Brevan Howard Aims for ‘More Satisfactory’ 2014 (Barrons)
Alan Howard of storied hedge-fund firm Brevan Howard calls the 2013 performance of Brevan Howard Master Fund Limited’s class-A shares “somewhat disappointing” in an investor letter, pledging to do better this year. The fund finished 2013 with an estimated 2.59% gain, according to the December shareholder report for BH Macro Limited: During the year, the Fund’s performance was predominantly driven by three major themes. The first theme was long the “Japan Trade”, namely the view that under Prime Minister Abe’s stewardship policymakers in Japan were finally committed to taking extraordinary measures in order to reflate their economy…
Bill Ackman’s Campaign Against Herbalife Gathers Steam In January (Forbes)
Billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman’s relentless short campaign against Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) -13.52%got a boost on Thursday after Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey fired off letters pushing the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the business practices of the diet shake seller. Shares of Herbalife tumbled by more than 13% Thursday morning, trading below the $64 mark. The stock has had a tough January and also been hurt by recent news that Chinese regulators are investigating the business practices of another high-flying multi-level marketing company, Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:NUS).
French seeder earmarks €30m for Paris hedge fund (eFinancialNews)
NewAlpha Asset Management’s Emergence platform is investing €30 million in Rcube Asset Management’s Rcube Global Macro Ucits fund, which is launching next week, according to a statement from NewAlpha. Emergence was created in 2012 by Finance Innovation, with the support of the Association Française de la Gestion, which is the trade body for the French asset management industry, and Paris Europlace. NewAlpha runs the fund selection process for the seeding platform, which seeks to encourage managers to set up shop in France. The first seeding fund raised more than $200 million from nine large institutional investors. Rcube is its fourth seed deal from 120 applicants.
Iceland Won’t Talk With Banks’ Hedge Fund Creditors (Finalternatives)
Iceland’s government is disclaiming any responsibility for striking a deal with creditors of banks that went under during the financial crisis. The country’s government will not meet with the hedge funds and others holding the banks’ debt, Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson. He said that the government’s only role is to determine whether the deal will allow the country to lift currency controls it imposed in 2008. “It seems they’ve been waiting to see whether the government would somehow step into the process,” Gunnlaugsson said. “But this is not a project for the government. The only role of the government here is to assess whether they come up with a solution which allows for the lifting of currency controls.”
Accused Hedge Fund Fraudster Arrested In Colombia, Indicted In N.Y. (Finalternatives)
A U.S. Naval Academy graduate defrauded his fellow midshipman as part of a $1.2 million hedge fund fraud, prosecutors said this week. Bryan Caisse was arrested on Saturday at an airport in Bogotá, Colombia. Prosecutors said he fled the country on a one-way ticket to Colombia after police searched his Manhattan apartment in October; Caisse’s lawyer said he was in the country to consult on a resort project. Caisse pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to 10 counts of grand larceny and one of scheme to defraud in Manhattan state court. Prosecutors said he collected money from friends and former classmates for a hedge fund, but used the money to cover personal expenses, as well as to make Ponzi-style payments to investors.
Investor requests to exit hedge funds fall in January (Reuters)
Hedge fund investors withdrawal requests in January were for a lower amount than last month, new data showed on Wednesday, as more clients stuck with their managers to navigate financial markets in the coming year. The SS&C (SSNC.O) GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator, a monthly snapshot of hedge fund clients giving notice to withdraw their cash, expressed as a percentage of assets under administration, fell to 2.67 percent from 5.9 percent in December. That was the lowest reading since January last year, when it measured 2.04 percent.
PWC: China business activity set for record year (CNBC)
Few hedge funds applying for AIFMD authorisation (Risk)
Research from BNY Mellon has found that, with less than six months to go until full implementation of the alternative investment fund managers directive (AIFMD) on July 22, fewer than a fifth of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) have submitted an application to their local regulator for authorisation to continue managing funds affected by the directive. The findings will come as little surprise to a hedge fund industry left scratching its collective head over the requirements in the directive. Indeed, in October more than two-thirds of respondents to an Alternative Investment Management Association survey said they needed outside help with AIFMD authorisation.
Bottleneck in buy-side reporting feared (Risk)
With the deadline for reporting derivatives trades for some hedge funds only a matter of weeks away under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (Emir), there are serious concerns that hedge funds have taken too long to decide whether to delegate reporting and this will be compounded by the ability of trade repositories to onboard new clients in time. Six trade repositories are currently registered in Europe. Spain-based Regis-TR launched its system in January 2013 which has been tested by nearly 1,000 entities of which about 10% are hedge funds. David Retana, managing director of Regis-TR, says: “We are experiencing that final rush. We are seeing many small entities still struggling to define who is going to report the data. They are still going through the decision-making process of deciding if they are going to report or delegate.”
As the West Dries Up, This Hedge-Fund Pioneer Stands to Make a Killing (MotherJones)
Most writings on climate are tedious or polemical. Windfall, journalist McKenzie Funk’s fabulous new book on the business of climate change, is neither. Funk’s reporting takes him all over the globe. We meet investors who are buying up land in Africa and water rights in Australia and the American West, and are wagering hundreds of millions of dollars that climate-related drought and food shortages will earn them a fortune. Funk visits Greenland secessionists who imagine the mineral wealth made accessible by a thawing tundra will bankroll their cause, as well as Israeli snow makers, Dutch seawall developers, geoengineering patent trolls, private firefighters, Big Oil scenario planners, and the scientists deploying mutant mosquitos against dengue fever—a horrific tropical disease that’s crept into Florida of late.
South African pensions now allowed to invest 10% in hedge funds and up to 30% in international equities (Opalesque)
South Africa’s market regulator, the Financial Services Board recently extended the limit in of the amount of money pension funds can invest in hedge funds, thus creating more opportunities in the local hedge funds space. Ian Hamilton, head of a leading hedge fund administrator in Africa, the IDS Group, said during the latest Opalesque South Africa Roundtable that South Africa’s regulations for pension funds, particularly as to how much these institutional investors’ could invest in alternative investment and international equities, had been revised over the last few years.
Icahn Is Wrong on Apple and Right on eBay (DailyFinance)
Weekly jobless claims rose to 326,000 last week, in line with economists’ estimate in a Reuters poll. Stocks opened lower this morning, with the S&P 500 and the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) down % and down %, respectively, at a.m. EST. Legendary investor Carl Icahn has been busy lately, adding to his position of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), while lambasting management. Yesterday, he tweeted:… While Icahn has dropped his initial proposal for a $150 billion share buyback, he continues to push for Apple to execute an immediate $50 billion buyback. However, the idea is impracticable and the company is already engaged in a (multiyear) $100 billion capital return operation through buybacks and dividends — the largest such operation in corporate history.
George Soros, atheist, funds American youth evangelical trips to Israel (Examiner)
Despite being a known atheist, billionaire George Soros has taken quite an interest in Christian Evangelicals, as revealed yesterday on media mogul Glenn Beck’s radio show by Pastor John Hagee, founder and national chairman of Christians United for Israel. In introducing Hagee, Beck said that Hagee, “…is bringing to our attention a new George Soros plan banded by the Open Society Institute to go into our evangelical churches and convince the youth that Israel is the problem in the Middle East. It is highly coordinated and, well, evil.”
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