Hyundai Securities Co Ltd is seeding capital to a new Singapore-based hedge fund, it’s first such foray outside of South Korea and a positive sign for the regional fund industry.
A Hyundai Securities spokesman on Wednesday said the firm planned to set up a fund in Singapore under the leadership of Dr Kim Hong-shik, a derivatives specialist who headed the Asian equity-linked products for ABN AMRO and was founding member at K3 Capital Management, a Singapore-based hedge fund.
Although Hyundai did not release further details sources have revealed that the fund, which will be called AQG Capital will begin trading with USD100 million in the latter half of 2013.
AQG Capital will use an equities long/short market-neutral strategy and apply quantitative techniques to select stocks. Such funds aim at profiting from both rising and falling prices of securities.
The hedge fund will compete with peers such as USD1.5 billion Macquarie Asian Alpha and USD56 million MNJ Asia-Pacific Absolute Return fund, which have produced annual returns of just over 10 percent since launch.
Australian based MST Capital has appointed SunGard Hedge360 as their front to back office service provider.
MST Capital who run an Asian focused global macro hedge hope that Hedge360 will help them better service their clients with an enhanced ability to provide analysis, trading, portfolio and risk management of OTC and exchange-traded derivatives and securities, in real-time.
"Crucial to us was the ability to choose tailored components of the investment management suite to meet our specific requirements. The breadth of SunGard’s asset coverage, its unified team support across all the solutions and complete technology outsourcing and security, combined to make Hedge360 our top choice." – Les Andrews, chief operating officer, MST Capital.
Sidley Austin has hired Clifford Chance (CC) funds partner Han Ming Hoas the firm moves to expand its capabilities in Singapore after winning a local law licence last month.
Ho, who is Singapore-qualified, will join Sidley in the city-state to serve as co-head of the Asia investment funds practice alongside Hong Kong-based partner Effie Vasilopoulos.
Vasilopoulos said: "Given the increasing internationalisation of our clients’ business activities and the growing importance of Singapore as a fund management hub in the region, Han Ming is a most valuable addition to our funds practice.
"With Han Ming’s ability to provide clients with local law advice in Singapore, we will now be able to offer a full suite of comprehensive law services to our fund manager clients looking to access Asian markets and investors."
Sidley Austin is among a long list of firms looking to expand its Singapore practice as Chinese and Japanese companies continue to grow their operations in Southeast Asia.
Asian funds of hedge funds lost more than half of their assets last year, a significant drop as institutional investors continue to move towards direct hedge fund investments instead.
Asian funds of funds managed just USD16 billion at the end of last year. They managed USD34 billion at the end of 2011, Preqin reports.
“Asia-Pacific-based fund of hedge funds have seen a larger proportion of outflows in 2012 and this can partly be attributed to their below-expected performance in 2011,” said Ross Ford, manager of hedge fund profiles at Preqin. “Investors who are looking to maintain their current allocation to fund of hedge funds are also shifting away from smaller boutique Asia-Pacific-based hedge funds.”
