Hedge Fund Redemptions Rise, Soros: "The Hedge Fund Bubble Has Burst"

BlueBay, the publicly-quoted hedge fund with $21bn AuM at the end of September, is closing its Emerging Markets Total Return Fund run by Simon Treacher, after it reported a 53% loss, most of the losses occurring after the end of September. In NY, Satellite Asset Management stopped client withdrawals from its three largest funds, in a report from City AM. Asset manager BlackRock is looking to make around 200 job cuts, the "first major round of redundancies in the company's history". Fidelity also announced it would cut headcount by 3000 by early 2009.

A fund manager commenting on the hedge fund industry remarked: "It's going to be difficult for them to reinstate fees once the industry has turned around". Investor George Soros ("the man who broke the Bank of England", making $1bn betting against the pound, following the UK's unwillingness to raise rates to ERM currency levels, forcing Britain to withdraw from the ERM and devalue the pound) declared that the "bubble has burst" for hedge funds.

In other news, HSBC (the world's local bank) is looking to buy back its Canary Wharf HQ which is sold to Metrovacesa for £1.09billion.