Billionaire Michael Hintze’s CQS Hedge Fund Is Down 42.5%
Billionaire Michael Hintze’s CQS Hedge Fund Is Down 42.5%
(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Michael Hintze’s hedge fund is down 42.5% this year, with recent gains failing to make up for a slump during the market turmoil in March.
The CQS Directional Opportunities Fund, which manages about $1.8 billion, was up 1.3% in August for a third straight month of gains, according to letters to investors seen by Bloomberg. But that wasn’t enough to make much of a dent in the fund’s 48% loss it suffered in the four months through May.
Hintze, whose firm CQS focuses on credit markets, was among the worst-hit money managers earlier this year after his structured-credit wagers soured along with the broader market. Losses in March alone were 33%, the worst since the fund opened in 2005.
“We are working hard to capture the opportunities, protect the portfolio and rebuild returns for our investors,” Hintze wrote to his investors last month.
A spokesman for the London-based investment firm declined to comment.
Hintze himself manages the Directional Opportunities fund, which lost money in key strategies such as distressed, asset-backed, equities and volatility earlier this year as Europe and the U.S. locked down.
Since then, CQS has cut dozens of jobs and spun off an equities hedge fund business it was building as it seeks to cut costs and refocus efforts on its credit investing strategies.
CQS managed $18.5 billion at the end of July.
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