Vesuvius Hedge Fund Launch

Magma Fund Advisors, Ltd announced the launch of their first hedge fund, the Cayman domiciled Vesuvius Investment Fund, which opened its doors in January, 2008.

The new hedge fund was formed for a select group of international investors, using approximately 10% of the funds gross assets to trade S&P 500 futures contracts based on trends forecasted by Xybemomics.

With Citigroup Global Markets as prime broker, the hedge fund has a 12 month lock up period, a 2% management fee and 20% as performance fee. Vesuvius has a minimum investment of $1,000,000.

The Vesuvius Investment Fund will also, as secondary investment strategy, achieve consistent long-term capital appreciation by using approximately 90% of the hedge fund's assets to hold cash, or other risk adverse positions, in order to offset the risk associated with trading futures.

Magma Fund Advisors was founded in 2007 to secure high quality investment returns for institutional investors and high net worth individuals by applying a diverse range of investment products.

SEC Examines Hedge Fund Tip-Offs

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether hedge funds are being tipped off about buy and sell orders placed by mutual funds.

The Federal regulators that are conducting the probe, have asked approximately 10 major Wall Street banks for trading information from the last two weeks of September 2006, at the close of the third quarter.

It's become difficult for hedge fund managers to make money without access to sensitive information, so the SEC examiners will try to determine whether big buy and sell orders placed with the banks by mutual funds in that period triggered any suspicious front-running activity in those same stocks by hedge fund managers or other traders.

Lori Richards, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations, confirmed that her office was looking into the matter. "We're always concerned about information leakage in the market which could harm investors," she said.

Details of the investigation first appeared Tuesday in the New York Times, which said that the SEC request for information had gone out in mid-January.