CIMA representative discusses Hedge Fund Market volatility with other Experts
Recently, Walkers, global offshore law firm, brought together top financial industry leaders and more than 200 visitors in New York in order to discuss hedge fund market volatility and to provide opinions on distressed funds.
At the seminar, speakers offered a comprehensive look at the changes in the hedge fund market over the past year. Also, speakers made predictions for what the alternative investment funds industry could expect in the next months.
Yolanda McCoy, head of the Investments and Securities Division at the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was one of the experts who joined Walkers for the “Fighting the Tape” seminar. Among other experts were investment manager George Hall, founder and president of The Clinton Group; and Professor Jeffrey Rosensweig, director of the Global Perspectives Program at Goizueta Business School at Emory University.
As a Cayman regulator, Yolanda McCoy made an update on the effect that the financial crisis has had on the Cayman hedge funds industry. She said that the total number of hedge fund registrations in the Cayman Islands are still running ahead of the same period in 2007 with 1 441 new authorisations up until September 2008 compared with 1 407 during the same period in 2007. According to her, “the true impact of the US credit crisis will not be tangible for many months to come”.
However, Ms. McCoy confirmed that to date there were 340 Cayman funds that had been impacted by the problems with Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG. Fund terminations were still very low – approximately 50 per month. Ms. McCoy added that “while we expect terminations to rise, the current situation will not paralyse the Cayman fund industry”.