West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - NorthPoint Trading Partners, LLC has opened a new office in Chicago, IL., with 12 year industry veteran, Michael Ferro, as head. Ferro has held positions at Genworth Financial, Knight Capital Markets, and X-Change Financial Access. He is experienced in both the trading and operations aspects of the buy and sell side, the company said.

“As we continue to expand our presence nationwide, we are very fortunate to have someone with Michael’s talent and experience join our team,” says Douglas Nelson, Chief Executive Officer of NorthPoint Trading Partners, LLC. Atlanta based NorthPoint opened also opened an office in Connecticut earlier in the year.

NorthPoint is an institutional brokerage and fund services company working with small and medium sized hedge funds.

  Paris, March 19th 2008 - Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management (CASAM) released the 2007 Industry Report on hedge funds and commodity trading advisors (CTAs). The Industry Report includes over 100 charts and graphs drawing data for analysis from the CASAM CISDM Database and is available through casamhedge.com to accredited investors.  

CASAM, together with the non-profit academic research center CISDM (1), estimate total hedge fund assets at the end of 2007 at 2.16 trillion USD, with a total number of hedge funds of nearly 10,000. The Industry Report reveals that while the majority of funds remain domiciled outside the United States, predominantly in the Cayman Islands, the United States continues to be the principal place of business for an estimated 60% of management companies, with 25% of management companies operating in New York alone.

In terms of assets, equity long/short is the single largest hedge fund strategy, with a total of $568 billion, followed by event driven multi-strategy with $245 billion, and global macro with $221 billion.   In 2007 hedge funds returned 10.15% on an equal weighted basis, with those invested in emerging markets posting the highest results of 17.10% for the third consecutive year. The return for funds of funds overall in 2007 was 8.68%. Commodity trading advisers as a whole were up 11.57%, the highest annual performance since 2002. Among CTAs, equity CTA managers posted the highest returns of 23.58%, while physicals CTA managers posted the lowest performance with returns of negative 1.35%.  

"As part of CASAM's research product range in alternative investments, the Industry Report is an essential resource for professionals wishing to gain detailed insight on current and past trends in the hedge fund and CTA industries. It covers key industry attributes including asset growth, number of funds, fund domiciles, geographic focus, fund age, currency, liquidity, and detailed performance statistics. The report also takes an honest look at management fees and incentive fees for hedge funds vs. funds of funds" stated Jeff Lopez, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of CASAM Americas.

About the CASAM CISDM Database

The CASAM CISDM Database, formerly the MARHedge Database, is the longest standing alternative product of its kind. It provides comprehensive hedge fund and Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) data to accredited institutional investors, consultants, pension funds and fund of funds managers as a means of identifying and analysing the hedge fund universe. The database contains historical returns and qualitative information on over 6,000 hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, commodity trading advisers and commodity pool operators and is also the source of performance tables for publications including Barron's and Alternative Investment News.    

About Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management (CASAM)

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