London Hedge Fund’s 17 Partners Share £258m Windfall (The Guardian)
One of London’s most successful hedge funds has declared profits of £258m, delivering a multimillion-pound windfall to its 17 partners. Marshall Wace’s limited liability partnership reported turnover of £803m in the year ending in February 2019, a 24% increase compared with the £647m it made in 2018, according to the latest accounts. Marshall Wace was founded in 1997 by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace. Marshall and Wace are both worth about £590m, according to the Sunday Times.
Citadel’s Commodities Hedge Fund Business Up $1 billion – Sources (Invezz.com)
Citadel’s commodities business value is up at least $1 billion this year, this is according to three sources who spoke to Reuters. The gain is expected to boost the hedge fund’s performance even as it looks to maintain its already-great industry reputation. According to its website, Citadel works relentlessly to discover and capture new opportunities. As we speak, the company is said to be managing about $30 billion worth of portfolio for its retail and institutional investors. Two sources said that its main profits are credited to the strong performance in European natural gas and power trading.
The Death of Hedge Funds-When We Need Them Most? (MoneyShow.com)
With the latest news of Louis Bacon’s closing down his hedge funds, we are seeing further evidence of the difficulties hedge funds have been having during recent years. But, if you think about the counter-intuitive nature of this trend, it is actually quite interesting. Let me take a step back and walk you through what I am thinking. For those that follow the market, you know that as prices go up, more and more people want to buy into the market. In other words, higher prices beget higher prices, and this is how the herding principle drives stock markets to their all-time highs.
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Hedge Funds Might Blow a $4.4 Billion Light Bulb Deal (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds have got AMS AG over a barrel. The Austrian sensor maker this week made a desperate-sounding appeal to shareholders in Osram Licht AG to accept its 4 billion-euro ($4.4 billion) offer for the German lighting group, amid signs that merger arbitrage investors with a big block of Osram shares might not be ready to sell all of their stock. There are no easy options for AMS, and the market knows it. The stand-off began in September when AMS first made the offer and subsequently mopped up a 20% Osram stake to see off a possible counterbid from private equity. But AMS has just replaced one enemy with another. Existing Osram shareholders sold and hedge funds probably control a sizeable stake now.
Hedge Fund Managers Up 0.40 per cent in October Following a Flat Q3, Says Eurekahedge (Hedge Week)
Hedge fund managers kicked off the fourth quarter on a positive note following a flat Q3, with the equal-weighted index up 0.40 per cent and the asset-weighted index up 0.82 per cent in October, according to data released by Eurekahedge. The resumption of the US-China trade talks provided support for global equity and bond markets throughout the month. Returns were positive across major regions and strategies over the first ten months of the year. Hedge fund launch activities continued to lag behind fund closures, as the global hedge fund industry is on track to record a fourth consecutive year of net population decline. 502 launches and 548 closures have been recorded as of October 2019 year-to-date.
50 South Capital & Preqin Highlight Emerging Manager Outperformance in a New Report (Opalesque.com)
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York for New Managers: New data from Preqin and 50 South Capital, the investment arm of Northern Trust, shows that emerging managers are outperforming established managers by almost 4% annually. The outperformance holds across strategies, indicating that investors are getting a premium for getting in early. Opalesque New Managers spoke with Director of Research for 50 South Capital’s Hedge Fund Investment Team about the results of the study and about how allocators are taking a second look at early-stage funds. “As a team, we only invest in emerging managers and we think there are a lot of reasons why you should. The study shows definitively that new managers consistently outperform more established funds,” Frede said.
Indian Hedge Funds Return 0.09% in October, Way Behind Asian Peers (Business-Standard.com)
The current economic slowdown may well have weighed on Indian hedge funds too. A hundred dollars invested in them at the beginning of the year would have yielded investors less than ten cents (dollar returns 0.09 per cent) by October-end. Investors in Asian hedge funds would have made a little over 6 dollars (dollar returns of 6.1 per cent), shows data from hedge fund tracker Eurekahedge. The Eurekahedge India Hedge Fund Index is made up of 17 funds with equal weights in the index. The Eurekahedge Asian Hedge Fund Index is similarly made up of 308 funds from across Asia. The Indian index had done marginally better than its Asian peers in 2018. The Asian index was down 13.39 per cent. The Indian index fell 12.83 per cent. India’s returns are also higher since inception in December 2003. It is up 178.4 per cent. It was 162.8 per cent for Asian funds.
Toshiba, Once a Hedge Fund Target, Seeks to Become One (Asia.Nikkei.com)
TOKYO — Toshiba, the Japanese conglomerate that two years ago was pressured by activist investors to restructure its operations in one of the country’s most controversial corporate sagas, may soon join the ranks of hedge funds by becoming one itself. The Japanese industrial major, which is known for its high-technology research, is obtaining a license to operate a hedge fund after it developed an ultrahigh speed machine that employs quantum computing and a proprietary algorithm to seek out arbitrage opportunities in foreign exchange trading.
