Deals & People September 24, 2010

Credit Suisse Commodities Traders to Start Hedge Fund

An eight-person commodities trading team is reported to be leaving Credit Suisse Group AG to start a hedge fund backed by the Blackstone Group.
Reported by

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, is reporting that the latest spinout group is led by George “Beau” Taylor, currently Credit Suisse’s global head of commodities-arbitrage trading, and Trevor Woods, head of energy-arbitrage trading.  Taylor and Woods will be chief investment officer and chief executive officer, respectively, of the new hedge-fund firm, which isn’t named yet, according to the Journal’s sources.

The Credit Suisse team will trade in commodities and energy markets and make macroeconomic bets in areas such as currencies, the Journal reported. A launch is planned for early 2011, with $150 million from Blackstone at the start.

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The team is one of the first Blackstone has selected for startup funding since U.S. lawmakers in July passed sweeping legislation to curb proprietary trading, or trading using banks’ capital rather than clients’ funds, the newspaper said. The planned spinout involves one of the biggest trading groups to leave Wall Street.

At Credit Suisse, the proprietary-trader population has been whittled from about 250 at its peak to 100, according to the news report.

Products September 24, 2010

WisdomTree Puts Out Commodity Offering

WisdomTree, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) sponsor and asset manager, has launched the WisdomTree Dreyfus Commodity Currency Fund (CCX) on the NYSE Arca.
Reported by

A news release said the new offering is designed to provide broad-based exposure to money market rates and currency movements of selected commodity-producing countries and has an expense ratio of 0.55%.

“In addition to presenting a distinct alternative to traditional currencies like the euro, yen and pound, exposure to commodity currencies has historically served to diversify a traditional portfolio,” said Bruce Lavine, WisdomTree President & COO, in the news release.

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Although the fund invests in very short-term, investment grade instruments, the fund is not a money market fund. It doesn’t strive to maintain a constant share price, the company said

Constituent currencies at launch:

Developed Market     Emerging Market  

Australian dollar      Brazilian real
Canadian dollar      Chilean peso
Norwegian krone      Russian ruble
New Zealand dollar    South African rand

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