Winton Capital’s Hedge Fund Closes Amid No Interest

One of the world’s largest hedge funds Winton Capital announced that its Henri Capital spinout will close after two years of trading due to a lack of clients.

Offices in London's "Billionaires' Row" and a naming your fund after French mathematician Henri Poincare did not help Henri Capital to lure clients after two years of starting the fund for Winton Capital. Filip Wuytuck and Joe Huang managed the $100 million Winton Octo fund, an equity long-short portfolio, the duo managed as senior researchers for Winton Capital.

Wuytack told Reuters that clients will get their assets back shortly but would not reveal the current value of the fund.

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The pair's departure "was absolutely very amicable," Wuytack told Reuters. "We're still very grateful we were given the opportunity by David (Harding)." Harding is WC's founder.

An estimated 873 hedge funds folded last year, according to Hedge Fund Research, while 1,108 were launched.

A Hedge Fund Status Report

How are things in Hedge Fund Land? Pretty good, if you look around. After a brutal 2012, the first quarter of 2013 seems to be good with hedge funds poised to make some record returns.

The markets are on a tear - despite the truly weird headlines coming out of Cyprus - with the DOW in record territory. (Funny, I thought Dodd-Frank was going to bring us to the brink of another recession.) Even the sequester and the possibility of a US government shutdown hasn’t put the fear of God into anyone just yet. Who is more frustrated by the lack of sequester panic among the public - the White House or MSNBC?

Let’s look at some headlines:

Tsukasa Shimoda, a former fund manager at Morgan Stanley Asset & Investment Trust Management, will start a Japan-focused hedge fund amid increased appetite for the world's second-largest equity market. (Bloomberg)
At least two Deutsche Bank AG debt traders left for hedge funds after the bank closed a proprietary-trading group last month to cut costs and prepare for post-crisis regulations. (Bloomberg again)

The “Report of the Survey on Hedge Fund Activities of SFC-licensed Managers/Advisers” shows that hedge fund assets under management in Hong Kong increased 38 percent from the time of the last survey in September 2010. (Something called Opalesque.com)

Stay tuned. There’s always the second quarter which starts on Monday. Happy Easter.

Phil Albinus is the former editor of Advanced Trading and he currently edits the FierceFinanceIT newsletter. Follow him on Twitter at @philalbinus. 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