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OIL
Energy-focused hedge funds are capitalising on oil’s continuing price surge, as the commodity hit its highest level since 2018 this week.
Hedge fund managers that trade across the oil market and energy equities spectrum have generated eye-catching double-digit returns this year, as bullish bets built around price rises driven by reopening economies pay off.
US prices – as measured by the West Texas Intermediate crude benchmark – topped USD75 per barrel for August on Thursday, while Brent crude soared above USD76 per barrel, levels last seen around October 2018.
RCMA Capital’s long-running Merchant Commodity Fund – which trades commodity derivative
NEWS
Sir Paul Marshall, co-founder of UK hedge fund giant Marshall Wace, and ex-Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman Lord Jim O’Neill are demanding an overhaul of Manchester United’s corporate structure to give supporters more say in the club’s affairs following this week’s European Super League fiasco.
FUND LAUNCHES
More hedge funds were launched in the first quarter of this year than at any other time since the end of 2017, with the number of new strategy roll-outs outstripping liquidations for the third consecutive quarter, amid further signs the industry is on track for another strong year.
NEWS
Hedge funds that built major short positions against UK supermarkets at the start of the coronavirus lockdown have seen their bets go awry as share prices in the sector remained resilient.
Several high-profile hedge fund managers made sizable wagers against the likes of Sainsbury’s and Morrisons earlier in the year, with marquee names such as Pelham Capital, BlackRock and Citadel Europe among those making the biggest bets.
But new analysis by Ortex Analytics, the London-based equity analytics firm, shows that as supermarkets’ share prices have held up throughout the pandemic, many managers have been forced to close their positions without
FUND LAUNCHES
A new ESG-focused distressed and event driven credit hedge fund run by US manager DSC Meridian has launched with backing from Investcorp-Tages, the asset management seeder.
The Climate Action Fund builds on DSC Meridian’s flagship Credit Opportunities Fund, using an ESG (environment, social, governance) overlay with a specific focus on decarbonisation. The strategy aims to strengthen overall risk management through corporate engagement, unlocking idiosyncratic ESG value and aligning portfolio companies with climate standards set by the Paris Climate Agreement and UNPRI.
Founded in 2018 by Sheru Chowdhry, ex-head of credit research & co-portfolio manager of the Paulson Credit Fund, DSC
NEWS
Activist hedge fund CIAM says SCOR SE’s board of directors can “no longer ignore” shareholder discontent over governance practices, after the French reinsurance firm’s annual general meeting registered sizeable opposition to the board’s proposed remuneration policies.
PODCAST
In this 5th and final podcast of the series, Steven Unzicker, Founder of ANZU Research, SEI’s Ross Ellis and Michael Neumann, Head of AI Quantitative Strategies and Partner at Arabesque, discuss how the decentralised model – as characterised by Uber and Airbnb – could inform the future of fund management.
FUND PERFORMANCE
Event driven hedge funds are making hay amid soaring levels of corporate activity, with new stats showing these managers raked in their best first-quarter returns in almost 30 years, as a number of newly-launched strategies look to get a piece of the M&A action.
Event driven managers – which seek to capitalise on stock mispricings and other valuation anomalies stemming from mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, takeovers and other corporate events using activist, merger arbitrage and special situations strategies – posted a first quarter composite return of 7.3 per cent, according to new research by bfinance, their strongest Q1 showing since
CTA PERFORMANCE
Short-term trend-following hedge fund strategies stayed in positive territory in the first six months of 2020, despite June proving to be another tough month in which CTAs’ performance continued to slide as markets reverted and lacked direction.
Société Générale’s Short-Term Traders Index – which monitors the daily performance of a portfolio of CTAs and global macro managers with holding periods of up to 10 days – advanced 2.98 per cent in the period between 1st January and 30th June.
Though the index dipped slightly (-0.68 per cent) last month, close to half its constituents posted positive performance in June, Société
RETURNS
Brummer & Partners, the Stockholm-based multi-strategy hedge fund firm, has generated positive returns for the first half of 2020, with US long/short equity, credit and macro strategies all driving performance in its flagship strategy in recent weeks.
Despite a recent spike in market volatility, the Brummer Multi-Strategy multi-manager fund – which invests in a range of single-strategy hedge funds – gained 1.5 per cent in June, while the Brummer Multi-Strategy 2xL (BMS 2xL) added 2.8 per cent.
The recent positive momentum – June’s gains were the third consecutive month of positive returns – means the multi-strategy fund is now up
