Altman's Owl Creek follows SAC, GLG to win licence to bet in HK

HONG KONG, June 7 (Reuters) - New York-based Owl Creek Asset Management, a $7-billion hedge fund founded by Jeffrey Altman, has joined the likes of GLG and SAC Capital in winning a licence from Hong Kong's market regulator, allowing it to bet from the biggest hedge fund centre in Asia.

Altman, among the 100 highest paid Wall Street fund managers in 2007, had invested $2.3 billion in Asia from a $6.6 billion global hedge fund and a $300 million Asia dedicated fund, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The fund traded Asia from New York and had no immediate plans to move the desk to the region, but aimed to use the licence to tap a wider range of investors into its funds to start with, said the source who declined to be named.

Altman, 43, who was anointed by New York magazine last June as one of Wall Street's "foxes of finance", received an asset management licence for Owl Creek Hong Kong Ltd from the Securities and Futures Commission on May 20. (Reporting by Nishant Kumar; Editing by Chris Lewis)