probed the Singapore-based manager after one of its funds sued Indonesian-born Agus Anwar in 2008 to recover at least $40 million in debt.

Anwar then claimed that Ibrahim diverted $6.7 million from the fund to 3 Degrees, which is wholly owned by Ibrahim. 3 Degrees, which focuses on distressed debt, denied the allegations in its lawsuit.

Even if there was such a transaction, it was neither “illegal or improper,” 3 Degrees said in its court filings. The hedge fund manager said a fine would have been an appropriate punishment.

Ibrahim declined to comment on the lawsuit or the status of 3 Degrees on Oct. 17. The fund has also asked the court to prevent the announcement of the regulator’s decision, according to the lawsuit.

Rising Stars

Ibrahim was named one of the 20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds by trade publication Institutional Investor in 2007.

“It is inappropriate for MAS to comment on this matter at this point in time,” the Monetary Authority said in an e-mail yesterday.

The capital markets regulator decided that 3 Degrees and Ibrahim weren’t fit and proper persons to be in the regulated activity of fund management, according to the hedge fund’s lawsuit. The Finance Minister affirmed the decision to withdraw the fund’s exempt status.

Attempts by Bloomberg News to reach Anwar weren’t successful.

Fund managers with fewer than 30 qualified investors are exempted from licensing and business conduct requirements under Singapore’s Securities and Futures Act. 3 Degrees has stopped accepting new clients, according to the lawsuit.

Allowing the withdrawal of 3 Degrees’ exempt status would leave the fund with no bargaining power to liquidate assets and would “create a bad precedent for the future,” it said in court papers.

3 Degrees called the decision “draconian” and said it was based on “illogical, irrational and unreasonable” statements and assumptions, according to its lawsuit.

“Other hedge fund managers would face the same risk and may become over-cautious for fear of having their own exemptions withdrawn,” Ibrahim said in the filings.

“The authority would appear to be sending out a signal that all it takes are strong allegations from a desperate, debt- ridden party without conclusive evidence to corroborate these allegations or a disgruntled employee for a withdrawal of an exemption or license to occur,” he said.

The case is 3 Degrees Asset Management Pte v Attorney General and Monetary Authority of Singapore OS874/2011 in the Singapore High Court.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-1 ... claim.html

[kennynah]

sounds grand...in simplistic term... it's just a debt collection house...