As investors shift assets across strategies.....

Hedge Funds News New York: In Barrons, Michael Malo, executive vice president in charge of hedge funds at Caisse de depot et placement due Quebec, the firm which places the Quebec Government pension and insurance plans (approx $155.4bln), explained that even in light of the financial market turmoil and hedge fund industry performance, his alternative investment weightings would not be changing (Source).

However, within the hedge fund segment of those investments, Malo did expect to make changes such as diversification by decreasing individual manager investments and increasing fund of funds holdings from 10% to 40%. On top of risk focused asset shifts amongst fund types such as this, the industry is additionally seeing investor shifts across strategies.

The credit space is one such strategy highly anticipated to offer vast opportunity as the credit crunch cycles through the global markets. Tomorrow (Wednesday, November 5th) South Florida Hedge Fund Managers association is hosting a panel discussion to delve into the merits and opportunities of this space, (Opalesque has learned that a few seats do remain, for more information see here).

Opportunities which won’t resurface again for 15-20 years
Boca Raton-based Harch Capital Management is currently focused on the late November launch of its Harch Fund VI (Harch Fund VI -The HCM Pathfinder Fund) which will be a long only senior debt fund of exclusively first lien bank debt of larger cap companies. The Fund will look to those companies that will be best positioned for M&A activity or refinancing when the markets stabilize to call the debt at par (and in some cases higher). These will be companies which “despite malaise in afflicted industries, have been able to produce free cash flow, pay down their senior debt, and reduce investment risk for a portfolio manager.”

The Fund will focus on industries which they expect to outperform despite global economic headwinds - including healthcare, aero and defense, energy and certain industrial and infrastructure sectors. “We believe this is an exceptional opportunity, one that probably won’t resurface again for 15-20 years, to invest in the senior secured bank debt of large, multinational companies that ar......................

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As investors shift assets across strategies.....