Alternative Market Briefing

Opalesque Exclusive: OCP Senior Credit Strategy launches to outside investors, the credit space holds many opportunities for those who have secured permanent capital

Opalesque Exclusive: BlueAlpha rolls out agricultural commodity trading strategy into a new fund, the PolarStar Fund

Launches – Ex-FBR executives launch credit hedge fund, Blackstone to launch Asia-focused hedge fund in 2009

Closures – Opalesque Exclusive: Amsterdam`s Go Capital A.M. closes down hedge fund as AUM halved, plans new launch for January 09

Man Investments opens office in the Netherlands

Assets – HFR report: Investors withdrew $40bln from HFs (including $22bln from FoHFs) in October, industry AUM down to $1.56tln, Hedge fund assets shrink 9%

Crosby`s Apollo launch no fix as assets at Forsyth have tumbled

Opalesque Exclusive: Poll shows that most think there is a future for FoHFs, but perhaps if they came in a different format

Strategies – Credit Suisse/Tremont report: Convertible arbitrage worst performing sector, many funds lost 6 years of gains in 6 months, BHA: Investors like credit and distressed strategies best

Investors – When to red flags hedge funds, according to forensic accountants, former prosecutors and private investigators

Hedge funds in crisis - Thames River to lengthen redemption terms, Duff Capital lays off staff, puts capital raising plans on hold, Volatile markets may tempt hedge fund fraud, Returns of so-called `dead` hedge funds found not to be that bad after all

Fund profile – Horizons Global Contrarian, the `old school` hedge fund, made 6.6% in October

Institutions – LCP: Pension schemes to continue hedge fund exposure in the long term

Asia – More institutional investors are buying FoHFs with principal protected wrappers, Credit Suisse: Hedge funds in Japan will attract capital, Update: Asian hedge funds down 5.3% for October, Indian HFs fare worst, Onshore Chinese hedge funds outperform market -29.98% versus -56.4%

Bailouts Update – Treasury Secretary Paulson TARP update, FDIC`s Bair seeks bailout money for loan modifications, Analyst: U.S. financial system needs at least $1tln of tangible common equity, US Congress reaches an impasse on car bail-out, Iceland borrows $10bln from IMF and neighbours to avoid collapse, State bail-out looms for Italian banks, Brussels approves state aid to Dexia

Credit Crunch Update – S&P slumps to record lows as world`s economies issue negative news, Citi weighs its options including sale of group, Saudi prince ups stake in Citigroup despite share slide, Update: JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, Citigroup cut jobs, Ambac shares rise 80% after liabilities canceled, Fannie and Freddie suspend foreclosures until January, RBS bosses apologise to investors for ill-timed acquisition of ABN Amro, UBS board member says bank on recovery path, Fidelity`s Bolton says financial and consumer stocks will recover first

Regulatory – Treasury secretary Paulson calls for more hedge fund regulation, Citigroup urging SEC to bring back short-selling ban, SEC to convene meeting of international regulators, agenda includes short selling, derivatives regulation, New York regulator halts plans to oversee CDS market

Legal – Kerviel seeks to question SocGen chairman Bouton, Banks, raters face subprime lawsuits, new rules, Argentina appeals to US court on pension freeze, Comment: Party animals kept Sentinel trader buying

People – Sailfish co-founder Sal Naro joins Markit, Fullgoal`s Li Wenzhong joined Younger`s new local hedge fund arm, Conifer Securities makes two new appointments, GlobeOp hires global head of risk management

Exchanges – D Boerse to launch hybrid `dark pool` facility, while Euronext and LSE`s plans are delayed

Activist News – HF Davidson Kempner launches proxy fight to oust Sun-Times Media Group board, CEO

News Briefs – New Star not a takeover target, Hedge fund manager helps nomadic orchestra buy permanent home in Manhattan

… And Finally – New York dog (!) drives van into coffee house

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OCP Senior Credit Strategy launches to outside investors, the credit space holds many opportunities for those who have secured permanent capital

From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York: One firm looking to take advantage of the opportunities in the credit space is Onex Credit Partners (OCP), who, in December 2007, launched its second strategy, the OCP Senior Credit Strategy.

The Strategy, which is opened to outside investors, launched with $80m in assets, and Opalesque recently had a chance to speak with Sean Duff of OCP about the credit environment, the Strategy and the importance of permanent capital in meeting investment goals, which are targeted for a two-to-three-year time frame.

The OCP Senior Credit Strategy is managed by Michael Gelblat and Stuart Kovensky, who originally partnered in 2001 at John A.

» Full Story

BlueAlpha rolls out agricultural commodity trading strategy into a new fund, the PolarStar Fund

Portfolio manager Uys Meyer told Opalesque about BlueAlpha’s new launch.

BlueAlpha Investment Management rolled its agricultural commodity trading strategy into a new fund, the PolarStar Fund, last month with AUM of $9m.

» Full Story

Closures – Amsterdam`s Go Capital A.M. closes down hedge fund as AUM halved, plans new launch for January 09

Opalesque received news from Peter Vermeulen, editor of www.inveztor.nl, of another Dutch hedge fund’s closure.

On November 17, Amsterdam based Go Capital Asset Management decided to close down the Global Opportunities hedge fund (Source).

» Full Story

Poll shows that most think there is a future for FoHFs, but perhaps if they came in a different format

By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London: A poll on the future of funds of hedge funds was conducted at the GAIM conference on Funds of Funds in Geneva last week.

Daniel Penseyres, managing partner at Geneva-based Bedrock Alternative Asset Management, who moderated the electronic polling panel, remarked on his surprise by the relative optimism of the conference speakers, despite the expectation that AUM and revenues for the industry would fall sharply.

» Full Story

Other Voices: Looking for the perfect home - Cayman Islands and Gibraltar in comparison of their favourite fund structures

This article was authored by Rolf Majcen, Managing Director FTC Capital GmbH, Vienna, Austria, www.ftc.at.

Without a doubt, Cayman Islands has become the world’s most important hedge fund domicile but also several European jurisdictions, in particular Gibraltar, provide the services, infrastructure and operational flexibility which the international investor demands, within the framework of clear and carefully enforced legal guidelines, that are in tune with the requirements of the modern hedge funds industry.

Whilst the “registered investment fund” (Section 4 (3) of the Mutual Funds Law) is the most common structure that is used for setting up an alternative investment fund in the Cayman Islands, the “Experienced Investor Fund” (EIF) is Gibraltar’s premier vehicle for alternative investment strategies.

» Full Story

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Hard Assets Update
Water: The Ultimate Commodity

From HardAssetsInvestor.com:   We all need water to live. As useful as oil, copper and corn may be, we could get by without them for a while. But water? Water is a necessity. And for some, this makes it the ultimate commodity. People...

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Bad Economic News

From HardAssetsInvestor.com: If that's not enough, the Conference Board's updates on its suite of economic indicators points to yet more trouble ahead. The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.8% in October, a wobble much worse...

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Blood From A Stone: Redux

From HardAssetsInvestor.com:   When we last wrote about shale oil – kerogen which is extracted from rock and then refined into fuel oil and gasoline – it was June of 2007. Oil was at $70/barrel, and that seemed outrageously high....

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Peter Schiff: Gold Will Rise, Dollar Will Collapse

From HardAssetsInvestor.com: Mike Norman, HardAssetsInestor.com (Norman): Hello everybody, and welcome back for another installment of HardAssetsInvestor.com’s interview series. I’m Mike Norman, your host. Well, he’s back....

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Consumer Inflation Falls More Than Expected

From HardAssetsInvestor.com: Readers of Hard Assets Investor, of course, have known of disinflation for some time now by monitoring our Real-time Inflation Indicator (see "Computing Inflation In Real Time"). CPI decreased 1% in October,...

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Cocoa Analysis Completes Our Tropical Trifecta

From HardAssetsInvestor.com:   Who would have thought a Web site devoted to, and named for, hard assets would devote so much space to soft commodities? Last week, we ran features on sugar and coffee, which prompted some readers to...

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Producer Prices Fall. Surprised?

From HardAssetsInvestor.com: The real-time inflation indicator is a daily update of dollar purchasing power measured against gold and the euro (an explanation of the indicator, together with reader comments, can be found in the Desktop...

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Orange Juice Set To Shine?

From HardAssetsInvestor.com:   The United States and Brazil are the world's principal orange juice producers, and more than 98% of the U.S. crop comes from Florida. Orange production in the Sunshine State, at 170 million boxes (a...

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Consumers Buy Into Disinflation

From HardAssetsInvestor.com: More than a third of consumers surveyed—37%—expect flat or negative inflation in the coming year. Overall, the consensus inflation expectation dropped a full percentage point, to 2.9%, from the level...

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Timberland: A SQUARE Timber Special II

" Biological growth, which is the biggest single driver of timberland investment returns, occurs independent of any factor relating to broader financial markets - and that component of the return, investors will earn regardless of entry point."

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A SQUARE Faculty
German Real Estate

Faculty Iain Keys Is now an opportune time to invest in German Real Estate? Based on his experience, Iain Keys elaborates on how and why?

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How BRIC became Brazil:

Opalesque Round Table

Brazil-based hedge fund managers, fund of funds and family office believe the country is now getting ahead of the pack compared to its emerging market peers.

Brazil has enough foreign reserves to pay down all the public foreign debt. This is the first time the country is in such a condition.

In the last crisis in 1998, China was the only country which had sound fundamentals and they could maneuver their monetary policy to keep the country growing, despite the fact that all of the economies in the region were going down by 10% or 15% in GDP. Managers believe that this time Brazil has exactly the same characteristics.

Read more in this brand new Opalesque Brazil Roundtable:

Event Calendar
Hedge Funds World Zurich 2008, Zurich » Mon, 1 Dec 2008

Based on a 6 month research project Hedge Funds World Zurich is aimed at addressing the global asset allocation as well as hedge fund specific challenges end-investors face...

Achieving Quality Internal Audit for Maximum Performance, Singapore » Mon, 1 Dec 2008

Best practices in conducting effective audit function...

Opportunity Australia, London » Tue, 2 Dec 2008

Opportunity Australia is a one-day conference designed for hedge funds, fund of funds, traditional funds managers and private equity firms...

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