The struggling economy has been particularly taxing on the UK based hedge funds. The UK’s largest hedge fund, Brevan Howard, has gained only 2.2 percent overall in the year so far. However funds like, Odey Asset Management and AKO Capital have posted good returns for the year. The performance has been near flat or negative for the funds of TT International, Rubicon Fund Management, and Bramshott Capital.
TT International has total assets of $1.33 billion under management, the fund has returned a mere 0.69 percent in October, while the year to date returns are down by 0.91 percent. TT is a global macro fund, focused on a top-down approach with most of the exposure in equities, and some in forex, fixed income, and commodities. The fund has gained in European equities and Portuguese bonds, and lost in longs in Spanish bonds and shorts in German bunds.
Rubicon Fund Management once made into Europe’s top 50 hedge funds in 2010, then it fell from the heights of $1.6 billion in AUM to the low of $290 million and then recovered to $427 million in Dec 2011. The present year has been rough on the company, with a detraction in performance of -8.93 percent, till the end of October. In October alone, the Rubicon Global Fund lost 1.98 percent. The fund lost on its long positions in Gold vs USD, shorts in EUR vs USD, EUR vs krona, and gained in SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF (NYSEARCA:FEZ), shorts in JPY vs USD and Chinese Yuan vs USD.
The new comer in hedge funds, Bramshott Capital was founded in 2011 by Paul Findley, who has previously worked in Moore Capital as a portfolio manager. Bramshott European managed to stay on the positive end of performance for the first seven months of the year, but detracted by almost 5 percent in the months of August and September. The total year to date returns stand at -0.24 percent, with a 1.23 percent gain posted in the month of October. The fund’s top long holdings are in CHRISTIAN HANSEN HL.DK 10 (FRA:51C), Volkswagen AG (PINK:VLKAY) (ETR:VOW) (FRA:VOW), Atos SA (EPA:ATO), Shaftesbury plc (LON:SHB), and Deutsche Telekom AG (FRA:DTE) (PINK:DTEGY) (ETR:DTE).
More information on other UK funds can be found here.
