What’s news around the hedge fund industry for Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013:

Around the web

Coal India Ltd. net profit to soar if prices raised to global level: TCI. (Economic Times of India)

Comeback kid: Post-woes, hedgie Daniel Zwirn back in the game. (New York Post) See Zwirn in person on April 4 at HedgeWorld East.

Paulson adds large stake in coal miner Alpha; other funds buy Cliffs, Arch. (SNL)

Dually-registered advisers on SEC focus list. (InvestmentNews)

For SEC, a setback in bid for more time in fraud cases. (DealBook)

Argentina would defy court order in Elliott case, lawyer says. (FINalternatives)

State Street’s SSARIS unit axes Multi-Manager Japan Equity Fund. (FINalternatives)

Florida Gov. Rick Scott invites Providence Investment Management to move. (FINalternatives)

Funds of hedge funds start 2013 with strong returns. (Preqin, PDF)

Authorities fighting a losing battle against insider trading. (Irish Independent)

Block trades face higher minimums. (Financial Times)

Germany steps up HFT scrutiny with draft bill. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Apple required executives to hold triple their salary in stock. (WSJ.com)

HFT checkmate: The alpha in order types. (TabbFORUM, registration required but worth it)

The hedge fund industry is being given greater regulatory scrutiny and a host of new compliance requirements. Against this backdrop, HedgeWorld, Labaton Sucharow and the Hedge Fund Association are together conducting a survey of ethics in hedge funds. We need your help.

In particular if you are a hedge fund executive or portfolio manager, but also if you work in risk management, compliance, marketing, administration – any hedge fund job, really – we ask that you take just a few minutes and complete this totally confidential online questionnaire. The answers you give us will give us the first real look at how those in the hedge fund industry view themselves, their coworkers and their firms from an ethical standpoint.

As a thank you for your time, you will be entered in a random drawing to win one of 25 iPod shuffles.

Here is the survey link:
http://survey5.orcinternational.com/surveys/J3688725/j3688725.asp?id=&VID=1

Thank you for helping, and thank you for your time. If you have any questions, please e-mail me at chris.clair@thomsonreuters.com.

Here we take a look at January 2013 absolute performance for the top 5 funds of funds in two categories - all funds and U.S.-only funds - as tracked by Lipper’s hedge fund database. To see more analysis, including assets under management and domicile information for the top 10 funds in each category, click here for all funds and here for U.S.-only funds. To be truly connected to all the Lipper analytics available on HedgeWorld, become a HedgeWorld Premium Plus member. To find out more about how to do that, visit hedgeworld.com/membership/.

Under the Securities Act of 1933, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allows companies to offer securities for sale without having to register those securities or file periodic reports, provided the companies meet exemptions laid out in Regulation D. For hedge funds’ purposes, those securities are limited partnerships. When a hedge fund firm sells its first securities, it is required by Reg D to file a Form D, which includes names and addresses of the company’s executive officers and stock promoters and the date of the first sale in the offering. As such, Form D filings can be a useful tool to find new hedge fund launches.

Kamunting Street Special Opportunity Offshore Fund, Ltd.

MADDEN PARTNERS LP

Blue Clay Capital Partners CO I LP

Stilwell Value Partners VII, L.P.

—Compiled by Angela Sormani

What’s news around the hedge fund industry for Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013:

Around the web

Guggenheim Partners gets SEC scrutiny on Milken ties. (WSJ.com)

Five takeaways from Apple CEO Tim Cook’s keynote to investors. (WSJ’s Digits blog)

JPMorgan says hedge funds using ‘pocket veto’ to halt MF Global suit. (Dow Jones Newswires, via Fox Business)

SCOTUS says fraud lawsuits must be filed within five years. (FINalternatives)

U.K. leads 12-state rebellion against European Commission hedge fund rules. (The Telegraph)

Montana Gov. Schweitzer, Clinton Group try to oust Stillwater Mining’s board of directors. (The Missoulian)

NYC’s hedge fund community supports art show to benefit Henry Street Settlement. (FINalternatives)

Brinker Capital survey shows nearly half of respondents plan to allocate more to absolute return alternative strategies. (Brinker Capital, PDF)

Bill Ackman’s ill-fated bike ride: ‘His mind wrote a check that his body couldn’t cash’. (William D. Cohan in Vanity Fair)

Starboard Value urges Office Depot to explore sale of Mexican joint venture. (Reuters)

The SEC nominee’s charm campaign. (DealBook)

Rich pickings for survivors of Wall Street’s banking cull. (The Times)

Wall Street junk kings selling debt poised to lose value. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

How former hedgie manager Arnaud Christiaens is challenging the Bordeaux status quo. (City A.M.)

In Stamford, gambling on an office complex makeover. (NYTimes.com)

CME merger talks raise fee concern that may stymie deal. (Bloomberg)

SEC shines light on derivatives-backed notes. (Bloomberg)

Facebook backer Chris Hansen of Valiant Capital Management bets on Pinterest and NBA’s Kings. (Bloomberg)

People moves

BlueCrest Capital Management said to be in talks to hire ex-Nomura executives Jonathan Larkin and Christian Dalban. (Bloomberg)

Getco hires Goldman electronic trading head Greg Tusar. (WSJ.com)

Here we take a look at January 2013 absolute performance for the top 5 fixed income arbitrage funds in two categories - all funds and U.S.-only funds - as tracked by Lipper’s hedge fund database. To see more analysis, including assets under management and domicile information for the top 10 funds in each category, click here for all funds and here for U.S.-only funds. To be truly connected to all the Lipper analytics available on HedgeWorld, become a HedgeWorld Premium Plus member. To find out more about how to do that, visit hedgeworld.com/membership/.

While it sounds mundane, the “Residual Interest Income” issue has the potential to literally change the face of the regulated derivatives industry.

In just one line of a massive Dodd Frank bill with unnecessary complexity and obfuscation, large bank interests may complete monopolistic control over the derivatives industry.

This is the point that has been absent from many of the industry comment letters and should be on the radar of government regulators.

To understand, keep the topic simple.

With one line amongst millions of legislative words, government regulators will effectively dis-advantage mid-sized Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs), likely forcing many out of business, which has been widely discussed and commented on. The point missing in discussions is the implications, the “unintended” consequences of how this provides literal control of the futures brokerage industry by a small cartel of banking interests with a Too Big to Fail guarantee.

Monopolistic control over the futures industry is not a new topic. The discussion has always taken shape on the exchange side of the business. Brokerage has not been actively considered in the public discussion, but the impact could be the same.

Consequences for farmers and hedgers could be dramatic, as most of these independent business executives work with mid-sized brokerage firms. In effect, this could impact the stability of the market, which is why certain large bank executives might have taken the side of independent FCMs.

In particular Mike Dawley of Goldman Sachs has been a vocal voice in the logical questioning of the impact on market ecosystem, as have many industry participants including The Commodity Customer Coalition and The National Introducing Brokers Association, who stands to be decimated if the “residual interest” issue is allowed to create a large bank monopoly in the commodity markets.

At a minimum the long term impact of this issue should be studied by the CFTC and openly discussed relative to the impact it might have on hedgers and creating a monopoly in a key sector of the US financial services industry.

To read this an other recent blog posts follow this link to my managed futures blog (requires free registration): http://www.uncorrelatedinvestments.com/blog/?p=45

Mark Melin is author of High Performance Managed Futures (Wiley 2010), Co-Editor of The CBOT’s Guide to Futures and Options and taught a managed futures course for Northwestern University’s Executive Education Program.

Under the Securities Act of 1933, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allows companies to offer securities for sale without having to register those securities or file periodic reports, provided the companies meet exemptions laid out in Regulation D. For hedge funds’ purposes, those securities are limited partnerships. When a hedge fund firm sells its first securities, it is required by Reg D to file a Form D, which includes names and addresses of the company’s executive officers and stock promoters and the date of the first sale in the offering. As such, Form D filings can be a useful tool to find new hedge fund launches.

Waterbuck Fund Ltd.

BASSWOOD TARP FUND, LP - SERIES 10

ASCEND LEGEND FUND, LTD.

—Compiled by Angela Sormani

What’s news around the hedge fund industry for Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013:

Around the web

Wall Street pay rises, for those who still have a job. (DealBook)

Tribune Co. hires bankers to sell newspapers: source. (Reuters)

Why Einhorn’s win may be Apple’s gain. (DealBook)

Lehman trustee offers details on claim settlements, payback. (Dow Jones Newswires, via Nasdaq)

Aurelius Capital Management backs JPMorgan in MF Global fight. (Dow Jones Newswires, via Nasdaq)

German hedge funds struggle to regain cachet. (Deutsche Welle)

BusinessWeek had the ‘inside’ story on Cohen back in 2003. (New York Post)

Gavea Investimentos Ltda. Scraps asset-backed fund as JPMorgan hires away Jose de Menezes Berenguer Neto. (Bloomberg)

Elliott Associates, Argentina to face off Wednesday. (FINalternatives)

CalPERS to boost allocations to event-driven, macro funds. (Bloomberg)

Revere opens Emerging Managers Founders Fund to investors. (FINalternatives)

CME said to approach Deutsche Boerse to weigh deal talks. (Bloomberg)

Deutsche Boerse says not in merger talks with CME. (MarketWatch)

Here we take a look at January 2013 absolute performance for the top 5 event-driven funds in two categories - all funds and U.S.-only funds - as tracked by Lipper’s hedge fund database. To see more analysis, including assets under management and domicile information for the top 10 funds in each category, click here for all funds and here for U.S.-only funds. To be truly connected to all the Lipper analytics available on HedgeWorld, become a HedgeWorld Premium Plus member. To find out more about how to do that, visit hedgeworld.com/membership/.