The third of a six- The third of a six-part guide by Dermot S.L. Butler, Chairman of Custom House Administration & Corporate Services Limited (Custom House). 3. The Complexities of Administering Hedge Funds There are a number of areas in which the administration of Hedge Funds differs from the administration of the more traditional Mutual Funds or Unit Trusts. These include: the range of investment instruments; and the strategies used to exploit these instruments; the ability to go short; leverage; fee structures, including incentive or performance fees; and equalisation. The traditional Mutual Funds or Unit Trusts are, for the most part, retail funds with quite restrictive investment policies – which include: very broad diversification; no short selling; no leverage; and derivative trading limited to “Efficient Portfolio Management”, which is a Euro euphemism for hedging, but very targeted hedging. On the other hand, Hedge Fund strategies utilise a vast range of derivative instruments, which can introduce pricing problems. These strategies range from the relatively straightforward exchange traded commodities, financial futures and options contracts, to highly complex derivative products, which include swaps and CFDs, which are Contracts for Differences, currency forward contracts traded on the Interbank market and a wide variety of customised instruments created by major banks and financial institutions and sold on the Over the Counter (OTC) market. Hedge Fund portfolios, which have these exotic investments, are not inherently difficult to administer or account for, providing the Administrator is able to obtain a reliable and verifiable price for the investments, upon which that Administrator can base the NAV calculation. Most Hedge Fund strategies are, essentially, quite simple long-short strategies, from the obvious long-short equity fund, through merger arbitrage, commodities, futures, options and bonds and none of these present a problem, if they are traded on a recognised exchange and a liquid market. The problems come with illiquid assets and esoteric derivative products, created by and sold by just one financial institution, which is the only valuer of those assets. What is essential is that a clear valuation policy is disclosed in the offering document and some fallback plan is in place, in case the unthinkable happens, – which it inevitably will, if you don’t have any fallback plan. Where possible, an independent price source must be used. If that isn’t possible, a reasonable, practical pricing formula must be agreed between the Investment Manager, the Administrator, and – this is important – the Auditor, before the Fund is launched and, some fallback plan, in the event that market circumstances change, is also agreed. The volatility of the Fund can be exacerbated by leverage and this can bring its own valuation problems, particularly if leverage is provided by utilising an option or other derivative instrument. The ability to go short is, itself, a form of leverage and, in some arbitrage strategies, a dramatic change in market conditions, or even just market sentiment, can decimate the relationship between the two arbitrage components, which is essentially what happened to Long Term Capital. The manner in which management and performance fees for Hedge Funds are calculated, can be very complicated and is certainly never standardised, unlike Mutual Funds, which are, for the most part, charged on a standardised basis. For instance, management and/or performance fees can be charged on a monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annual basis, but they must be accrued for at least monthly. The real problems occur in this area with “Equalisation”, which is the term used to describe the various accounting processes designed to ensure that the performance fee due to the Investment Manager is allocated fairly between all Shareholders. Most people assume that Equalisation is only needed in order to ensure that the Investment Manager receives the full performance fee due to him and that an investor who buys on a dip does not get a “free ride”. Consider the following example: Equalisation eliminates this anomaly. Most people think the ‘free ride’ was the main reason for bringing Equalisation in and they are correct. Undoubtedly, that is why Equalisation was introduced in the first place. However, mathematically, it can be proved that, if investors subscribe into a Fund between performance fee payment dates then, regardless of whether the price of the shares had risen or fallen in the meantime, some Shareholders will pay a proportionately lower incentive fee than they should, and so conversely, others will pay a higher incentive fee than they should. Thus, unless Equalisation is applied all the time, some Shareholders are subsidising other Shareholders, to their own detriment. Dermot S.L. Butler is Chairman of Dublin-based Custom House Administration & Corporate Services Limited ("Custom House"), a company that specialises in assisting clients in the organisation, establishment and administration of alternative investment and hedge funds. Custom House is regulated by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority ("IFSRA"), and authorised under Section 10 of the Irish Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995.
Management and Performance Fees
Equalisation