Funds
Active Digital, a new digital asset hedge fund firm, has launched with a team of experienced traders providing a collective 27 years of crypto trading experience. The firm has already begun trading with personal capital and is seeking investments from funds of funds and family offices.
Active Digital takes a systematic approach to crypto trading with a market neutral fund and a long-short fund. The market neutral fund employs statistical arbitrage and basis trading strategies, utilising proprietary execution software that is designed to be adaptable to changing market conditions and new strategies.
The long-short fund is a fully systematic, quantitative
AIFs and UCITS saw net outflows of €278 billion in 2022, compared to net inflows of €888 billion in 2021, according to the latest monthly Investment Fund Industry Fact Sheet Net from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA). Assets of European investment funds meanwhile, declined by 12.4%, to drop below the €20 trillion threshold.
According to EFAMA’s data, UCITS suffered net outflows of €175 billion in 2022, the first annual decline since 2011.
Net sales of AIFs, meanwhile turned negative for the first time ever (€101 billion). EFAMA says this was due to the decision taken by several pension
Melqart Asset Management has launched a new fund on the Investcorp-Tages UCITS platform, the Melqart Event Driven UCITS Fund. Melqart Asset Management was founded in 2015 by Michel Massoud and currently manages $1.7 billion on behalf of a global client base, which includes some of the world’s pre-eminent hedge fund investors.
The BlackRock Strategic Equity Hedge Fund, which is run by money manager Alister Hibbert, is reopening to additional investment for the first time since 2019 and targeting an additional $1bn in funds after chalking up a record annual loss in 2022, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Hedge funds’ strong performance in January has been backed by numbers from another provider, with Bloomberg data providing more evidence that funds caught the upswings in equities and cryptocurrencies.
New research from quant technology provider SigTech, drawing on data from Preqin and insights from various hedge fund managers, reveals that roughly 30,000 hedge funds are currently operating globally. The US dominates the industry with a market share of 65%, followed by the UK (8.8%) and Hong Kong (3.5%).
Quant trading specialist DE Shaw & Co has closed its first dedicated private equity fund with more than $450 million in capital commitments, falling just sort of the fund’s $500 million target, which was set a year ago, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Global hedge funds recorded a 2.8% gain in January, but expectations of a continued bear market meant industry performance lagged broader stock market indices over the month, according to the latest performance data from HFR.
All four major hedge fund strategies ended the month higher, led by equity hedge funds with a 4.24% gain, a notable turnaround for a category that posted major losses in 2022.
By comparison, the Nasdaq recorded its best January performance since 2011 with a 10.7% gain, while the S&P 500 advanced 6.18% over the month.
The investable HFRI 500 Fund Weighted Composite Index jumped +2.5%
Uncertainty over how a recession might hit European corporate debt has prompted Arini, a $2.3 billion hedge fund run by a former Credit Suisse banker, to unveil plans to launch two new credit funds this year, according to a report by Reuters.
Haidar Capital’s Jupiter Fund, which follows a high conviction, highly leveraged, macro strategy, has slumped around 13% so far this year following a record gain of 193% in 2023, according to a report by Bloomberg.
