Cantab closes hedge fund as EU rules curb commodity investing (Reuters)
Cantab Capital Partners is to close a retail investor-friendly version of its flagship hedge fund because of new European guidelines regulating investment in commodities, underlining the growing difficulty firms face in trading metals, grains and oil. Cantab, which manages $5.5 billion in assets, said it is closing its CCP Quantitative UCITS Fund at the end of June in response to guidelines from Europe’s financial watchdog that make it tougher for “UCITS” funds to invest in commodity indexes. A UCITS (Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) wrapper acts as a ‘passport’ enabling firms to freely sell regulated investment funds across the European Union to all types of investors, including retail.
Hedge Funds Rush Into Debt Trading With $108B as Banks Trim Risk (Businessweek)
Hedge funds using debt-trading strategies honed on Wall Street are expanding at a record pace as they profit from risks big banks are no longer taking. BlueCrest Capital Management LLP doubled its New York staff in the two years through December, while Pine River Capital Management LP increased its global workforce by one-third in 2012. Hedge-fund firms are hiring from companies such as Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Barclays Plc (BARC) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) as their credit funds have attracted $108 billion since 2009, data compiled by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. show.
SAC Gains While Greenlight Drops as Hedge Funds Rise 0.5% (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds returned 0.5 percent in April, lagging behind global stock markets for the sixth straight month. Firms including SAC Capital Advisors LP and Jana Partners LLC posted gains, while Renaissance Technologies LLC and Greenlight Capital Inc. funds declined. Long-short equity, macro hedge funds and multistrategy managers rose. Hedge funds trailed equities as managers took few risks, said Donald Motschwiller, chief executive officer at Discovery Capital Management LLC, a New York-based firm that runs a fund of separately managed accounts. Global stocks gained 2.9 percent, including dividends, as new U.S. home sales climbed and earnings from The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) beat analysts’ estimates. Equities returned 9.7 percent this year through last month, compared with hedge funds’ advance of 3.2 percent.
Japanese hedge funds lead Asian sector to 5-year high (The Asset)
Total Asia-focussed hedge fund capital increased by +7.6% in Q1 2013 to nearly US$95 billion, reaching the highest level since Asian hedge fund capital peaked in 2007, according to the latest HFR Asian Hedge Fund Industry Report. Investors allocated over US$1.3 billion in net new capital to Asian hedge funds in Q1 2013, the largest quarterly inflow since Q3 2011, as the total number of Asian hedge funds increased to more than 1,150. The HFRX Japan Index posted a gain of +11.7% for the quarter, the strongest quarterly gain since Q4 2005, exceeding the Q1 2013 gain of the S&P 500, although trailing the torrid gain of over +19.0% for the Nikkei 225.
Commodity hedge funds suffer weak first quarter (Financial Times)
The commodities hedge fund industry is bleeding money. The average fund lost 0.8 per cent in the first quarter of the year, according to a closely watched index compiled by brokerage Newedge. The losses come after commodities hedge funds lost 3.7 per cent in 2012, the biggest decline in more than a decade, according to the Newedge Commodity Trading Index. The average commodities hedge fund already lost 1.4 per cent in 2011, a significant change from the typical gains of 20-40 per cent per year in 2000-2008.
