Convergence and Diversity in the Hedge Fund and Private Equity Industry

This chapter identifies differences in hedge fund and private equity strategies in terms of investments, strategies, and fundamental terms. These underlying structural differences have implications for the type of investor attracted to each investment style. Previously, investment decisions could be made on a set of trade-offs, but increased competition in the hedge fund industry is now the main factor driving the type of fund operating and competing in investment markets. This chapter describes the terms and conditions which address fund formation and operation, fees and expenses, profit sharing and distributions, as well as corporate governance. No matter how appealing the prospects of hedge fund and private equity convergence, there are significant concerns: can both types of fund combine different investment styles without affecting the level of returns?; can the transition toward financial convergence be blocked if hedge fund investors object to valuations based on subjective, and not actual, market trading?;can ‘side pockets’ in a hedge fund be isolated from the costs of accounting for the two streams of capital?

INVESTMENT STYLES OF REIT PROPERTY PORTFOLIOS

Investment style, comprising generic-style and specific-style, is the real estate investment management approach adopted by REIT management in guiding the construction of their portfolios. These portfolios would have distinctive return and risk performance reflecting the stated risk and return underlying the investment vision. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study identified the investment style of each M-REIT listed on Bursa Malaysia. Using the generic-style criteria and analysis, M-REITs are found to have pursued passive and value strategies aided by a top-down approach to their property portfolio management. Whilst results of the specific style analysis show that core portfolios have produced a lower risk-return ratio compared to value-added and opportunistic portfolios. These findings will benefit investors by guiding their investment decision making in constructing their investment portfolios and also in deciding ways to achieve diversification.

Hedge Fund Manager Skill and Style-Shifting

Using a novel style identification procedure, we show that style-shifting is a dynamic strategy commonly used by hedge fund managers. Three quarters of hedge funds shifted their investment styles at least once over the period from January 1994 to December 2013. We perform empirical tests of two hypotheses for the motivations of hedge fund style-shifting, namely backward-looking and forward-looking hypotheses. We find no evidence that style-shifting funds are backward-looking. Instead, we show evidence that managers of style-shifting funds exhibit both style-timing ability and the skill of generating abnormal returns in new styles. The new styles that hedge funds shift to on average outperform their old styles by 0.76% and style-shifting funds on average outperform their new style benchmark by 1.10% over the subsequent 12-month horizon. Finally, we show that small funds, winner funds, and funds with net inflows are more likely to shift styles. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, finance.

Corporate Financial Performance and Tobin’s Q in Dividend and Growth Investing

Investor attracting and keeping requires both successful management of a company’s financial performance and an investor’s behavior knowledge, as well as monitoring of stock market current trends. This paper contains the study results on the influence of public companies’ financial performance on Tobin’s q as a common measure of investment opportunity for dividend (income) investors and growth investors in conditions of competition and financing limitations. The goal of this article is to identify the financial performance indicators of public companies, influencing their Tobin’s q, for dividend (income) investing and growth investing respectively. We determined that the proxies for the variables of the Tobin’s q function should be different for different investment styles. For this reason, we composed two sets of financial ratios that reflect financial performance specifics of dividend (income) stock companies and growth stock companies for the quantitative assessment of these investor types’ preferences. The analysis results led to the conclusion that a company can attract attention of dividend (income) investors by demonstrating higher levels of dividend payments. Whereas, growth investors are sensitive to the level of company’s business activities, which is related to its revenue. Based on the results of this study, we believe that investment decisions’ successfulness depends on the reliability of the issuer’s financial statements. In our conclusions, we suggest that public companies’ managers focus on the financial performance that best correlate with the preferences of certain type of investors, which is a promising way to attract and keep their investors.

An Analysis of Mutual Fund Managers’ Timing Abilities - Evidence From Chinese Equity Funds

This paper examines Chinese mutual fund managers’ market, volatility, and liquidity abilities. Using a daily frequency sample of Chinese open-end equity funds from 2015 to 2019, we find evidence that mutual fund managers can time the market. Among the funds with different investment styles, the active funds have better market and liquidity timing ability, whereas the steady funds have better volatility timing ability. In different investment periods, there are more funds with timing ability in the fall period than in the rise period. We find the same results in the market (T-M), volatility, and liquidity timing models. It is especially for the active funds, nearly half of which have liquidity timing ability in the fall period. Among the funds with stock selection ability, the funds with market timing ability can outperform than the funds with other timing ability.