Morningstar licenses hedge fund database

Morningstar Inc.’s hedge fund database will become the foundation for a new research platform designed to give qualified investors a closer look at more than 7,500 hedge funds. The platform, HedgeAct.com, which was launched today, was developed by Global Fund Technologies LLC in Chicago. The platform was rolled out in a limited beta testing mode late last year, using Fairfield, Iowa-based BarclayHedge Ltd. as the hedge fund database. The switch to Chicago-based Morningstar had to do with access to a larger and growing database and access to information on the individual hedge funds, according to Mike Griffin, founder and chairman of Global Fund Technologies. “We are offering all kinds of tools to help investors analyze hedge funds,” he said. Under the terms of the agreement, Global Fund Technologies is licensing the hedge fund data collected by Morningstar, which is accessible to institutions and qualified individual investors free of change. Those hedge funds looking to raise assets or open a dialogue with potential investors pay $1,000 per month for that option. Mr. Griffin said the platform is also being marketed to hedge fund service providers in an effort to get those firms to absorb part of the hedge fund membership fees. For investors, the platform is designed to offer a broad range of analytical tools that include sorting and filtering, performance data, drill-down for multiple data points, including strategy, asset size, manager biographies, trading methodology, performance and risk. “This is a difficult time for many hedge fund investors, and we think that giving them better information will make the entire analysis and allocation process much better for everyone involved,” Mr. Griffin said.