26 February 2010 © InvestHedge

Survival of the fi ttest to be

rewarded at the Awards

InvestHedge unveils nominations for the eighth annual black tie fund of funds event in New York

The initial nominations for the eighth annual InvestHedge Fund of Hedge Funds Awards din-ner are unveiled. The black tie evening, which will be held at The Pierre in New York on Thursday 11 March 2010, will mix one year with longer term performance awards.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the cer-emony comes at a time when the funds of funds universe returned a healthy 9.21% in 2009, albeit on a reduced asset base.

Ironically, the frauds of the last two years have bolstered the argument for well-run funds of funds. This year the ceremony will only look at performance-related awards based on data submitted on a monthly basis to the InvestHedge database, which tracks 2,562 ac-tive funds of funds run by 727 management companies globally.

Investors are concerned about side pocketed or illiquid assets, and funds that are a long way from their high water mark. For this rea-son, InvestHedge is adding a new criterion to the methodology, which is that a fund of funds has to be within 10% of its high water mark.

Despite an environment that has seem some brand names taken out of action and other fi rms merging with former rivals, the initial nominees are a reassuring line up of familiar names, such as Archstone Partners, Edmond de Rothschild, RBS’s Orbita funds, GAM, RMF Investments, Aurora Investment Manage-ment, Lighthouse, Permal and Pictet, that have been nominated, and in many cases won, year after year.

As with all industries that are still evolving there are some solid newer nominees, such as Kairos Partners (see profi le page 28), Magni-tude Capital and Culross Global.

End investors now want more information and transparency on their funds of funds: his-tory, performance, news analysis, all of which boost the importance of the annual In-vestHedge Awards. This event is the only glo-bal fund of hedge funds awards ceremony where the winners are picked on the basis of their risk-adjusted returns and not a subjective selection committee.

Each year, InvestHedge tries to understand the needs of the investors and accommodate these in the methodology of the InvestHedge Fund of Hedge Funds Awards. This year, InvestHedge is going back to the one-year risk-adjusted fund of hedge funds performance for the ma-jority of the 20 awards. But, in addition to the two long-term performance awards over 10 years, InvestHedge has added three-year awards, in line with end investor preferences, in the three global multi-strategy categories.

Last year, despite a lot of negative returns, the event, which gathers the global fund of funds industry from Europe, Asia and the US

in one room, still attracted more than 300 peo-ple and some 50 funds of funds with com-bined assets of $250 billion. The previous year, more than 400 people, including representa-tives for 70 funds of funds with combined as-sets of $508 billion, gathered in one room.

The full list of nominations for the InvestHedge Awards, based on full-year data to December 2009, will be added online later this month and published in the March edition of InvestHedge.

To qualify, funds must submit performance data to the InvestHedge database and has a 12-month track record with no pro-forma data. The only exception is for New Fund of the Year, where we only require a minimum six-month track record. For this award, funds launched during the 18 months prior to the event will be considered, taking into account their whole performance history to date.

Before the fi nal list of nominees is pub-lished, the hedge funds must also provide a strategy allocation breakdown for each fund nominated, as well as be able to explain how they calculated the NAVs on illiquid or side-pocketed asserts. For the full nomination crite-ria please go to the website www.hedgefund-intelligence.com/events

As in previous years, the InvestHedge Awards will be a black tie event. It will start at 6pm with a canapé and cocktail networking reception that makes an ideal place for hedge fund man-agers to meet their global investors in a relaxed atmosphere. Dinner will follow at 7.15pm, with the presentation of the InvestHedge Funds of Hedge Funds Awards – starting during dessert. Following the Awards presentation there will be an open bar, enabling guests to continue to catch up with their peers and clients.

investhedge AWARDS 2009

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