Institutional Investor combines two into hedge fund mag

Institutional Investor announced Monday that it plans to merge two of its existing publications into a magazine focusing on the U.S. and international hedge fund industry in September.

The magazine will be called AR. Institutional Investor already publishes other magazines called Alpha and Absolute Return.

“The new publication will include everything that Alpha and Absolute Return contained, but it will be a new magazine which will contain a lot of editorial that neither magazine does, including new surveys, rankings and high-powered web functionality,” said Euromoney Institutional Investor chairman and editor-in-chief Padraic Fallon in a statement.

“With the hedge fund sector under intense scrutiny from Washington, regulators and investors, this is an excellent time to launch a hedge fund publication,” he says. “Building on the strengths of both Institutional Investor and HedgeFund Intelligence, we have the opportunity to produce the world’s leading hedge fund title which will keep investors, managers, regulators and the whole hedge fund community informed on developments in the sector.”

Michelle Celarier, who is the editor of Absolute Return, will be the editor of the new magazine.

“Hedge fund performance has recovered strongly in 2009, after the sector’s worst ever performance in 2008, and there are now significant opportunities,” said Celarier in a statement. “The new magazine is an exciting development because it joins two prestigious monthly magazines that cover hedge funds to create a single authoritative voice. Our mission is to create the most insightful, entertaining and definitive content about the hedge fund industry, in both the printed magazine and online. We will offer readers information they cannot find elsewhere, including news and performance data on thousands of funds, along with in-depth analysis, research and profiles of the biggest hedge funds.”

Read more here.