Bloomberg – Edward Filippi, previously with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., raised $35 million for a hedge fund investing in energy, metals and agricultural derivatives.
The Ground Zero Strategic Commodities Fund may begin trading in the first quarter of next year, according to Filippi, who spent a year selling commodity investment products for Lehman. The fund wants to hire a portfolio manager and an operations officer.
HedgeTracker – The top solar hedge fund investor is Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital. Mr. Ainslie is a “Tiger Cub,” or a former protégé of Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. As of Q1 ’09, the fund had $180.33mm of its $5,529mm, or 3.26% of its portfolio, invested in solar. However, Maverick Capital is not necessarily a believer in the solar sector overall, as the firm’s solar exposure is entirely concentrated in First Solar Inc. (FSLR) with 1,358,902 shares. Notably, over the first quarter, the firm purchased $85.29mm or 642,756 shares of FSLR.
Wall Street Journal – Jeffrey Gendell’s new hedge fund returned more than 25% during its first quarter, as bets on energy and a steady economic recovery paid off, according to a letter the manager sent recently to investors.
Gendell, who suffered big losses last year and is still winding down some old hedge funds, also criticized some of President Barack Obama’s policies and argued that political ”gridlock” could help equity markets in 2010.
The manager opened the new Tontine Total Return Fund in April after some of Tontine’s other funds lost more than 60% last year. The new fund, which focuses on more liquid, or easily tradable, securities, returned 25.3% in its first quarter after management fees, Gendell said in a July 20 letter to investors.
Reuters – Freddie Mac, the second largest provider of U.S. home mortgage funding, on Friday posted its first quarterly profit in two years as gains from hedges and a one-time accounting change offset still-lofty credit losses.
For the first quarter in four, Freddie Mac said it would not need a capital injection from the Treasury to maintain its business of providing credit for U.S. housing. But it continues to rely on the government for survival, it said.
Boston Globe – French bank BNP Paribas’s revenues from corporate and investment banking nearly doubled in the second quarter as robust investor demand boosted revenues from the bank’s fixed income business unit.
BNP Paribas’s CIB revenues totaled 3.351 billion euros ($4.82 billion) for the quarter, up 81 percent from the second quarter of 2008, and following record revenues of 3.696 billion euros in the first quarter of 2009.
”Once again, fixed income revenues were exceptional,” said David Thebault, head of quantitative sales trading, at Global Equities, in Paris.
Charity Times – Putting it into perspective, at January 1 2008 there was $9.7trn of hedge funds assets invested, at the end of 2008 it was $3trn, a massive loss in capital.
This year, hedge funds gained 2.41 per cent in March, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The index is now up 0.82 per cent in 2009. ”After an eight per cent sell-off in early March, the S&P 500 Index bounced back to gain 17 per cent from 9 March to 31 March, its largest three-week rally since 1987” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. Overall, 15 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices gained ground in March. Hedge funds took modest advantage of March’s upswings in the global equity and credit markets, according to Morningstar’s hedge fund performance summary for the first quarter of 2009.
Highbridge Capital Management, once the world’s biggest hedge fund, was a big winner, with $1bn of net inflows this year, including $225m from majority owner JPMorgan. It ended the quarter with $20bn under management.
ninemsn – Administrators for the main European unit of bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holding Inc have revealed plans to return frozen hedge fund assets to creditors.
This could start as early as next year.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Lehman Brothers International Europe’s administrator has applied to the British High Court to block any creditor claims for assets after the end of this year, PWC said on Wednesday
This could mean the administrator would start returning funds as early as the first quarter of 2010.
Bloomberg – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. may return hedge-fund assets as soon as next year that were frozen when the New York-based securities firm collapsed in the largest bankruptcy on record.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Lehman Brothers International Europe’s administrator, plans today to ask a U.K. court to block any creditor claims for assets after this year, the accounting firm said in a statement. That would allow PwC to return money Lehman had held in trust for fund managers as soon as the first quarter of 2010.
Bloomberg – K+S AG, Europe’s largest maker of potash for fertilizers, and competitor Israel Chemicals Ltd. fell in local trading after a Russian rival’s contract in India prompted speculation that prices will come under pressure.
The drop mirrors declines at North American producers Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Mosaic Co. on July 10 after RBC Capital Markets reported that Russian producer OAO Silvinit may have sold the crop nutrient for less than analysts expected. K+S lost as much as 5.4 percent and the Israeli company dropped 3 percent.
Soros Fund Management LLC, billionaire investor George Soros’s hedge fund firm, owns about 1.9 percent of Potash Corp after reducing the stake to 5.6 million shares at the end of the first quarter from 5.9 million at the beginning of the year.
This is Money – Institutional investors are still running scared from hedge funds after last year’s bloodbath, figures from sector giant Man Group show.
They pulled a net £2bn from Man Group in the first quarter of its financial year. Confidence in hedge funds has been rocked by their poor performance of late.
Keith Baird, analyst at Oriel Securities, said 2008 destroyed the entire theory of hedge funds ability to produce positive returns in any market. He said: ‘The illusion was shattered.’
Reuters UK – Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund firm, reported a rise in sales to private investors and said it expects to return to overall net client inflows in its second half, boosting its shares.
In a statement on Thursday, the firm said it attracted net private investor inflows in its first quarter of $1.9 billion (1.1 billion pounds) into its funds, which aim to deliver positive investment returns whether markets rise or fall. This partly offset net outflows of $3.3 billion from institutions such as pension funds.
MENAFN – U.K. hedge fund manager Man Group reported a further decline in its assets under management Thursday, but said institutional customers have significantly slowed their withdrawals and private investor sales have been strong.
The group said funds under management at the end of its fiscal first quarter were $43.3 billion, down 7.5% from $46.8 billion at the end of March.