Hedge funds were down 2.15% for the year in the 10 months to end of October. This is their weakest performance on record since 2008 when they declined 9.55%. Almost 47% of the managers are in the green for the year with roughly 8% of the managers posting double-digit gains as tracked in the Eurekahedge Global Hedge Funds database.

Fish

First Degree Asset Management, the fund management business in Singapore set-up by Stephen “Fish” Fisher in 2011 when he left JP Morgan after a couple of decades at the firm, is evolving. The firm has now become a fund platform described as “a platform by managers for managers”. First Degree is offering independent managers a licensing umbrella and guidance on how to structure and manage a fund. Newly independent managers often face issues with managing both business set-up and managing the investment strategy. First Degree, with its existing infrastructure, seeks to help portfolio managers to focus on managing money by taking care of a lot of the other tasks and issues faced by new fund launches. Led by Fish, First Degree also benefits from the involvement of Omar Taheri, formerly head of business development at Swiss-Asia, as an adviser.

Asian hedge fund managers are down 2.26% for the year and underlying Eurekahedge Greater China Hedge Fund Index posting losses of 5.94% as of August 2018.

The Eurekahedge Crypto-Currency Hedge Fund Index is down 52.93% for the year. The index has lost more than half of its value over the first eight months of 2018, as fund managers struggled to mitigate the damage caused by the crypto-currency market crash following gains of 1708.5% in 2017.

According to Eurekahedge, hedge funds are up 0.43% for the year, their weakest performance on record since 2008. Asian hedge funds are down 1.61% for the year so far.

According to Eurekahedge: Asian hedge funds continue their struggle in 1H 2018 with losses of 0.61%, though outperforming underlying markets as the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index (Local) posted losses of 3.47%. Japan mandated hedge funds are down 2.70% in 1H 2018, ahead of the 4.77% loss posted by underlying markets as captured by the Tokyo Topix Index.

Keiko Sydenham

Keiko Sydenham has joined Blackstone in Tokyo as a managing director focused on business development and investor relations. Most recently she has worked for seven years at JP Morgan Asset Management where she has focused on alternative investments. Earlier she has worked at Russell, Orix Investment Corporation, HC Asset Management and Primerica.

According to Eurekahedge: Hedge funds posted their second consecutive month of gains, up 0.33% in May and 0.48% year-to-date. Performance has varied sharply with small to medium sized hedge funds delivering gains while funds managing in excess of US$500 million in assets seeing losses of 0.34% with their sub-group of billion dollar hedge funds declining 0.88% in May.

Asia-focused relative value fund manager Red Cliff Asia has been named Best Asian Hedge Fund of 2017 at the recent Eurekahedge Asian Hedge Fund Awards in Singapore.

Edward Moon

Edward Moon has left Singapore and relocated to Hong Kong for a new role as Regional Head of Alternative Investments at HSBC Private Bank. Most recently, Ed was covering hedge funds and other liquid alternatives at Bank of Singapore. Prior to that, he was CEO of Ataraxia Quant Strategy, a division of Lighthouse Canton, CIO of Woori Absolute Partners and Co-CIO of family office EDGE. He started off his career at Credit Suisse First Boston and then Citibank.