Mar 30, 2008

BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) launched a USD500 million initial public offering for a fund of hedge funds to trade on the London Stock Exchange, the Wall Street Journal said in an article on Friday. The fund, BlackRock Absolute Return Strategies Ltd, will provide investors access to its so-called Appreciation Strategy of investing in pools of hedge funds, which it acquired last year as part of its purchase of the funds-of-funds business of Quellos Group LLC, the Journal said.

Hedge funds that make money by speculating on the success of takeovers may be the next round of casualties in the industry, not because of bad bets but because of a lack of anything to bet on. Bloomberg News is reporting Friday that Tisbury Capital Management LLP plans to close up shop and hand the money in its fund back to investors because of there aren't enough takeovers to play to make the game of merger arbitrage worthwhile.

Monsoon Capital didn't start the year off right and it is only getting worse. The Bethesda, Md.-based hedge fund, which has pinned its fortunes on Indian stocks, told investors that its Monsoon India Inflection Fund plummeted 28.3% as of March 20, and the month still had 10 days to go. That's on top of the 17.6% it dropped in the first two months of 2008, for a whopping -45.9%. The Monsoon Indian Inflection Fund 2 was almost as bad, plunging 26.8% through March and tumbling a total of 44.4% year to date. The losing ways reflect that of India's Sensex Index, which is off 26% since Jan. 1, with more than half the losses coming this month.