Vision Global Investments is looking at launching a $200 million distressed debt fund in the near future. The move comes at a time when a number of other funds in this space are active in India like Clearwater, ADM Capital, WL Ross and DE Shaw. With the fall in markets and on the back of fears of a downturn in Asian economies, a host of funds are launching distressed funds targeting Asia. Most of the new distressed funds are targeting companies in China, India and Korea. Distressed debt funds come into play when companies get into difficulty in paying their debt obligations. In case of India, some of them would be BIFR cases or where they have gone through the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) mechanisms. These funds normally takeover the debt from the banks and restructure it through a mix of debt and equity.   more »

India-focused hedge funds have lost a jaw-dropping 26.6 per cent till date in 2008, after clocking returns of nearly 52 per cent last year. Hedge funds are believed to be able to generate positive returns, even when the stock markets fall as they use a host of strategies such as short selling, market timing and arbitrage to take advantage of every blip in the market. The loss suffered by these India-centric funds led by little-known ‘hedgies’ (hedge fund managers), dwarfs the losses made by similar country-specific funds in China (negative 13.7 per cent), Russia (negative 4.6 per cent), Brazil (negative 4.2 per cent), real-time estimates captured from hedge fund tracking firm HedgeFund.net (HFN) show. The developments are in line with the difficult period faced by funds such as Monsoon Capital, a $1.2 billion hedge fund firm, which lost over 40 per cent till March 20.   more »