By: giveme5 on Mercoledì 04 Luglio 2007 14:54
Cominciano a spuntar come funghi !!
Dopo UBS e Bear Stearns ora tocca agli hedge di United Capital.
Mi sa che si fa grossa ....
HEDGE FUNDS
United Capital halts redemptions from hedge funds
Horizon funds are latest credit market players to suffer subprime woes
By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
3:33 PM - Jul 3, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- United Capital Markets, a leading broker in the asset-backed securities market run by John Devaney, said on Tuesday that it suspended investor redemptions on four of its Horizon hedge funds after suffering losses.
United Capital said the redemption halts for the Horizon Fund L.P., Horizon ABS Fund L.P., Horizon ABS Fund Ltd. and Horizon ABS Master Fund Ltd. funds are temporary and it does not plan to liquidate them.
Credit spreads have widened dramatically across asset-backed securities, mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations as news broke about significant losses in a large hedge fund focused on the space, United Capital explained.
The Horizon funds have cut their leverage and sold "a large amount" of cash securities in the market. United Capital said it has also stopped trading in the synthetic structured finance markets completely because they are "highly volatile."
The Horizon funds had $145 million in cash as of July 3 and United Capital is working to satisfy redemption requests quickly, while keeping an eye on market risks. Trading losses and market re-pricing will leave the funds down in June and for the year, United Capital added.
United Capital is the latest credit market player to be hit by turmoil in the market for subprime mortgages, which caters to poorer home buyers with blemished credit records. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds are struggling with subprime losses and others run by UBS AG and Cambridge Place Investment Management are shutting down.
Rising delinquencies and flat home prices have hit the value of some asset-backed securities that contain subprime home loans. Experts say it's too early to know how badly mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations will be affected by subprime losses, but it's spooked enough investors to widen the spread between interest rates on some of these securities and less risky debt.
Such negative sentiment has increased other risks that are harder to gauge objectively, such as liquidity risk, redemption risk and "the pricing risk resulting in margin calls issued to the entire structured-finance sector," United Capital said on Tuesday.
Chain reaction
Margin calls occur when lenders ask traders for more cash or securities to back positions that have lost value. Traders sometimes have to sell holdings to raise cash if they can't come up with the extra money from elsewhere. If such sales occur in illiquid asset-backed securities markets at a big discount, that can force other traders with similar holdings to re-price their portfolios, possibly triggering more margin calls.
Concern about such a chain reaction was sparked in late June when Merrill Lynch and other lenders to the troubled Bear Stearns hedge funds tried to sell collateral they had seized after margin calls.
United Capital is an important participant in the market for asset-backed securities because the firm often buys distressed securities that others are trying to unload -- providing needed liquidity in an often illiquid market.
But the firm's Horizon funds lost money recently when they closed down positions tied to ABX indexes, which track subprime mortgages, the firm explained.
"Horizon has taken the step to suspend redemption requests in order to protect the interests of our investors while we continue to analyze the risks highlighted above," the firm said in a statement that was e-mailed to MarketWatch.
"The majority of our selling was completed in June and we emphasize that we are not currently in a liquidation mode," the firm added. "We have spoken to our lenders and they are supporting our efforts."
Positive carry
Devaney founded United Capital in 1999 with $500,000 in capital. His focus on some of the most distressed parts of the ABS market helped the firm grow quickly and generate big profits.
The firm now trades billions of dollars worth of ABS and owns a corporate jet, a helicopter and a 142-foot yacht called "Positive Carry." Devaney recently estimated his fortune at $250 million in a New York Times story, which also described a collection of paintings in his mansion by Renior and Cezanne.
Before starting United Capital, Devaney made money buying lower-rated tranches of ABS from hedge funds that were being forced to liquidate in the wake of Russia's debt default and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, according to US Credit magazine article posted on the firms Web site.
United Capital has used this strategy of being a buyer of last resort many times, often profitably. US Credit magazine noted in late 2004 that roughly 350 clients, such as hedge funds, mutual funds and insurers, sell bonds to Devaney, while only 25 to 30 clients buy from him.
One of Devaney's hedge funds, which had $620 million in assets, gained 40% last year, the New York Times said in April.