Site to Give Real-Time Hedge Fund Tracking

Well-heeled investors looking for more information on hedge funds will soon have another place to go.

J.P. Morgan & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston Inc. and four other groups have invested $42 million into PlusFunds.com, an Internet site that will provide real-time performance of hedge funds over the Web.

The investment is another sign that large financial services firms want to get a piece of the lucrative business of selling hedge funds, which are private partnerships designed for wealthy individuals and institutions that bring in much higher fees than traditional money management products.

“Their investment means that hedge funds are going to become more mainstream products in the portfolios of sophisticated investors,” said Chris Sugrue, head of PlusFunds.

Sugrue expects the investment banks to provide research on the hedge funds included on PlusFunds, and eventually create their own multimanager funds and indexes made up of the PlusFunds participants.

The company expects the site, which will also provide risk analysis of the funds, to go live next month.

PlusFunds products will appeal to institutions and individuals, Sugrue said, because investors will be able to get more information about a portfolio’s returns and risk profile than they have been able to get traditionally from hedge fund managers. Normally managers provide return information only on a monthly basis.