Digital Assets Report

Latest News

Hedge funds marked another positive performance month in May, with the industry returning 0.93 per cent through the month to bring year-to-date gains to 1.55 per cent, according to data released by Preqin. Although this does not match the 2.39 per cent and 1.42 per cent returns seen in March and April, almost all leading strategies saw positive returns; and for the first time this year, all leading strategies are now marking positive year-to-date performance. Event driven strategies saw the strongest performance through the month, returning 1.59 per cent to take 2016 YTD returns to 3.01 per cent – the
Devarshi Saksena (pictured) of Simmons & Simmons considers the pros and cons of new onshore European hedge fund vehicles recently developed in Ireland, Malta and Luxembourg and whether or not they represent a real challenge to the traditional Cayman model… Times are changing for onshore European hedge funds. The structures that were traditionally trumpeted as being rivals to offshore funds – namely the Luxembourg specialised investment fund (SIF), Malta’s professional investor fund (PIF) and Ireland’s PLC/unit trust qualifying investor alternative investment fund (QIAIF) – but which had regulator-driven and, at times, frustrating fund authorisation processes are slowly giving way to easier
Global Fund Media – the digital publishing group whose flagship title is Hedgeweek – hosted a successful one-day event at the Reform Club in London on 9 June entitled “Setting up an Alternative Investment Fund in Europe”.  The event, sponsored by Simmons & Simmons, Dillon Eustace, Circle Partners and Linear Investments, was attended by 100 fund managers and was 2.5 times oversubscribed.  Throughout the day, a series of panel discussions provided expert insights into the challenges and the sheer breadth of decisions that one needs to consider before bringing an onshore AIF to market.  After an opening address provided by
The gross return of the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for May 2016 measured 1.26 per cent. Hedge fund flows as measured by the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index advanced 0.03 per cent in June. "SS&C GlobeOp's Capital Movement Index showed a slight increase in June 2016, rising 0.03 per cent.  This was smaller than the 0.23 per cent increase registered a year ago for June of 2015," says Bill Stone (pictured), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies. "This drop is not particularly significant by itself because June is typically a month that shows subdued activity.   “In
FIX Trading Community, the non-profit, industry-driven standards body at the heart of global financial trading, has developed the FIXProtocol for use for transmitting MiFID II Transaction Reports to Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARMs). Under MiFID II, all investment firms (including certain buy-side institutions) executing transactions in financial instruments are required to report details of their transactions to the national regulator as quickly as possible, and no later than the close of the following working day.  At the recently held FIX EMEA Trading Conference, nearly 70 per cent of respondents stated that use of the FIX Protocol would be their preferred standard
Crestline Investors, a credit focused institutional alternative asset manager, has held an additional closing of its Crestline Opportunity Fund III strategy, bringing capital in the strategy to USD720 million.  The strategy invests primarily in small to mid-size corporate and asset-based credit-oriented opportunities, with a focus in North America. The new fund is the ninth in Crestline's series of opportunistic funds, which started in 2005 and have attracted nearly USD4 billion in client commitments to date. The investment strategy seeks to take advantage of dislocations and inefficiencies in the primary and secondary credit markets in North America and Europe. The fund
Horseshoe Group has acquired IKONIC Fund Services (IKONIC) to form an independent fund administrator and insurance manager dedicated to both the Insurance Linked Securities and the alternative fund markets.  The transaction, which closed last week subject to customary regulatory approvals, will further solidify Horseshoe’s stance as the largest independent insurance manager to the Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) market and expand its service offering to now include fund administration. Post-acquisition, Horseshoe will have in excess of USD20 billion in assets under administration.  IKONIC, an independent, specialised fund administrator providing services to hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds and ILS
Hedge fund returns were divided in May with overall industry performance slightly negative at -0.09 per cent, bringing overall YTD returns to +0.75 per cent. Commodity hedge funds, the surprise performance leaders of the industry so far in 2016, produced negative aggregate returns in May, declining -0.46 per cent, halting a three-month run when the universe returned 6.99 percent, according to eVestment. Despite being flat in aggregate, there is good news for investors in the multi-strategy fund universe. Much had been made of losses within some of the industry’s largest multi-strategy funds early in 2016, however the >USD1 billion AUM multi-strategy
Manulife Asset Management has named Chris Fellingham as Senior Managing Director, Head of Liquid Alternative Strategies. The appointment is effective 13 June.  Fellingham will report to Chris Conkey, Executive Vice President, Global CIO, Manulife Asset Management, and be based in London. "We are pleased to welcome Chris to Manulife Asset Management. He brings significant expertise in liquid alternative investment strategies, a strong client-focus and decades of global asset management experience," says Conkey. "We created this new role to drive our growth strategy in liquid alternatives. Chris will play a significant role leading the expansion of our range of absolute return
Newfleet Asset Management, an affiliate of Virtus Investment Partners, has closed a USD356.3 million collateralised loan obligation (CLO). Newfleet CLO 2016-1 will be backed by a diversified portfolio of broadly syndicated senior secured floating rate loans, with six classes of notes rated by Moody's and S&P and unrated subordinated notes. The CLO will have a two-year non-call and a four-year reinvestment period with a final maturity of 12 years. Newfleet's parent, Virtus, retained 100 per cent of the subordinated notes. David L Albrycht, CFA, Newfleet's president and chief investment officer, said the successful offering marks the first transaction for Newfleet's

Special Reports

FeatureD

Events

16 May, 2024 – 8:30 am

Directory Listings