Hedge Funds and CTAs

Abu Dhabi-based alternative asset manager Gulf Capital is planning to launch a $250-300 million credit fund by the end of 2011, providing growth capital to firms in MENA and Turkey.

Alternative asset manager MKP Capital Management has made four senior appointments in its New York and newly opened London offices.

Hong Kong’s Sunwah financial group plans to buy the Energy and Octane funds from troubled hedge fund manager RAB and may also pick up an 80% stake in the hedge fund platform PCE Investors.

Japan’s Asuka DBJ Partners has bought an 8% equity stake in StormHarbour Japan, the Tokyo-based securities arm of financial advisory firm StormHarbour. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

Mark Spiegel's Stanphyl Capital's maiden fund isn't for the faint of heart: The vehicle, which currently manages $2 million, invests in just three to ten "best ideas." What's more, those best ideas come primarily from the highly-volatile micro-cap space, and Spiegel says the fund could hold most or all of its assets in cash from time to time as it waits for an attractive opportunity.

The Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware, announcing that it needed at $150 million loan from Highbridge Capital Management to meet $38.7 million in financial commitments later this week.

The New York-based firm, one of only a few publicly-listed U.S. hedge funds, said that it named J. Barry Griswell and Georganne Proctor to its board last week.

John Paulson has offered a defense of his hedge fund's disastrous investment in a Chinese timber company, while admitting that it cost his investors more than US$500 million.

ML Capital will add a fourth fund to its MontLake UCITS Platform as of August 1: the Skyline UCITS fund.

Sovereign wealth funds and pensions are not only investing more in hedge funds, they’re rolling up their sleeves and doing their investing directly rather than relying on funds of funds, according to a new study from Citi Prime Finance.