In the last quarter (Q4-2011), Opalesque recorded a lot of commentaries coming from the hedge fund industry on what new hedge fund managers should and should not do, the problems they are encountering, the opportunities that are awaiting, and generally what's in store for them. Here are a few snippets of the "global conversation" about our hopeful start-ups.

Trends in LatAm, in boutiques

While some of our communicators see a trend in funds being launched in LatAm, others see a return to investing in boutiques.

Most new managers global law firm Walkers has seen come from established hedge funds, others from banks. Setting up with $10m or $20m is no longer popular, as more capital is needed to survive. Thankfully, many managers are getting significant amounts of seed capital now. Walkers also sees a trend in the growth of funds launched by managers in South America, particularly Brazil and Chile. The law firm, which has a group there now, expects more activity there from now on.

A trend that Alexandre Col noted is the renewed interest in boutiques. He is the head of investment funds at Geneva-based Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild. As a fund of hedge funds manager (FoHFs), he used to be in favour of investing in large hedge funds because they attracted talents, he said. Even more so after '08. However, today, he is looking at new managers, at diversifying his portfolio and building a niche strategy. Now is the right time for that, he thinks.

Here is some advice for you

At a conference, several investors and FoHFs managers discussed what a new fund needs to do to ......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.