Strong start for FreeStone fund at Kagiso
Steynberg Kuhn and Alfred Hoernle at Kagiso Hedge Funds in Johannesburg now have a seven-month track record with their FreeStone Fund, a fixed income hedge fund.
Polakow joins Brait multi-manager
Daniel Polakow, former director and head of research at Peregrine Securities, has joined the multi-manager team at Brait, based in Cape Town.
Abax in stride with third hedge fund
Cape Town-based Polaris Capital has changed its name to Abax Investments, in line with a ruling made by the South African high court that it should change the name as confusion might arise from similarity with that of an American firm.
Deutsche grows prime team
Deutsche Prime Finance has strengthened its team with the appointment of Hugh Soellaart. A qualified accountant with 11 years' financial services
experience, Soellaart has worked previously at JP Morgan in London and Societe Generale in South Africa.
Storm Capital takes a break
Arno van Wyngaarden and Nick Middelman at Cape Town-based Storm Capital are planning a sabbatical from the hedge fund industry, and are in the process of returning capital to investors in their two hedge funds.
Unconstrained managers present a compelling case
"Let's hope the market comes in flat this year so that hedge funds can really show what they can do," one South African hedge fund manager told us recently, as global stock markets started the year on a weak note.
Van Rensburg joins Investec
Former Peregine Capital man Nick van Rensburg has joined the equity derivatives desk at Investec Capital Markets as of early January.
Validus Plus clocks 75%
South African fixed interest manager KADD Capital had a stellar year in 2009, with its flagship Validus Fixed Income Fund returning a net 37.58% and
Validus Plus gaining 74.58%, against a decline of 1.03% in the All Bond Index.
Wide dispersion for Africa funds
Africa-focused funds in the HedgeNews Africa database produced a wide range of returns in 2009, after a generally dismal 2008, when most ended
the year deep in the red.
PSG Quant finishes 2009 with a flourish
The PSG Quant Fund added 1.24% in December to finish 2009 with a net gain of 27.1%, an impressive performance in a difficult year for quantitative
trend-followingstrategies, or CTA funds.