Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

Last week, we heard of fund launches from well known industry names such as former Icahn Management Head Rupal Doshi, who will launch Corvex (long/short activist), and former Galleon Group Co-Founder Gary Rosenbach who will give it another go with a new hedge fund firm named Rockledge Capital Management LLC. Other spinouts include Insight Capital Research & Management PMs Lance Swanson and Lee Molendyk who will launch Diablo Vista Capital Partners (long/short equity) and Moore Capital trader Paul Findley who will launch Bramshott Capital (long/short equity) with the backing of his former firm.

Algert Coldiron Investors unveiled a second global equity market neutral fund and Headstart Advisors launched the Limestone Global Emerging Markets Fund. Deutsche Bank’s mutual fund unit will dip its toe into hedge fund waters in 2011, launching a hedge fund for private investors in the first quarter, Morgan Stanley and Algebris announced a partnership for a UCITS III long/short global equity fund that will focus on financials, and Kotak Mahindra Bank launched the India Absolute Opportunities Fund to focus on the upside in Indian shares.

At least one fund closure was reported with London-listed Polar Capital announcing that its Polar Capital Discovery Fund (global macro) will close and return investors’ money.

Hedge Fund Research’s HFRX Index returned 4.52% this year to December 28; UCITS Alternative Index Global performance in December is up 1.07% (1.86% YTD), UCITS Alternative Index Fund of Funds up 0.60% (-0.14% YTD); and The Parker FX Index returned -0.39% in November (+1.66%YTD).

With year-end comes the media focus on hedge funder salaries, and 2010’s biggest winners once again post numbers that astound. Multi-billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson posted impressive gains once again in 2010, with his personal assets from fund profits estimated to jump by GBP 800m; while Comac founder Colm O'Shea pockets GBP111,000 a day or almost GBP 10m for three months’ work.

As for asset bases climbing, Marathon Asset Management’s Marathon Asia Fund has attained $19.28m from pooled investment interests and Quantedge Capital announced plans to more than double the size of its hedge fund after it outperformed other global macro strategies last year. Cazenove Absolute UK Dynamic fund reopened to new subscribers on Tuesday for the first time in 16 months; FrontPoint Partners LLC closed the FrontPoint-SJC Direct Lending Fund, L.P. to additional investments after getting more than $1bn in commitments and David Tepper’s asset base at Appaloosa has grown to such an enormous size that he happily let investors that needed to redeem out early.

In fund performance year end return numbers have started rolling in and we have learned that: RAB Energy was the “best performing fund” of 2010 according to Fortune Magazine, returning 42.9%. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Markets Magazine named Structured Portfolio Management LLC to its top spot as the mortgage backed arb fund returned 50% in 2010, and two of the firm’s other funds split the ninth place spot on the list of top mid sized funds. Nanjing-based fund shop Shitong Asset Management may be a new king of them all however, as it gained +140% in 2010 We also learned about the returns of: Dan Loeb's Third Point Offshore Fund fini... Click here to read Opalesque's full article

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