Funds from London managers GLG Partners, RWC Partners and Oceanwood Capital all introduced last-minute restrictions as the year ended, while Ilmatar, a Finnish fund, announced that it would close.
Oceanwood, founded by a team from Tudor, and RWC??s Pilgrim fund will both withhold about 12 per cent of pay-outs from withdrawals until hard-to-sell assets can be realised.
GLG said it suspended withdrawals from its Event Driven fund on New Year??s eve, taking the total number of funds suspended by the company to nine. Event Driven was mainly invested in another suspended GLG fund, European Long-Short.
Meanwhile New Star presented investors with plans to close the geared version of a fund investing in Royal Bank of Canada??s Hedge 250 index of hedge funds.
New Star ?? which also closed its Apollo hedge fund ?? said assets in the fund had plunged from $63m a year ago to less than $12m after it lost more than 70 per cent in the year to December 17, and it was no longer viable.
Ilmatar will be shut down after losing 73.6 per cent in the year to the end of November, leaving it with just $9m under management. Jukka-Pekka Leppä, chief executive, said the fund was closing because of the rising costs of operating in eastern Europe and Russia, its main markets. ??It is too expensive to keep the fund going,? he said.
