Artemis Absolute Return Hedge Fund To Be Wound Down

One of the best performing hedge funds of 2008, the Artemis Absolute Return Hedge Fund, will soon be wound down.

Artemis Asset Management Ltd., a behemoth $17 billion dollar money management firm that is controlled by Fortis, announced on Monday that they would be winding up the fund.

The financial news as of late has been saturated with word of major money management firms shutting down well-known hedge funds or temporarily freezing investor redemptions. The reason is clear - the hedge fund industry has taken a beating over the past 12-18 months, and many hedge fund firms are downsizing their operations due to a lack of investor capital.

The Artemis Absolute Return Hedge Fund is a different story. This is a fund that has outperformed the overall hedge fund industry by a substantial margin in 2008. According to Bloomberg.com, the fund has achieved a 29% return (that's a positive return, not a negative) through the end of October. Considering that most hedge funds are down (and down big) on the year, this is an unbelievable performance that makes you wonder why the company is shutting this fund down.

William Littlewood, manager of the fund, had no comment.

The Artemis Absolute Return fund is a long-short equity fund.

Many funds that have outperformed the markets (and hedge fund industry as a whole) in 2008 are still facing a number of problems. Many investors are choosing to withdraw money from the hedge fund industry en masse, regardless of the performance that has been achieved at any one fund.

Then you also have "fund of funds" that are forced to withdraw their funds in order to meet investor redemption requests of their own. "Fund of funds" are hedge funds that use their contacts and resources to invest in other hedge funds.

In addition to that, you also have pension funds that are choosing to exit the hedge fund industry in droves. Again, this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater as many overperforming hedge funds are forced to liquidate positions in order to meet these requests.

My guess is that Artemis is just looking to simplify their list of offerings. They might also be hoping that some of the investor capital in the Artemis Absolute Return Hedge Fund will move into some of their other offerings.

Anyways, I thought that this was worth mentioning. It's not often that you see a fund close down after such a successful year.

Filed under: Hedge Fund News