Here's a hedge fund that has bitten the dust: Are you down 29% YTD?
Ospraie Shuts $250 Million Hedge Fund After 29% Drop By Katherine Burton
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Ospraie Management LLC, run by Dwight
Anderson, is liquidating a $250 million hedge fund that fell 29
percent in the first five months of the year, said two investors
notified of the decision.
The Ospraie Point Fund lost value because of bets that the
rally in commodity prices would end, said the investors, who
declined to be identified. Anderson, 39, who founded New York-
based Ospraie six years ago, declined to comment.
Investors have put billions into commodity funds, feeding a
nearly five-year rally, as soaring demand led by China and a lack
of exploration helped send prices for products such as oil and
copper to record levels. Investments in commodity indexes and
other products may exceed $120 billion by 2008, compared with $80
billion last year, according to estimates from Barclays Capital,
the investment-banking unit of London-based Barclays PLC.
``The majority of commodities traders are trend-following in
nature,'' said Sol Waksman, president of Barclay Group Ltd., a
Fairfield, Iowa-based firm that tracks commodities funds. ``They
get in late and they get out late.''
Ospraie Point clients will have the option of putting their
money into Anderson's flagship fund, the $2.5 billion Ospraie
Fund, the investors said. The Ospraie Fund, one of the biggest
that concentrates on commodities, dropped 19 percent from January
to May. The hedge fund is making money in June, investors said.
Commodity funds are outperforming Ospraie, as prices of
copper, aluminum, gold and oil rose to records. The average
commodities fund is up about 4.7 percent this year, Waksman said.
Even with this year's decline, Anderson's Ospraie Fund rose
at an average annual rate of 18.5 percent since it opened in
February 2000. |
