From the mailbag:
FYI, in the aftermath of the GLG buy, things are not good inside Man Group.
GLG Partners
These are getting boring to report, frankly. GLG partners joins the leagues of hedge funds exercising their withdraw restrictions.
GLG Partners Inc. said it will suspend redemptions from two of its hedge funds because of “adverse economic” conditions after they lost about a third of their value this year. GLG will stop investors from making withdrawals from the GLG Market Neutral Fund and GLG Credit Fund, it said in a statement today. The Credit Fund dropped 35 percent and Market Neutral 29 percent through Sept. 30, and they suffered further losses in October as convertible bonds and loans slumped.
Yawn.
GLG Freezes 2 Hedge Funds That Lost Third of Value [Bloomberg]
GLG Partners, the London-based hedge fund that’s seen what it would rather you not characterize as an ‘exodus’ of personnel over the last month, said it “hopes” to retain a modicum of assets from the emerging markets funds run by Greg Coffey, who resigned in April, and then withdrew his resignation, and then reinstated it. At the start of the year the value of Coffey’s funds was at about $7.2 billion, before dropping to $6.3 due to investment losses. Noam Gottesman, the co-chief executive of GLG who has been known to say out loud that his former employees cease to exist once they abandon him, commented, surprisingly lucidly and suspiciously calmly that the firm has received $1.7 billion in redemption requests so far, and that the worst case scenario will leave them with about $2 billion. “Obviously,” we’re sure he wanted to say but didn’t, choosing instead to give off an impression of sanity, “it’s not going to come to that, once investors get wind of this.”
GLG Partners announced today that standout portfolio manager and practical jokerster Greg Coffey, who resigned from the London-based hedge fund on April 14, only to withdraw his resignation on April 15, has once again decided to leave the firm. Like we’re going to fall for that one again.
Earlier: ‘I resign. No, no. I kid… I kid…’
GLG’s Coffey Quits Again [FINalternatives]
So much “just messing” at GLG partners these past couple days. The London-based hedge fund, which has been a public company for less than a year, said it would “redo” statements for 2006 and 2007 because it didn’t “properly account for limited partner profit.” According to an 8-K filed today—and I’m paraphrasing a bit but this was the gist:
“In 2006, net profit was $359.3 million. HA! Just fucking with ya. It was really only $157.9 million. 2007? Second verse, mostly same as the first: we said we made $92.6 million, we really lost $310.5 million. Did you see the look on your face! Priceless!”
Good stuff, but not really the funny part. Later in the filing, GLG indicates that on April 14, Greg Coffey, portfolio manger for the GLG Emerging Markets Fund, the GLG Emerging Markets Special Situations Fund, the GLG Emerging Currency and Fixed Income Fund and the GLG Emerging Equity Fund managed by the Company, “resigned from his positions with the Company’s GLG Partners LP subsidiary and certain affiliated entities (collectively, “GLG”).” A few lines later, it’s noted that on April 15, Coffey withdrew his resignation, and that the Gregster and the company “are in discussions concerning a range of options for the future,” including how to more effectively put the Gregmeister’s singular knack for pulling pranks to good (/profitable) use.
Also of note:
“The company took a charge of $1,242.93 for contractor fees related to moving services rendered to the company to move Mr. Coffey’s office furniture back into the building from the parking lot where it had been arranged in a configuration mimicking his actual office by persons unknown.”
GLG Partners 8-K [SEC]
GLG hedge fund to restate 2006, 2007 results [Reuters]
