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Unigestion, the boutique asset manager that focuses on guiding its clients with risk-managed investment solutions, has appointed four new members to the Institutional Clients team to boost its specialist alternatives sales force. David Chesner has been appointed as a director on the Institutional Clients Alternatives team, and will lead the sales strategy for Unigestion’s alternative investment solutions. David has a 15 year history working in private equity and hedge fund investing and joins from the global alternative asset manager, Duet Group, where he was responsible for client relationships and business development across Europe and Asia.  David reports into Tom Leavitt,
CME Group is expanding its base metals offering with the introduction of a new Aluminum A380 Alloy (S&P Global Platts) futures contract, which will begin trading on 6 June, 2016.  Pending relevant regulatory review periods, the new contract will be available for trading on CME Globex, for submission for clearing through CME ClearPort, and will be listed with and subject to the rules and regulations of COMEX. "This new contract will provide our customers and market participants with an effective and transparent solution for hedging aluminum alloy price risk," says Young-Jin Chang, CME Group Executive Director of Metals Products. "Aluminum
Nuveen Investments, an operating division of TIAA Global Asset Management, has appointed Bill Stout as Managing Director and Head of Alternative Investments Business Development.  In this newly-created role, Stout will be charged with helping the firm place new private funds onto the investment platforms of wealth managers who serve retail and high-net-worth investors, grow alternative investment distribution capabilities, and represent many of the investment strategies to clients on behalf of portfolio managers. Based in New York, Stout will report to Mike Perry, Managing Director, Head of Alternative Investments for Nuveen. Nuveen is able to bring to the retail and high-net-worth
Guernsey’s new Manager Led Product (MLP) was warmly received by a London funds audience when it was launched at the Guernsey Funds Forum last week [12 May]. Nearly 500 delegates attended the annual funds conference, which this year saw Luke Johnson, Chairman of private equity house Risk Capital Partners and former Chairman of Channel 4 Television, appear as keynote speaker. The event, entitled ‘The new scope – investor perspectives, innovation and success’, was moderated by ITV News anchor Alastair Stewart OBE, and took place at etc. venues, 155 Bishopsgate, London. Guernsey Finance Chief Executive Dominic Wheatley (pictured) said the annual
Agecroft Partners’ Don Steinbrugge (pictured) discussed a number of recent hedge fund industry media quotes and articles in a presentation delivered at the 69th CFA Institute Annual Conference held on 9 May, 2016 in Montreal.  Presentation included the following comments:    Third Point Capital CEO Dan Loeb thinks hedge funds are in the first stage of a “washout” after “catastrophic” performance this year.    The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index posted a decline of -0.67  per cent in Q1 of this year, which on the surface isn’t that bad. Upon closer examination, this moderate decline is hiding the vastly different
Choosing the best prime broker to support the strategy is vital, but will depend on the manager. A portfolio manager spinning out of a hedge fund with an established track record and experience in running a pot of capital, will likely want to appoint a tier one prime broker: the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley; especially if they are launching with significant AUM. They may, however, look to others as an alternate, or second, prime to mitigate risk and to provide certain outsourced services. A true start-up, however, will likely be launching with limited capital and is going to
A recent survey by Preqin revealed that 60 per cent of hedge funds have less than USD100 million in AUM and that only 5 per cent of hedge fund flows go to funds operating below that AUM level. There are now approximately 15,000 hedge funds in the industry, meaning investors are being bombarded by different funds every single day and thousands over the course of a year. They probably meet with 200 or so, engage in follow-up meetings with around 40 and allocate to two or three.  As such, there is one certainty that US start-ups can be sure of
By Bob Guilbert – You're a new fund manager, and somewhere on your task list the letters "IT" are probably followed by a question mark. Odds are, you don't have a technology background, so as your firm's Chief Operating/Financial/Compliance Officer (or in some cases, Portfolio Manager), the sudden responsibility you've undertaken as your firm's de facto IT Manager is intimidating at best.  The good news is, as a startup, your IT options are pretty clear. In 2016, there's no better technology decision a new firm can make than selecting a cloud platform – an infrastructure that has proven benefits including
Cloud technology – The scale of a manager's IT infrastructure will largely depend on the type of trading strategy. A quantitative market neutral statistical arbitrage fund is likely going to spend more capital on front-office portfolio management, risk management systems and server storage capabilities than a specialist credit strategy that trades infrequently.  Either way, investors will expect the manager to have a well-oiled machine in place: well-established workflow processes, operational controls, and, as far as possible, front- to back-office system integration.  One of the most popular routes to establishing a sound technology infrastructure is to appoint an outsourced cloud provider.
If one were to sum up the key role of a hedge fund administrator, it is to independently value a fund's assets, allocate those assets correctly to individual investors, and accurately report the allocations to those investors.  Investors want an administrator, not the manager, to independently calculate the fund's assets and monitor the books and records, and to report the fund's NAV. For any new start-up manager, it is worth remembering that when selecting the most appropriate administrator they understand that whilst the administrator will ordinarily perform a range of middle- and back-office functions, at a high level they:  •

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