Man Group Raises $1.5 Billion

The Man Group reported today that it had raised $1.5 billion for a new hedge fund based in Japan, according to various media reports.

The fund-raising was more than triple what the market had expected.

Bloomberg reports:

The Nomura Global Trend fund began trading the last week of April, London-based Man Group, the world's biggest publicly trade hedge fund, said in a statement today. It is linked to Man AHL Diversified Plc, a computer-driven program that accounts for about one-third of the company's $69 billion under management.

The March 8 quake triggered Japan's worst postwar disaster, prompting analysts to ask Man Group executives that month how successful they thought the Nomura fund would be and if it should be delayed. The "difficult backdrop" led to expectations that the fund would raise about $500 million, Michael Sanderson, an analyst at Evolution Securities in London, wrote in a note to investors today.

"The size of the launch is well ahead of expectations," Sanderson, who has a "buy" rating on Man Group, wrote in the note. "The announcement is a positive story for a stock that has had limited such surprises in the last two years."

The fund, Nomura Global Trend, was created in a deal with the Japanese investment bank Nomura, and it focuses on futures in currencies, commodities and fixed income, says the NYTimes DealBook blog.

The creation of the fund helps bolster Man's struggling reputation. The firm experienced more than two years of net outflows, which only ceased last quarter, reports the NY Times. Last autumn, Man acquired GLG Partners, an American rival for $1.6 billion to diversify away from its flagship fund AHL.

The NY Times reports that the fund draws an estimated 15 percent of its assets under management from wealthy Japanese clients, and has established partnerships with two major banks in the country, Nomura and Mitsubishi UFJ. Phil Albinus is the former editor-in-chief of Advanced Trading. He has nearly two decades of journalism experience and has been covering financial technology and regulation for nine years. Before joining Advanced Trading, he served as editor of Waters, a monthly trade journal ... View Full Bio