Hedge fund group Paulson has yielded strong returns as a result of the crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market. The group’s largest fund the Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund was up nearly 40 per cent during June.
Meanwhile, a letter to the firm’s investors disclosed that the Credit Opportunities Fund is up 129 per cent this year and that its newer fund the Credit Opportunities II is up 60 per cent. This compares with an average gain of eight per cent for hedge funds during 2007, according to statistics from Hedge Fund Research.
In April of this year Paulson correctly predicted that securities based on subprime mortgages would decrease in value as the rate of defaults rose. News of the group’s performance comes shortly after Bear Stearns has been forced to earmark $1.6 billion to rescue the High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund which had heavily invested in mortgage backed securities.