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By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

In the first article of this year's series on investing in Africa, Opalesque talks to Ian Hamilton, a well-known figure in the South African (SA) hedge fund industry. He heads Cape Town-based hedge fund administrator IDS and has been associated with the SA investment industry for twenty years. He was also Chairman of the SA chapter of Alternative Investment Managers Association (AIMA) for around 6 years until the end of 2008, and is a Minister of Finance-appointed member of the Collective Investments Advisory Board of the Financial Services Board (FSB - the country's regulator for non-banking financial services firms).

Last 12 months were stable: still around 160 hedge funds The South African market has done very little over the last 12 months, says Hamilton. It has been very steady but with no inflows and some very moderate outflows in the retail section.

"The South African hedge fund industry is young but at the same time has not gone the retail route," he explains. "Rather, it has taken a direct road to the institutional and pension fund market. That's because we never had any retail structures here. From an administration perspective, we don't have a sufficient retail market yet to understand what hedge funds are about."

There were as many new launches as closures (around 10 each) in the last 12 months, and closures......................

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