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By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London: A roundup of last week’s hedge fund launches, closures, index performance, trends, regulatory, legal and financial events pertaining to the alternative investments world.

Last week, we heard of fund launches from Sun Hung Kai Financial, Walbridge, SVM, Culross, Apollo, Areca, Corazon, Pacific Rock Partners. Nedgroup and Danske Capital closed funds.

The Scotia Capital Canadian HF index finished December +1.81% / -0.25% and -15.94% / -22.64% for 2008; The RBC Hedge 250 Index was down 0.35%, -21.01% for the year, Edhec HF indices` best est. YTD performers were Short Selling (31.7%) and CTA (15.6%); Barclay CTA Index gained 13.90% in 2008, its best annual return since 1990; The Nordic Hedge Fund Index NHX dropped 0.23% in December, -11.12% for the year; The Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index went down 10.3% in Q4, -22.3% in 2008.

Hennessee reported that hedge fund industry assets decreased by $782bln in 2008 to $1.21tln; HFR found that investors had withdrawn $152bln from hedge funds in Q4, and that the total capital invested in HF industry had declined to $1.4tln at end-2008; BarclayHedge said the industry had lost 21.44% in 2008, and that 70% of funds had lost money; Morgan Stanley forecasted that hedge fund may shed $450bln (37%) in their assets in 2009.

We heard of staff cuts or executive shake-ups at hedge funds such as Ivy Asset Management, Magnetar, Gottex and Duff Capital Advisors. RAB Capital and BlueBay reportedly suffered huge asset slumps; DB Zwirn faced a drawn-out sale of its $5bln portfolio and Knight Capital mulled a possible sale of Deephaven. Dr. Lars Jaeger’s replication products outperformed HF indices in 2008. Commentators remarked on the possibility that hedge funds might start using longer lock-ups,......................

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