Hedge fund cuts fees for early exits
Financial Times - London, England, UK
Sushil Wadhwani has cut fees for early withdrawal from his hedge fund, one of last year's best performers, even as many of his bigger rivals have been stopping investors getting their money back.

Survivors to Benefit from " Hedge Fund Industry Life Cycle"
AllAboutAlpha.com - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Critics of hedge funds often argue that industry growth has had two negative side-effects: firstly, that less-skilled managers have been attracted to the sector and second, that the number of alpha-generating opportunities has not kept pace with asset inflows. Assuming these are true, then it could be argued that recent industry shrinkage may lead to new opportunities.

Economic View Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?
New York Times - United States
The financial crisis is a result of many bad decisions, but one of them hasn't received enough attention: the 1998 bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. If regulators had been less concerned with protecting the fund's creditors, our current problems might not be quite so bad.

A gentle helping hand for laid-off hedge fund managers
International Herald Tribune - France
When a certain kind of client calls Michael Madigan these days, the two of them speak in a local dialect that could be described as business euphemism. The client doesn't say he's been laid off; he says, "It looks like we'll be wrapping things up here." Madigan doesn't talk about how he can help that client start over; he talks to him about "business alternatives."

Hedge Fund Returns: The Worst Year Evah
Wall Street Journal Blogs - New York, NY, USA
That hedge funds have done poorly this year isn't exactly a surprise. Still, the end of the year brings data that quantify the damage. David Walker of Financial News files this dispatch on how hedge funds are poised for the worst year on record. Financial News is a Dow Jones publication and a contributor to Deal Journal.

Buyout, Hedge Funds Must Reorganize to Avoid Taxes, Lawyers Say
Bloomberg - USA
Tax lawyers are urging private- equity and hedge-fund clients to restructure their partnerships so they can sidestep the higher taxes that President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to impose on their profits.

Give backs and free management from some hedge funds
BloggingStocks - USA
Over the past few weeks you probably saw signs in retail stores touting "big sales" with discounts of 50% to 70& off. It seems that Wall Street has caught on to main street's way of doing business - discounts, discounts, discounts!

The Ponzi Scheme in Every Hedge Fund
TIME - USA
Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme continues to rock the financial world. But most hedge funds actually engage in similar — albeit legal — practices in the short run. In the past, these practices helped inflate their gains as well as hedge-fund managers' salaries and bonuses, but recently they helped bring about the failure of many major hedge funds. QVT holds a minority stake in Hirco, a real estate fund floated by the Mumbai-based developer Hiranandani group in the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of London.

Hedge Fund Hell: Banks Jockey For Position
TheStreet.com - USA
Battered hedge funds may still be the best-looking clients out there for banks, which face a dearth of opportunities to do deals in the dead M&A and IPO markets.

A Run On Hedge Funds: Redemption Strategies And Responses
FINalternatives - New York, NY, USA
The global economic crisis has had a significant impact on the hedge fund world. One of the most striking developments has been the rush by many investors to redeem their holdings.

How Do You Run a Hedge Fund? Colleges Are Showing How
New York Times - United States
Jaison Ipe was about two minutes into his introduction of Silk L.L.C., a mock hedge fund, when the questions started flying. Why was the fund focusing only on biotechnology and not specialty pharmaceuticals? What was behind its name? Who were the scientists the fund planned to work with?

Hedge Funds Meet Their Match
Barron's - USA
"The hedge fund is being questioned, and it's in danger," says Timothy Brog of Locksmith Capital Management, an activist New York hedge fund. Indeed, the industry is moving into survival mode for 2009 -- and many funds won't make it.

Hedge fund tools may see revival in Asia
Inquirer.net - Philippines
Global asset management firm Bank of New York Mellon sees the Asia-Pacific region leading the revival of hedge fund instruments, such as the so-called structured products, despite the stigma from the financial meltdown that started in the United States.

Breakingviews.com Change Ahead for Hedge Funds
New York Times - United States
Hedge funds have suffered a shakeout in 2008. The average hedge fund fell almost 20 percent, according to Hedge Fund Research. No fund has yet required a bailout. But many won't be around in the new year, and those that have survived are battered and bruised. Hedge fund managers must accept that the industry won't be quite the same again. Here are six changes they need to prepare for.

Success of managed futures is a mixed bag
Chicago Tribune - United States
Strong returns are a mixed blessing this year for investment funds that specialize in trading futures contracts. While the stock market plunged about 35 percent, managed futures funds posted annual returns of about 16 percent, according to the Credit Suisse Tremont Hedge Fund Index.

Funds of Funds Restructure to Cope With Madoff Exposure
Wall Street Journal Blogs - New York, NY, USA
David Walker, of Financial News, files this dispatch on how the Bernard Madoff scandal is changing the hedge-fund industry. Financial News is a Dow Jones publication and a contributor to Deal Journal.

Paulson Criticizes Hedge-Fund Managers for Limiting Withdrawals
Bloomberg - USA
- John Paulson, who runs the $36 billion hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co., has some harsh words for his peers and their tendency this year to block or curb clients' attempts to get their money back.

Hedge Funds Try To Cope
Forbes - NY, USA
The hedge fund industry has known little but growth, until now. At the 2008 Markets Media Global Financial Summit in New York City in December, Sam Hocking, co-global head of sales at the prime brokerage for BNP Paribas, speculated that up to 3,000 hedge funds that were trading in 2008 will be gone by the end of 2009. A recent report by Citigroup speculated that hedge fund assets could fall below $1 trillion.

Dubai leads in Islamic finance with new Shariah hedge fund index
Al-Bawaba - Amman, Jordan
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (DMCCA) and Shariah Capital, Inc. has announced the Dubai Shariah Hedge Fund Index, the first internationally-recognised index comprised exclusively of Shariah compliant hedge funds. The Dubai Shariah Hedge Fund Index will be calculated and reported by Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI), the global news and financial information organisation.

Hedge Funds Care President and Chairman to Ring the NASDAQ Stock Market Closing Bell
MSNBC - USA
John Budzyna, President and Chairman of Hedge Funds Care, will preside over the NASDAQ Stock Market Closing Bell to mark the 11th Annual New York Open Your Heart to the Children Benefit to be held at Cipriani 42nd Street on February 11, 2009.

UBP wants independent hedge fund administrators-FT
Reuters - USA
Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privee (UBP) may pull client money out of hedge funds unless they set up independent administrators

Bermuda Reinsurer Trims Hedge Fund Portfolio After Losses
FINalternatives - New York, NY, USA
Publicly-traded reinsurance firm Max Capital Group yesterday said it is scaling back its alternatives portfolio this year after suffering losses last year.

The Hedge Fund Game
Seeking Alpha - New York, NY, USA
Alfred and his family came over for dinner during the holidays. While I was in the kitchen getting tea and dessert ready, he came in to talk about the stock market and confide that a hedge fund he had invested in was closing down after a precipitous drop. "Now I know what they mean by survivorship bias," he said with a laugh.

End-of-an-era feel comes to London's hedge fund industry
Taipei Times , Taiwan
John Godden, chief executive officer at hedge fund consultancy IGS Group, is one of the rare figures in a secretive world to speak openly about the scale of the problems.

Light at the end of the Tunnel?
InvestmentNews - New York, NY, USA
By some measures, 2008 was one of the darkest periods in the history of the hedge fund industry. The immediate impact of the global financial meltdown could trim the overall size of the hedge fund industry 30% to 50% over the next several months, as investors flee and some strategies implode. The good news, however, is that once the dust finally settles, the wreckage of 2008 could lay the foundation for a promising and prosperous 2009.

Hedge Funds Will Be Ruined by Withdrawal Limits
Bloomberg - USA
Looking for a new definition of a hedge fund? How about an organization that takes 20 percent of the profits on your money in the good times, then refuses to let you have it back when the weather turns rough?

The 'Alternatives' Route Was Tough Going in 2008
Wall Street Journal - USA
Holdings such as real estate and commodities failed to smooth the ride for investors in a rocky year for stocks and bonds

FDIC sells IndyMac for $13.9 billion
Bizjournals.com - Charlotte, NC, USA
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that it signed a letter of intent to sell IndyMac Federal Bank to a private equity and hedge fund partnership.

Watch for these 7 mutual fund stories to make news in 2009
MarketWatch - USA
The big stories in the mutual fund world are always taking shape, but the new year gives us a chance to gaze into the crystal ball and try to read the future headlines.

Morrison & Foerster Hire NY Hedge Fund Lawyer Among Others
HedgeCo.net - West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Morrison & Foerster LLP is announced the election of ten new lawyers into their partnership, including specialists in venture capital, hedge funds, bio-technology, patents, corporate transactions and chapter 11 bankruptcy, among others. Their election is effective January 1, 2009.

The Bullish Case for Hedge Funds
TheStreet.com - USA
The one group of investors that's been vilified more than any other by the business press and government officials alike in 2008? Hedge fund managers.

General News | People and Funds | Launches| Hedge Fund Activism | Crime and Law

Clinton Foundation's Success Was Buoyed by Donors' Boom Years
New York Times - United States
Former President Bill Clinton may well be a stupendous fund-raiser, but he also benefited from a global boom in commodities and hedge funds that now seems to be over.

Cautionary story of fund manager's suicide
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
Eric Von der Porten seemed to have it all. He was an investment manager who had the courage to challenge Wall Street analysts. He won praise as a champion of local schools. He was admired for being smart, honorable, kind and even-headed. And he had a lovely home and family in the suburbs. But one day in early December, alone at home, he killed himself. He was 50 years old.

Och-Ziff lost 25pc of fund through redemptions in December
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
Och-Ziff, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and led by former Goldman Sachs star Daniel Och, said funds fell by $5.5bn to $22.1bn in just one month. The scale of the drop in assets indicates the severity of the blow dealt to hedge funds by investors scrambling to withdraw money at the end of the year.

Blackstone Restructures Its Hedge Fund Business
New York Times Blogs - New York, NY, USA
The Blackstone Group said Tuesday that it was reshaping its hedge fund operations, combining a distressed securities fund with its GSO unit while spinning off its long-short equities fund.

Vitol Cuts Ties With Hedge Fund Trader
FINalternatives - New York, NY, USA
Oil trading giant Vitol Group has parted ways with an employee who traded for its hedge fund after his trades raised eyebrows with regulators. Andrew Serotta was asked to leave the Dutch-Swiss firm, The Wall Street Journal reports.

GLG suspends dividends as hedge funds suffer
Times Online - UK
GLG Partners has capped one of the worst years for hedge funds with the suspension of its dividend payments and by giving no date for resuming them. GLG shares have fallen by 84 per cent in the past year.

Back to the drawing board for hedge fund boss's £38m dream
This is London - London, England, UK
Chris Rokos, A Hedge fund millionaire who has been battling to create one of London's most extravagant houses, has been sent back to the drawing board.

Hedge Fund Hell: Fortress Under Siege
TheStreet.com - USA
Some investors who paid $30 per share for Fortress Investment Group in early 2007 might be asking the following as its stock hovers near $1 today: Why didn't anyone ever advise me to sell?

Hedge fund JD Capital liquidates Tempo Master fund
Reuters - USA
Hedge fund firm JD Capital Management is liquidating a roughly $1 billion (684 million pound) fund that suffered heavy losses recently, the company's founder said on Monday.

Hedge fund JD Capital liquidates Tempo Master fund
Reuters - USA
Hedge fund firm JD Capital Management LLC is liquidating a roughly $1 billion fund that suffered heavy losses recently, the company's founder said on Monday.

Hedge Funds Ivy's Davies joins Ramius Fund of Funds Group
MarketWatch - USA
Stuart Davies was managing director and global head of investments at Ivy, a hedge fund of funds unit of Bank of New York Mellon. He joins Ramius as a managing director, CIO and will also be a member of the Fund of Funds Group's Investment Management Committee.

Renaissance Waives Fees on Fund That Gave Up 12%
Wall Street Journal - USA
A multibillion-dollar hedge fund run by Renaissance Technologies LLC's James Simons has waived all its management fees for 2009, a rare move suggesting fund managers' pay will come under greater pressure in the year ahead.

Greenlight Capital Re: Strong Downside Protection Due to Einhorn's ...
Seeking Alpha - New York, NY, USA
An investment in Greenlight Capital Re (GLRE) should outperform the market in times both good and bad, due to David Einhorn's superior investment skill and Greenlight's strategy of selling stocks short in addition to buying them. We estimate fair value at $18-24 per share, based on the analysis presented in this report.

Blackstone dumps some hedge funds
BloggingStocks - USA
Blackstone announced that it is liquidating two hedge funds: the Blackstone Distressed Securities fund and Kailix Advisors (an equity long-short vehicle), which will be spun off to a management group.

Cerberus Hedge Fund Caps Withdrawals After Loss
HedgeCo.net - West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Stephen Feinberg's Cerberus Capital Management has followed in the footsteps of many faltering hedge funds this year, limiting client redemptions in one of its funds after investors moved to withdrawal 16.5 percent of their capital, according to a recent letter to investors.

Falcone's Partners Master Fund Said to Limit Client Withdrawals
Bloomberg - USA
Harbinger Capital Partners, the investment firm run by Philip Falcone, will limit year-end withdrawals from its biggest hedge fund to 60 percent to 70 percent of the $3.5 billion requested by clients, according to people familiar with the matter

High-flying hedge fund manager forced to lay off 15% staff
Wealth Bulletin - London, England, UK
Glenview Capital, run by one-time hedge-fund highflier Larry "L-Train" Robbins, has laid off a dozen of its 85-member staff as it struggles with performance losses and a 50% drop in assets this year, it has emerged, according to a report in New York Post

Wait Till Next Year
Barron's - USA
ALJ Capital finds payoff potential in the deepest distressed debt.

Cuban's Sports Gambling Hedge Fund, Revisited
CNBC - Englewood Cliffs, USA
More than four years ago, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that if he started any hedge fund, it would be a sports gambling hedge fund.

Lafayette looks at hedge fund for gas
WLFI.com - West Lafayette, IN, USA
Lafayette City could also join a hedge fund to reduce gas costs in the new year. The city council will look into joining Indianapolis and other Indiana cities in a motor vehicle fuel fund. The alliance would allow cities to purchase gas for a lower price.

BTIM took $11m fee from frozen hedge fund
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
BT Investment Management received an $11 million management fee from its troubled global return fund last year even though it outsources the fund's investment decisions to a secretive US firm with links to the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.

BlueGold, Clive Capital Beat Most Hedge Funds in Commodity Rout
Bloomberg - USA
The biggest-ever decline in commodities turned Pierre Andurand and Chris Levett into this year's heroes for investors. Andurand's $1.1 billion BlueGold Capital Management LLP hedge fund in London almost tripled between its February debut and November by betting on higher oil prices in the first half of 2008 and then reversing the strategy.

UK hedge fund GAM tightens redemption controls
Reuters - USA
British fund manager GAM on Wednesday said it had moved to restrict investor redemptions to once a quarter rather than once a month in its funds of hedge funds amid turmoil in the industry.

Magnetar Said to Limit Fund Withdrawals After Losses
Bloomberg - USA
Magnetar Capital LLC, the $8 billion hedge-fund firm co-run by former Citadel Investment Group LLC trader Alec Litowitz, limited withdrawals from its biggest fund after it lost 30 percent this year through November, according to two people familiar with the fund.

General News | People and Funds | Launches| Hedge Fund Activism | Crime and Law

Pellegrini, Paulson Ex-Manager, to Avoid Equity Markets in 2009
Bloomberg - USA
Paolo Pellegrini, the former Paulson & Co. hedge-fund manager who helped make more than $3 billion with bets on a U.S. housing crash, said his new fund will avoid equity markets after last year's rout. Pellegrini, 52, a manager of Paulson's credit-opportunities funds, left on Dec. 31 in an "amicable" separation to start a new fund called PSQR LLC.

Lehman Vet Preps $100M Market Neutral Hedge Fund
FINalternatives - New York, NY, USA
Andrew Ellner, the former co-head of Global Equity Derivatives at Lehman Brothers, is prepping the LightBox Master Fund, a market neutral hedge fund, to launch sometime in January.

London Shop Preps Carbon Hedge Fund
FINalternatives - New York, NY, USA
London-based CF Partners is currently prepping a carbon hedge fund to launch early next year with a Euro50 million (US$72 million).

General News | People and Funds | Launches| Hedge Fund Activism | Crime and Law

Tate & Lyle hurt by rumours of hedge fund share sale
Financial Times - London, England, UK
The London market's new year bounce continued into a fifth session, but Tate & Lyle missed the trend. Tate lost 8.5 per cent to 386.25p amid speculation that Harbinger, its second-biggest shareholder, might have to sell to meet redemptions.

Oklahoma hedge fund increases its stake in Monaco Coach
The Register-Guard - Eugene, OR, USA
A Tulsa, Okla., hedge fund has upped its stake in Monaco Coach Corp. and now controls nearly 14 percent of the Coburg recreational vehicle maker.

Ackman's Hedge Fund for Target Stake Fell 68% in 2008
Bloomberg - USA
William Ackman's hedge fund that invests in Target Corp. fell 68 percent last year, more than double the loss by the second-largest U.S. discount chain. The Renaissance Technologies LLC, a large hedge fund, has waived all of its management fees for 2009.

US-based hedge fund QVT Financial opposes Hirco's restructuring
Economic Times - Gurgaon, Haryana, India
US-based hedge fund QVT Financial LP has strongly opposed Hirco Plc's proposal to merge two Indian subsidiaries of the Hiranandani group with itself.

Chicago hedge fund buys 5.7 percent stake in ADC
HedgeCo.net - West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Citadel Investment Group, a Chicago-based hedge fund, has spent $33 million to buy a 5.7 percent stake in ADC Telecommunications Inc.

Mnuchin Leads Private-Equity Funds to Buy Failed IndyMac Bank
Bloomberg - USA
Private-equity investors led by Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, agreed to buy IndyMac Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and inject $1.3 billion in cash, a rare purchase of a failed financial institution by non-bank buyers.

General News | People and Funds | Launches| Hedge Fund Activism | Crime and Law

Bernard Madoff Fallout Roundup
MoneyScience - Bristol, UK
It's becoming clear that the Madoff Scandal will be attracting a lot of coverage for many months to come.

Man of Contradictions, Accused in a Scheme
New York Times - United States
Born in Belgrade and educated at Columbia University and Harvard Business School, the Kosta S. Kovachev who stood before a magistrate judge in United States District Court in Manhattan last week appeared to be a man of contradictions. Prosecutors have suggested that Mr. Kovachev, a former stockbroker, served as something of an aide-de-camp to Marc S. Dreier, the New York lawyer whose Ponzi scheme collapsed last month, stunning the legal community and blowing multimillion-dollar holes in several prominent New York hedge funds.

Chutzpah Spree by Accused Lawyer Nets $380 Million
Bloomberg - USA
When Manhattan lawyer Marc Dreier needed to apply a patina of reality to allegedly bogus promissory notes he was pitching to hedge funds, he used Mission Impossible- type tricks. As the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan tells it, he would lie his way into an accounting firm's or real estate developer's offices as if he had business there. He then would use their conference rooms for meetings with hedge-fund officials to make it seem the accountants or developers were in on the deal, according to the feds.

Sam Israel to finally get psych evaluation
Lower Hudson Journal news - West Harrison, NY, USA
The long-overdue psychological and physical evaluation of fugitive swindler Samuel Israel III will finally take place - but it will be at a federal facility closer to home.

General News | People and Funds | Launches| Hedge Fund Activism | Crime and Law