http://www.hedgefundsreview.com Hedge Funds Review News Update en-us © Copyright Incisive Media Investments Ltd. 1996-2007. webmaster@incisivemedia.com Hedge Funds Review http://www.incisivemedia.com/hfr/images/logo.gif http://www.hedgefundsreview.com The company action is because of a widening of the discount of the share price to the net asset value during the first half year 2008 and from June 30 to August 21. <P>According to the interim results, the NAV for an ordinary share fell during the period by 36.14p to 120.99p. This equated to a fall of 23 %. <P>The ordinary share price fell by 31.50p to 98p, a decline of 24.32%. <P>This resulted in a widening of the discount of the share price to NAV from 17.58% at December 31, 2007 to 19.00% at June 30, 2008. <P>“Although ... Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:23:00 +0100 State Street has named <B>David Puth</B> to the new position as head of investment research, securities finance and trading activities worldwide. Puth will also join the company’s operating group, the senior strategy and policy-making team. <P>SunGard has appointed <B>Laurence Wormald</B> as head of research for its advanced portfolio technologies business unit. This department develops and distributes market risk models, software tools and applications and related professional services. Formerly Wormald was chief risk officer at Deutsche Bank Global Markets. <P>Gartmore has appointed <B>Bettina Hoenigmann</B> as head of business development for Gartmore in Germany. She joins from Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt-based fund management ... Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:54:00 +0100 The rule updates will be incorporated in the rulebook and published by the end August and will become effective as the index rolls into series 10 on September 22, 2008. <P>The updates apply to the maximum spread cut-off levels for the Markit iTraxx Crossover, minimum entity ratings and minimum outstanding debt requirement for the Markit iTraxx Crossover <P></P> Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:53:00 +0100 North American investors were the most pessimistic. Confidence in the region declined from 85.8 to 77.7. European investors were also less optimistic, with a three-point decline in their confidence from 80.3 to 77.3. <P>Asian investors alone showed a modest improvement in their risk appetite for the second month. Their benchmark rose from a revised level of 85.3 to 88.9. <P>Renewed concerns around credit and the likelihood that growth can be sustained in both Europe and Asia appeared to create the fundamental backdrop for this month’s decline in confidence. <P>There also appears to have been a cycle of risk appetite declines ... Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:06:00 +0100 The number of funds registered and authorised with the CBB rose to 2,636 at the end of June 2008. The net asset value (NAV) totalled $20.14 billion. <P>The number of registered funds at June 2007 was 2,374, with assets under management totalling $9.37 billion. <P>Assets of foreign funds registered in Bahrain for sale rose 134% to $13.34 billion in June 2008, compared with $5.69 billion a year earlier. The number of foreign funds totalled 2,502 in June 2008, up from 2,266 in June 2007. <P>The investible assets of Bahrain-domiciled funds rose 84.5% to $6.79 billion in June 2008, almost doubling ... Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:05:00 +0100 Nearly half (45%) of institutional investors said over the next five years stock market returns in the Gulf region will be excellent or good. <P>Institutions gave several reasons for seeing Kuwait and the Gulf as attractive investments. A majority (70%) believed the region has the potential for strong future growth. Thirty per cent said economic and political stability featured strongly in their decisions. An equal percentage think political stability in the region and the current strong growth in the region are reasons for allocating to the area in future. <P>The research shows institutional investors are more aware of the economic ... Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:04:00 +0100 Just because a broker/dealer or exchange calls its platform a “dark pool” does not make it dark. Some venues market themselves as dark pools but actually route orders to external destinations. Systems have varying policies related to anonymity and information sharing/leakage, the study revealed. <P>Practices differ from system to system in terms of how volume is calculated, what types of orders are accepted, how client orders interact with proprietary orders in terms of priority and how anti-gaming measures are enforced. <P>Despite these factors a meaningful share of institutions surveyed said the broker/dealers and exchanges they access for dark liquidity have ... Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:17:00 +0100 The offshore fund joins an onshore version, launched earlier on March 31. Combined, the two funds have $25 million of seed capital managed by Todd Voigt. <P>Voigt joined Cohen & Steers specifically to manage the hedged real estate securities portfolios. He is supported by a team of analysts and traders based in New York, London, Brussels and Hong Kong. <P>Voigt joined Cohen & Steers from Cliffwood Partners, a real estate investment management company in Los Angeles where he was the portfolio manager for its absolute return real estate securities hedge fund and was co-manager overseeing the short allocation for its ... Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:16:00 +0100 The new funds trading in US dollars include the Lyxor EFT MSCI AC Asia-Pacific ex Japan, EM Latin America, Emerging Markets, Korea and Taiwan. <p> Other Lyxor ETFs include South Africa (FTSE JSE TOP 40; trading in euro), China Enterprise (HSCEI; trading in US dollars), Hong Kong (HIS; trading currency in US dollars), New Energy (trading in euro), and World Water (trading in euro). <p> Société Générale Paris will perform the marketing making for these shares. <p> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:15:00 +0100 Gartmore Investment Management has hired <B>Dominic Rossi</B> as chief investment officer. He has over 20 years’ experience in investment management and has built a strong track record managing equity portfolios, building and overseeing investment teams and working with clients. Rossi joins Gartmore from Threadneedle Asset Management where he was head of equities. <P>Russell Investments has appointed <B>Johan Cras</B> as chief executive, EMEA. Cras succeeds <B>Frédéric Jolly</B>, who resigned in July to found his own business. Cras joined Russell in 1996 to found the company’s Amsterdam office and was named head of Russell’s EMEA institutional business in 2007. In a separate ... Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:13:00 +0100 As part of the priority initiatives for energy and the environment addressed by the US China Strategic Economic Dialogue, the US and China plan to develop up to 15 large scale coal mine methane capture and utilisation projects in China by 2011. The dialogue was established in September 2006 to provide a forum for the US and China to consider and address economic challenges and opportunities. <P>MTM, a subsidiary of the Man Group, recently established the $600 million China Methane Recovery Fund. This provides foreign direct investment to develop and implement turnkey coal mine and landfill methane recovery and use ... Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:11:00 +0100 According to research by eFinancialCareers, total US job postings for hedge funds grew 38% between the second quarter of 2007 and same period in 2008 compared to 10% for asset management. Applications for hedge funds grew an impressive 135% over the period with private banking and wealth management in second place with 116% and asset management coming fourth with only 81% growth. <P>There has been speculation but we can now offer you statistics that look back on the last few months which prove the demand for folks on the buy-side. <P>To give a more accurate view of growth over time ... Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:56:00 +0100 The report showed that during times of market stress sharp declines from HEDG’s previous peak levels of positive correlation with MSCI World demonstrated the ability to de-correlate from broad equity market indices. <P>Between July 2007 and June 2008, HEDG increased by 4.09% compared with a fall of 12.5% in the MSCI World Index and a decrease of 13% in the S&P 500. <P>The ability of hedge funds to maintain exposure to a range of asset classes allows them to preserve capital in down markets and, if successful, offer a more balanced investment option compared to traditional equity indices. In addition, ... Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:19:00 +0100 The index provides investors with broad exposure to the US power industry and a method for hedging regional or national wholesale power prices. <P>The index is designed to track the forward price of US power and monitors performance of peak power forward contracts over a range of maturities. <P>Power prices from the most representative trading hubs in six actively-traded US regions are weighted by historical annual peak electricity demand to create a family of national indices for various maturities. Regional indices are also available. <P></P> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:42:00 +0100 Talecris was originally the blood plasma unit of Bayer, a German healthcare company. It has manufacturing facilities in the US. <P>Cerberus invested $125 million of equity with US private equity partner Ampersand Ventures to buy Talecris in 2005. The buyout used $440 million credit from JP Morgan and Bayer kept a 10% stake. <P>CSL develops, manufactures and markets vaccines and medications of biological origin. It also makes of blood plasma products. <P>CSL said the proposed deal would enhance its position in the $15 billion global plasma products market. It would give CSL access to fast growing key plasma products. <P>Merrill ... Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:31:00 +0100