Fund managers find way to keep tabs on investors

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - For hedge fund managers yearning to know which clients will come or go, Ron Kashden may have developed the next best thing to a crystal ball.

Years ago when loosely regulated hedge funds delivered top returns, most managers gave little thought to who was investing with them. They knew clients personally and the line to get into these portfolios was long and growing longer.

But all that changed recently when returns fell sharply and competition for institutional investors heated up. Now managers worry their business could sink if investors ask for their money back all at once.

Enter Kashden and his 6-person software company TKS Solutions to help.

As an accountant turned computer programmer who earned his stripes as head of software development at $15 billion hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, the 44-year old developed a program to analyze a fund's investor base and detect patterns.

"This program could, for example, help a manager determine that pension funds from a certain part of the country are very patient and won't leave until there is a double digit loss," Kashden said in an interview.

"That kind of information can be very useful to a manager in terms of marketing and let him decide he wants more of one type of investor and less of another."

So far Ramius Capital, an $11 billion hedge fund, and Tiedemann Investment Group are early users, paying thousands of dollars each month for the program called Penny.