ABN Amro has launched the world’s first climate change and environment index

http://www.asianinvestor.net/article.aspx?CIaNID=48718

 The rules-based index, which will be managed by Standard and Poor’s, comprises of up to 32 stocks involved in a number of environmentally conscious industries ranging from renewable energy, water and waste management to businesses in ethanol, geothermal and alternative fuels.

The index will be rebalanced semi-annually and will ensure that money will be redistributed by taking profits from the companies that have performed. Additionally, the index will also be re-weighted on an annual basis to reflect changes in the market capitalisation of each sub-sector and to also reflect actual relative growth in each sector.

Within this basket, there are eight official sub-sectors, each comprised of up to four companies

India “star” mutual manager to launch HF

HSBC Halbis Partners, the active asset-management arm of HSBC Group, is launching its India Alpha Fund, a long/short strategy that marks the first hedge fund for veteran India equities manager Sanjiv Duggal.

http://www.asianinvestor.net/

classic Europe: New attack on private equity and hedge funds & Szarkozy crap… im surprised he hasnt mentioned 12th Imam:-)

Leading Socialist deputies in the European parliament presented a report into the hedge fund and private equity sectors yesterday that advocated measures to curb the influence of activist investors on businesses and workers, or what the report calls the “real economy”. The intervention by parliament’s second-biggest political force is unlikely to lead to tougher rules for the industry by itself.

“I don’t believe that the market will solve it and I don’t want to wait for a major crisis,” Ms van den Burg said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/63ac50a0-de5c-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html

meanwhile at the same day :

Brussels shocked by Sarkozy rhetoric

shock” at the protectionist rhetoric of Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading challenger for the French presidency, saying it was in France’s interests to promote the European single market and cross-border investment

when he said :

“Look at the waste of Arcelor, which we sold off on the cheap because we believed that the steel industry was history. They got it wrong. They lied,” said Mr Sarkozy to a cheering crowd at Lille’s Palais des Congrès. “If I am president, then France will have a real industrial policy.”

he stepped up his attacks on the European Central Bank (ECB) and the euro. “If wages are too low, it is because the euro is too expensive and when the euro is too expensive, companies try to stay competitive by making up for it on wages,” he said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4269a51a-de15-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html

Break even AUM of running a hedge fund seen at $200mio

http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=ushome&contentid=2347456341&printview=true

Budding hedge fund managers could be forced to shelve plans to launch into the business because the minimum amount needed to launch has trebled to $200m (€150m) in three years.

Legal and compliance costs are putting up barriers to entry and investors are spending more time analysing hedge funds’ risk controls than their investment strategies, according to speakers at a Merrill Lynch hedge fund conference last week.

Managers with less than $200m of assets to run would struggle to meet business expenses, compared with $75m three years ago, said delegates.

Kevin Dunleavy, head of global hedge fund strategy and client relations for Merrill Lynch, said: “Some speakers were saying, ‘I started with $2m or $3m’, and you couldn’t do that today.

More clones coming into the town

Deutsche Bank LaunchesNew Currency Benchmarks3-27-07 10:58 AM EDT | E-mail Article | Print Article

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Deutsche Bank AG (DB) has launched a new index that tracks the performance of the key trading styles employed by forex hedge funds, the firm said Tuesday. The DB Currency Return index replicates the returns generated by three strategies: carry trading, where investors borrow low-yielding currencies and use them to buy higher-yielding currencies; momentum trading, where investors try to spot trends; and valuation-based trading, which is based on fair value calculations.Deutsche Bank’s new indexes track each of those strategies either together or individually and allow clients to invest in them. Deutsche Bank isn’t the only bank working along these lines. Last week, Merrill Lynch (MER) announced that it had created a model that replicates forex hedge funds strategies. Merrill Lynch’s model can’t be invested in right now, but in a statement the bank said that “as the hedge fund industry matures and more active managers share and compete for available returns, justifying paying higher fees for active management may be increasingly difficult if similar strategies can be mechanically implemented at lower cost.” The three strategies tracked by ML FX Clone are carry, momentum, and the US dollar method, where investors take a view on a currency’s value relative to the dollar. http://news.morningstar.com/news/ViewNews.asp?article=/DJ/200703271058DOWJONESDJONLINE000426_univ.xml&Cat=FundNews

CBOE launched vol arb index last week

http://www.cboe.com/AboutCBOE/ShowDocument.aspx?DIR=ACNews&FILE=cboe_20070314.doc

 The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) today announced that it will begin publishing a new benchmark index, the CBOE S&P 500 VARB-X Strategy Benchmark (VTY) on Wednesday, March 14, 2007. The new index tracks the performance of a hypothetical volatility arbitrage trading strategy designed to capitalize on the historical difference between S&P 500 Index (SPX) option implied volatility and the realized, or historical, volatility of the S&P 500 Index.

10 largest HF closures in 2006

0Amaranth Advisors Amaranth LLC $9,100
Archeus Capital Management Animi Master Fund $2,650
Sagamore Hill Capital Management Sagamore Hill $2,600*
Saranac Capital Management Citigroup Multistrategy Arbitrage/Saranac Arbitrage $2,200
BKF Asset Management Levco Alternative Investment Fund $1,900
Ritchie Capital Management Ritchie Energy Trading $1,200
Saranac Capital Management Citigroup Archer/Saranac Total Return $1,100
Mackay Shields MacKay Shields Long/Short $1,000
Mangan & McColl Partners M & M Arbitrage $1,000
Harbert Management Corp. Harbert Convertibles $900

source: www.hedgefund.net

private-equity now -miracously- has daily liquidity…. a financial miracle!

BGI to launch buy-out ETF

By Steve Johnson

Published: March 19 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 19 2007 02:00

Barclays Global Investors will tomorrow launch the first exchange traded fund based on Standard & Poor’s Listed Private Equity index, which was itself unveiled only a week ago.

BGI’s initiative is indicative of mounting institutional and retail interest in private equity, with the industry forecast to raise $500bn (€377bn, £258bn) globally in 2007, $70bn more than last year’s record, according to estimates from Private Equity Intelligence.

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It comes just a week after Société Générale unveiled a structured exchange traded note based on the rival Dow Jones Private Equity Index.

“We are seeing a lot of demand from people to get quick access to private equity,” said Jennifer Grancio, head of distribution at BGI.

Srikant Dash, index strategist at S&P, said the index approach had several advantages over the traditional method of investing in a given private equity fund. “With a fund there is no liquidity and your money is locked up. With the listed approach there is daily liquidity in the stock market.

“And middle market and small investors may not have access to private equity funds, which are typically only open to large investors. With listed private equity there is no such barrier,” he said.

However one limitation is that the bulk of the private equity industry consists of unlisted partnerships. SG said the Dow Jones index represented 7 per cent of the industry, while S&P said its index, which contains 25 stocks, represented “less than a quarter”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Let me see your positions

Citadel boosts expansion plans William Hutchings

19 Mar 2007

Citadel Investments, a US hedge fund manager, is launching a division to provide back-office services to its rivals after hiring a banker to run sales and marketing for the new business.

The firm expects to start marketing Citadel Solutions to hedge fund managers in May. The business is part of Citadel’s expansion into new areas and transformation from a hedge fund into a broader financial institution.It is one of several hedge funds applying to become a member of Euro MTS, the trading platform for European government bonds, and has an options marketmaking business.

A banker said: “It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars investing in its capabilities and it wants to turn them from cost centres into profit centres.”

The subsidiary, which Citadel formed in January from its back-office operations, has hired Matt Wilson from Banc of America to run its sales effort. Wilson was head of prime brokerage sales at the bank, which has been tipped for expansion. His role has been taken over jointly by JP Muir and Sam Hocking, according to the bank.

Citadel Investments and Citadel Solutions declined to comment.

Top investor sees U.S. property crash

Commodities investment guru Jim Rogers stepped into the U.S. subprime fray on Wednesday, predicting a real estate crash that would trigger defaults and spread contagion to emerging markets.“You can’t believe how bad it’s going to get before it gets any better,” the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York.

“It’s going to be a disaster for many people who don’t have a clue about what happens when a real estate bubble pops.

“It is going to be a huge mess,” said Rogers, who has put his $15 million belle epoque mansion on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on the market and is planning to move to Asia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1470530620070314?src=031407_1316_DOUBLEFEATURE_mortgage_troubles&pageNumber=1