While the distress in the hedge fund industry seems to have crested, there will no doubt always be funds who mess up. The DE Shaw Portfolio Acquisitions Unit, which was launched in 2009, intends to help its sibling funds buy up illiquid assets that are trading at steep discounts and are ripe to be sold.

We've seen a lot of these funds crop up with mixed results. We've also had various government programs aimed at buying up these securities. But DE Shaw apparently thinks there's more opportunity to be exploited and wants some analytical firepower brought to it. It is particularly interested in acquiring so-called 'side-pocketed' assets from other hedge funds, according to media reports. This could be terrific timing. But there have been lots of investors on the stock side who bought low, thinking the worst had to be over. They got burned pretty bad. We'll just have to see how this turns out. It will strike some as a retro move. 

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- here's the article

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