London remains center of European Hedge Fund universe despite higher taxes

London is the second largest hedge fund money center in the world, behind only New York. According to an article by Reuters, this position of power will not change in the face of rising taxes. Despite its 50% tax rate on high earners, 63 hedge funds with over $1billion in assets under management are headquartered in London, compared to just 3 such hedge funds in Paris and Stockholm, the next largest European money centers.

Large firms such as Brevan Howard Asset Management and Bluecrest Capital Management retain offices in Switzerland; Brevan Howard even has senior executives Alan Howard and Nagi Kawkabani situated there. However, smaller hedge fund managers seem drawn to London – former Brevan Howard trader Frederic Denjoy, of the Geneva office, left to set up his own hedge fund Denjoy Capital Partners in London.

It seems that smaller hedge fund managers may be drawn by the lifestyle and comfort of London, and to them higher taxes are a mere inconvenience. Larger hedge funds, on the other hand, are forced to retain their London presence to compete for talent with emerging boutique and recently launched hedge funds.

Top Hong Kong Hedge Funds

Here is a new list of the top hedge funds in Hong Kong. Great resource for job seekers and IR professionals in the Hong Kong area!

Top Hong Kong Hedge Funds

$100mm+ Hedge Fund Launches by Indaba Capital & Ionic Capital

A couple of hedge fund managers are proving that the fund raising environment for new launches is improving. Earlier this month, newly formed Indaba Capital launched its first hedge fund with a reported $150 million in assets under management, while Ionic Capital Management has reportedly raised more than $100 million for its newly launched convertible bond focused hedge fund.

Indaba Capital, which employs an event-driven strategy, was founded last year by Farallon Capital veteran Derek Schrier. While at Farrallon, Schrier was responsible for managing credit investments. Indaba only targeted a limited number of investors for the launch and hopes to double its assets during the second quarter when it opens up to outside investors.

To view HedgeTracker’s lists of Top Hedge Fund Launches, please click below:

Top Hedge Fund Launches of 2011
Top Hedge Fund Launches of 2010
Top Hedge Fund Launches of 2009

For Detailed Investor Profiles on these Investors, click below
Indaba Capital Management

Ionic Capital Management LLC

Tiger Asia unimpressive in 2010

Tiger Asia Management LLC, which was founded by Tiger Management alum Bill Hwang, revealed in a letter to investors this week that it only managed to return 0.5%, after fees, for all of 2010. According to Bloomberg, Tiger Asia’s hedge fund did, however, manage to beat its Chinese and Japanese benchmarks.
Source

D.E. Shaw Firing, but other Top Hedge Funds are Hiring

Last week, hedge fund job seekers received unwelcome news when industry giant New York-based hedge fund manager D.E. Shaw & Co. announced that it was cutting 10 percent of its workforce, representing approximately 150 hedge fund industry jobs. Despite the layoffs at David Shaw’s quant shop, many other prominent hedge funds continue to hire.

As evidenced by HedgeTracker’s Hedge Fund Job Center, a large number of firms are looking to add talented portfolio managers, research analysts, fund raisers and operations professionals to bolster their teams. Some of the major hedge fund firms that appear on the hedge fund job board include: Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, David Harding’s quantitative focused Winton Capital Management, multi-strategy behemoth Fortress Investment Group, Clint Carlson’s Dallas-based Carlson Capital, HBK Investments, and OakTree Capital Management.

The hedge fund job board also includes positions from more traditional investment managers, like Martin J. Whitman’s value-focused Third Avenue Management, Bill Gross’ fixed income focused PIMCO, Mario J. Gabelli’s GARP focused GAMCO Asset Management, and pension giant TIAA-CREF Investment Management.

Hedge Fund Directory

I thought that these lists of top hedge funds would be of interest to our readers. Some of hottest hedge fund styles currently include:
Growth Focused Hedge Funds
Global Macro Focused Hedge Funds
Event-Driven Foucsed Hedge Funds
Long/Short Equity Hedge Funds

Jim Pallotta launches Raptor Evolution Fund

Legendary hedge fund manager Jim Pallotta is returning to the industry with the launch of the Raptor Evolution Fund. The new hedge fund management firm has reportedly raised approximately $200 million and will employ the same long/short equity strategy that established Pallotta during his impressive run at Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corporation. According to theNew York Times, Mr. Pallotta achieved returns that averaged over 19% annually over his 15 year tenure at Tudor.

To read full article, click here.

GLG Partners Launches new fund from its Distressed Strategy

Thanks to an impressive 84% return this year in its distressed strategy, GLG Partners has decided to dedicate an entire fund to the strategy. According to the Financial Times, GLG Partners has launched a new fund which will invest in distressed European debt. Formerly a part of GLG's credit and market-neutral fund, the new fund launches with $300 million in assets under management.

To read the complete article, please click here.

Largest Hedge Funds Revealed: Bridgewater, Highbridge Capital, Paulson & Co, D.E. Shaw and Soros

AR Magazine recently released its list of largest hedge fund managers as well as its “Hedge Fund Report Cards.” The top five hedge funds by assets under management were Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates ($37bn), JPMorgan/Highbridge Capital Management ($36bn), John Paulson’s Paulson & Co ($27bn), David Shaw’s D.E. Shaw & Co. ($26 bn) and George Soros’ Soros Fund Management
($24bn).

Some other notables on the list were:
- Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies Corporation
($17bn)
- Daniel Och’s Och-Ziff Capital Management ($20.7bn)
- Seth A. Klarman’s Baupost Group ($19bn)
- Farallon Capital Management ($18bn)


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