Search This Blog

19 Feb 2009

Hedge Fund Trembulant Ups Stake in Fast Food

Hedge fund Tremblant Capital reported that it now owns 1.1 million shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill, bringing its total shares in the Denver-based fast food restaurant to 5.7%.

"Chipotle shares have fallen recently, and the hedge fund obviously saw opportunity there," news resource SeekingAlpha says, "keep in mind that this hedge fund typically doesn't take larger than 5% stakes in companies (which requires a 13G filing), so it definitely likes this name, as this is the first major filing from them in quite some time."

With $4.1 billion in assets under management, hedge fund Tremblant is based in New York and run by Bret Barakett, who is a former portfolio manager at Moore Capital Management.

Asian Macro Hedge Fund Launch

A new Asia macro hedge fund has been launched by Dexion Capital and Morgan Stanley veterans Andrew Gale and Lee Ka Sha.

With a minimum investment is $100,000, the fund will invest in Asian interest rates and currencies, opening trading on May 1, according to HedgeWeek.

Lee will play the role of CEO, with Gale as chief executive. Gale most recently was responsible for product development and fundraising for Dexion Capital's London-listed closed-ended funds of hedge funds and third-party funds. Lee was a founding member of Abax Global Capital in Hong Kong, where he managed both the South Asia special situations portfolio and macro positioning.

“In the course of these discussions it has become apparent that most investors look to their macro investments to be a diversifier providing a different source of returns than the inherent beta in credit and equity strategies,” Gale said, "the fund launch was based on investor demand."

Prime brokers doing away with OTC 'give ups'

Hedge funds of varying sizes report being given notice by prime brokers that OTC derivative give up arrangements will end - quickly. Funds ranging in size from $25M to $2.5B are being told new derivative trades "done away" will no longer be accepted near the end of the first quarter and that give up relationships will end completely in April.

‘Give up arrangements’ are where the executing broker writes trade tickets on behalf of both counterparties to the trade – provided hedge funds with three advantages: easier post-trade operations, cross margining and credit intermediation.

“Challenged by investors to provide increasing levels of transparency, independent validation and reporting frequency, funds would also have to find the operational bandwidth and capability to efficiently manage the complexities of OTC trade processing involving multiple instruments, high volumes and multiple counterparties." Hans Hufschmid, CEO of GlobeOp Financial Services commented, "And the February 28 deadline after which major dealers will not accept novation consents by email looms.”

GlobeOp also noted that during the Lehman Brothers crisis in September 2008, hedge funds began diversifying counterparty risk by abandoning the practice of single prime broker give ups and converting to multiple direct counterparty relationships.

Now, Hufschmid observes, “Intense revenue pressure on banks and on credit risk overall is forcing banks with prime broking activities to take a very tough approach to profitability. Give ups were, for many, never a core business, used to support the profitable business of lending securities to hedge funds. As risk tolerances and the lending business have become less attractive, the reasons for providing low or non- profitable support services like give ups are falling away."

“If the initial signals become a trend as financial markets and the hedge fund sector restructure, out sourcing will increase in appeal as hedge funds simultaneously face increased investor demand for independent administration and robust infrastructure declining fund performance and management fees to fund or ramp up the required technology and people resources continued attractive opportunities for strategies involving OTC derivatives.”