James Mackintosh
The hot money speaks on emerging markets
Efforts by emerging market governments and central banks to shut out hot money to protect their economies are doomed to fail – or so says the hot money.
Bart Turtelboom and Karim Abdel-Motaal, who run the emerging markets hedge fund at GLG,
Distress delays Devonshire’s distressed debt debut
There’s been a lot of irony in the credit crunch, from Gordon Brown’s efforts to borrow our way out of a debt problem to the attempts to force banks to lend while increasing their capital requirements.
Third Point turns to gold
Dan Loeb finally has a target who can’t argue back. The manager of Third Point, the New York hedge fund, and writer of famously rude letters to corporate management he doesn’t like, has plonked a big chunk of his $1.48bn offshore fund into gold,
Wishful thinking at the banks
The marketing departments at troubled banks obviously have their fingers crossed that they will still have a job – and are letting their hopes filter through into their copywriting.
Consider these pieces of junk mail,
Pesto vs. McFall
This should make for fun TV: Robert Peston is to face off against John McFall, Labour chairman of the Treasury select committee, next month.
The Treasury select committee raised the question of whether journalists should be muzzled to protect financial stability when it started its inquiry last month into the causes of the banking crisis.
BlueGold coins it
It is always hard to be sure who has the best-performing hedge fund, but London’s BlueGold looks like it could be the winner for last year.
With a rise of 210 per cent, tripling investors’ money, the oil and commodities specialist set up in February soared ahead of rivals – most of whom lost money.
Madoff to Holland: that’s €51-€60 each please
The Madoff loss by the nationalised Dutch arm of Fortis could be €850m-€1n, Fortis Bank Nederland said yesterday.
The bank had been lending to funds which invested with Madoff, the bank said in a statement.
Harbinger of (a bit more) doom
Harbinger monthly losses carried on in November, even though the mega New York hedge fund – owned by Birmingham, Alabama-based Harbert Management Corp – had switched to be net short the market.
Harbinger dropped 6.8 per cent in November,
Even the best hedge funds need your money
Hedge funds and mutual funds that have been closed to new money for years are reopening as chronic redemptions leave them with less capital than they would like.
Corazon, a $1bn Guernsey-based investor in hedge funds,
Over the hedge and into government
Hedge funds haven’t had much luck getting their message across to the public or the government over the past few weeks, being labelled “bank robbers” by an archbishop, no less.
Their lobbying power at the heart of government has taken a turn for the better thanks to the latest reshuffle,
Hedgie in a hole – should TCI’s Amin have simply stopped digging?
For those who continue to believe that politicians might be expected to understand a bit about finance, here are some extracts from the appearance of a hedge fund The Childrens Investment fund in front of Corrine Brown in the House of Representatives.
SEC probes Third Point
Aggressive activist Dan Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over talks its managers regularly have with rivals at other funds.
According to Third Point’s quarterly letter to investors last month,
Harbinger of (a bit of) doom
Harbinger Capital Partners’ heavy July losses have carried on into August, with the aggressive New York hedge fund – run by superstar Phil Falcone – having given back almost two-thirds of the profit it made this year in just six weeks.
China’s new Heritage
The Chinese sure know how to pick ‘em. After China Investment Corp’s outstanding investments in Blackstone (-52% since IPO last year) and Morgan Stanley (bonds originally set to convert at $48-$57 a share,
Hedging Inmarsat
Inmarsat is well known to wealthy hedge fund managers: its Fleetphone is a popular yachting accessory allowing them to connect their laptops up to track stock prices at sea.
Perhaps that is why the putative bid for London-listed Inmarsat by Harbinger Capital,
Endeavour to try harder
Endeavour Capital is linking up with Barclays in an effort by the stricken hedge fund to survive by launching a new fund.
Lips are sealed at the bank and the London hedge fund about who will put cash in.
Schwarzman’s unfair values
So Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire boss of private equity group Blackstone, thinks fair value accounting is partly to blame for the credit crunch.
The view is worth considering, although it isn’t uncontroversial.
How to get Goldman hedge money
The tough terms Goldman Sachs demands of hedge fund managers before it is willing to buy a stake are made clear in the details of an investment in Trafalgar Asset Managers, a $2.8bn London fund.
Goldman’s $1bn Petershill fund,
Muppets on tour
Whatever the message John Thain wanted to put out with his first quarter results, it didn’t involve muppets. Unfortunately someone in Merrill Lynch’s IT department – perhaps one of the 4,000 staffers facing the axe – thought the day Mr Thain announced a $1.97bn Q1 loss was the day to put the muppets on the front page of the company’s web site.
Goldman buys another hedge fund stake
With hedge funds blowing up every couple of days it takes brave buyers to invest in hedge fund managers.
But Goldman Sachs, through its Petershill private equity fund, has become the third this week to buy a stake in a hedge fund house,
Drake, duck or turkey?
Investors in Drake Management’s three hedge funds face a tough decision after the $12bn New York manager warned it was considering liquidating the funds.
Do they think Anthony Faillace, the much-feted former Pimco manager,
Another hedge collapse in Focus
Focus Capital has sold its entire portfolio of Swiss mid-cap stocks after the New York hedge fund – which had $1bn at the start of this month – missed margin calls and was forced to sell by its two biggest banks.
Having a Lahde — the 410 per cent man
Hedge fund managers and big egos generally go together, but Andrew Lahde manages a new high with his latest investor letter, in which he says his Lahde Capital “has the top-rated performance for all hedge funds in the universe” for the year to August.
Tortuous losses for Basis
Basis Capital’s failed Yield Alpha fund fell 27 per cent in June before the Australian hedge fund missed margin calls on bank loans and went into liquidation, it told investors on Friday.
The previously $700m fund,
Who is Homm?
Florian Homm’s highly public exit from Absolute Capital Management was executed in the style with which he managed the hedge funds at the company he co-founded: he issued a press release, copying it to the board.Mr Homm is a larger-than-life version of the hedge fund archetype,
Last hurrah from Citi’s Tribeca
Tribeca, the struggling in-house hedge fund guillotined by Citi this month, managed to thumb its nose at its successor even as it faced the chop.
In August, its final month of operation, the doomed Tribeca lost less than half as much as Old Lane,