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13 Nov 2009

South Florida Benefit for Hedge Funds Care

The South Florida Benefit for Hedge Funds Care is being held Thursday, December 3, 2009, from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. at the The Betsy Hotel South Beach during the most important art show in the U.S. Art Basel Miami Beach.

The South Florida Benefit for Hedge Funds Care hopes to unite hedge funds, investors, local luminaries, and the financial and art world, for an evening dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse. The evening reception includes cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and live entertainment.

* Multiple open bars and hand-rolled cigars inside the private B-Bar and under the moonlight on the rooftop of The Betsy Hotel, with unobstructed views of the ocean along Miami Beach.

* Visit the Miami Investor Lounge where hedge funds can connect in style with family offices, funds of funds, institutional investors and wealthy individuals.

* Live music by the John Branzer Band who have performed with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, and Keely Smith.

* Silent auction featuring artwork from the Peter Lik Gallery and Friedland Art, a private island getaway at the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay, a spa day at the Mandarin Oriental, a tour of Miami with the Official Bud Light Poker Run Team, among others.

Thanks to our sponsors, 100% of event proceeds will go to Hedge Funds Care - Preventing and Treating Child Abuse.

Click this link to register

Horseman to Step Down From Hedge Fund Management After Losses

Bloomberg reported this morning that hedge fund manager John Horseman is stepping down from his position as manager of the $2.8 billion fund, Horseman Global Fund Ltd.

“There will be those who might think that a poor year is unduly influencing my decision, and it is probably true that if the fund had had a better year, I might have been tempted to continue,” Horseman wrote in a letter to investors, obtained by Bloomberg. “But with a time frame of three to four years at most, I feel now is the time to make way for others.”

The hedge fund fell in value by almost a quarter this year. Russell Clark and John-Paul Burke are teaming up to take his place. The pair had run Horseman Emerging Markets Funds, which will close, the letter said.

Pharos Russia Hedge Fund ranked #1 in Barclay Hedge

Russian hedge fund manager, The Pharos Russia Fund was ranked #1 in the Equity Long/Short category for September 2009 of Barclay Hedge database.

Pharos Russia Fund is an absolute return hedge fund focused on securities in Russia and the former Soviet Union. The Fund is the top performing Russia Fund over the past 11 years. The Fund has the possibility of using derivatives or going short, and is positioned with a long bias due to the manager's positive outlook for the Russian market.

Barclay Hedge, founded in 1985, is a computerized database that tracks and analyzes performance of 5804 hedge fund and managed futures investment programs worldwide. Barclay indices are utilized worldwide by financial media and investment consultants as performance benchmarks for the alternative investment industry.

Fund Administrators' Role at Hedge Funds Second Only to Prime Brokers, Says TABB Group

With a post-Madoff world fixed firmly in the rear-view mirror and new regulations on the horizon, a new report from TABB Group describes how the role of fund administrators is now among one of the most important of hedge fund counterparties, perhaps second in importance only to prime brokers.

What investors want today, says TABB in a new research report, is more transparency and greater asset safety, which requires improvements in infrastructure for middle- and back-office operations, enhanced reporting to stakeholders and independent verification of portfolio values. This shift in investors’ priorities is significantly altering the role and responsibilities of fund administrators and, by extension, the processes by which administrators are selected.

According to Paul Rowady, senior analyst, and Adam Sussman, director of research, who co-authored the report, “(Hedge) Fund Administration: The Selection Criteria for a New Market Reality,” administration is no longer centered simply on back-office functions dealing with accounting, valuation and share registration. “Fund administration can now be defined as everything after the trade.”

Facing high switching costs, fund managers tell TABB they are keenly aware of how important it is to make the correct administration selection. With managers in Europe as well as the US becoming more sensitive to investor’s increasing demands, TABB Group estimates that from 2009 to 2010 the frequency of daily NAV (net asset value) calculations will increase to 56% of hedge funds, up from 46% in 2009. Operational integrity, says Sussman, is crucial to a fund’s survival, especially when faced with this increase demand in fund performance. “Hedge funds are seeking the best possible resources, including people, processes and technology, so they can meet and exceed the demands of the industry’s changing landscape.”

Prior to 2008, the fund-administrator selection process was straightforward and largely handled by managers, a check-the-box type of exercise that revolved around fund administrators’ brands and fees. The problem with relying too heavily on brand awareness, says Rowady, is that a brand’s quality was often correlated with size. “But size and brand do not ensure that an administrator deploys the most reliable technology, SAS Level II certified processes, domain expertise and scalability, not only in terms of size but the funds ability to adapt its operation to changing technology, regulations and market conditions.”

TABB details three administrator models in the report: custodian-owned, broker-owned and independent/hybrid independent. Although the independent model strives to minimize conflicts of interest that could influence the administrator’s asset valuation and verification practices, “The hybrid independent model enjoys arm’s-length operating independence combined with the financial backing of a larger entity and this may represent the best model,” says Rowady.

As firms move to validate their processing and servicing partners, TABB Group believes that the traditional method of choosing administrators by brand or reputation will be replaced by a selection process that prioritizes due diligence. “This shift should benefit boutique administrators more than many of the traditional providers,” maintains Rowady.

The authors believe the industry is seeing an end to the era in which funds manage their processing internally with a “trust me” nod to their investors. “We see more investors pushing hedge funds to migrate their processing and valuation responsibilities to qualified third parties, firms that will need to expand their processing capabilities to be more on demand, more responsive and more global.” Selecting an administrator is a complex and resource-intensive process, says Sussman. “The good news is, there are clues that investors and managers can use to make well-informed selections based on their needs and the ability of an administrator, regardless of size, to meet those needs.”

The 21-page report with 6 exhibits covers the changing market landscape for both alternative and traditional fund managers, how this new market reality serves as a driver for the broadening spectrum of administrator service offerings, enhances the importance of fund administrators – and the outlook for the fund administration business – and details how fund administrators are now instrumental to the long-term success of funds. The report describes the strengths and weaknesses of the three primary business models of fund administrators, including a discussion of the optimal model. The report also covers the fund administration landscape, pinpointing as many as many as 70 administrators globally, and details a comprehensive list of selection criteria with focus on the two factors that have replaced brand and size as the most important selection drivers.

by TABB Group Equity Research Alliance clients and all pre-qualified media at https://www.tabbgroup.com/Login.aspx. For an executive summary or to purchase the report, visit http://www.tabbgroup.com or write to info@tabbgroup.com.

Other recent TABB Group hedge fund research includes “Prime Brokerage 2009: The Hedge Fund Perspective,” which provides the capital markets industry with an in-depth analysis of hedge fund/prime brokerage relationships, and “US Hedge fund 2009: Fees, Redemptions and Managed Accounts,” covering hedge funds’ challenges dealing with fees, redemption policies, including lockups, advanced notification and frequency of redemptions, plus managed accounts, gate provisions and fund launches.

TABB Group is the financial markets industry’s only research and strategic advisory firm focused exclusively on capital markets, with offices in New York and London . Founded in 2003 and based on the proven interview-based research methodology of “first-person knowledge” developed by founder Larry Tabb, TABB Group analyzes and quantifies the investing value chain from the fiduciary, investment manager and broker, to exchange and custodian, helping senior business leaders gain a truer understanding of financial markets issues.