Nobel Prize Money to Get Hedge Fund Boost After Awards Sink 20%

The Nobel Foundation, which this year lopped 20 percent off its cash prizes, is planning to invest more money through hedge funds to boost its returns and restore the award to its previous size, Bloomberg reports.

“When we look at the analysis we see that we can get more return with less risks by doing that,” Executive Director Lars Heikensten said in an interview at the Nobel Foundation’s Stockholm headquarters yesterday. “If we can choose hedge funds that we trust, then we can get better returns for given risks.” The fund “probably shouldn’t” be fully invested in debt securities, he said.

The Nobel foundation, created in 1900 at the request of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel to award prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature, this year cut the cash amount of its prize for the first time since 1949. The move followed a decade of poor returns, exacerbated by the onset of the global financial crisis.....

Find out more at http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Nobel-Prize-Money-to-Get-Hedge-Fund-Boost-After-4088630.php