Today we have another guest post from Karl Cole-Frieman who specializes in providing legal advice to hedge funds and other alternative asset managers.  Mr. Cole-Frieman specializes in Loan Trading and Distressed Debt Transactions, ISDAs, Soft Dollars and Commission Management arrangements, and Wage and Hour Law Matters among other legal matters [...]

Ongoing Legal Issues For Hedge Fund Managers While many of the posts on this blog deal with start-up and regulatory issues that hedge fund managers face, we also are aware that there are many ongoing legal issues which affect the business of the fund.  Below is a guest post from [...]

Allowing Investor Viewing Access to Brokerage Account I have recently been talking with many hedge fund service providers about what they are seeing in the industry right now.  The following quote aptly summarizes what I have been hearing: it’s a buyer’s market and managers need to be mindful if they [...]

The hedge fund and investment management industry has seen many radical changes during the last year, including the consolidation (or elimination) of the large prime brokerage firms.  Because of these events many funds have moved to a multi-prime broker model instead of the more traditional single prime broker model.  There [...]

The following is a press release regarding the results from a prime brokerage survey. Alpha Magazine Survey Ranks Merlin Securities as the #1 Prime Broker for Small Hedge Funds in 2008 Merlin Securities Receives Top Honors for Second Year Running SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 28, 2008 — Merlin Securities, a leading [...]

Historically, prime brokerage was relegated to a few of the very large Wall Street investment houses – the Goldmans, Merrills, Bears and Lehmans.  Many of these firms  provided prime brokerage services to the very large hedge funds.  However, these firms could not provide the comprehensive trading services required by smaller [...]

If you read a lot of the stories which have been coming out in the last couple of weeks, you would think that the hedge fund industry was about to go the way of the dinosaur.  (See NYT Deal Book Article)  Personally, I think the exact opposite – that the [...]

Contrary to the spate of terrible news regarding the financial markets, the hedge fund industry, specifically, the hedge fund service provider industry is poised and ready for continued growth.  The following press release showcases a prime brokerage firm which is actually expanding its operations. Merlin Securities Expands Client Services Team [...]