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Beechbrook Capital has held the first close of its inaugural UK SME Credit Fund, with commitments of more than GBP100m. The fund will support UK small and medium-sized businesses with a turnover of between GBP10 million and GBP100 million and EBITDA of more than GBP1 million.
Among the institutional investors that have made commitments to the new fund are British Business Bank Investments Limited, the commercial arm of the British Business Bank, and the European Investment Fund. With additional investments to the fund already pledged, Beechbrook expects to hold a second close in the second quarter of 2016 with a
- 04/01/2016
Towards the end of 2015, Global Macro and CTAs experienced mixed fortunes. During November they were able to make returns amidst difficult market conditions. For both strategies, strong tailwinds in FX proved to be beneficial, the Lyxor Global Macro Index gaining 1.3 per cent mid-way through November and ending the year up +3.9 per cent. These gains were largely in response to the buoyancy of the USD against G10 and Emerging Market currencies.
In short, both strategies were trading on the expectations of a US Federal Reserve rate hike, which duly materialised in December.
As the Wall Street Journal wrote
- 04/01/2016
ALPS Fund Services is to expand its Denver-based hedge fund administration business with the acquisition of Kaufman Rossin Fund Services (KRFS), an independent, full-service provider of specialised administration services to the financial community.
Established in 1994, KRFS has offices in Miami, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, and Grand Cayman. The company’s hedge fund services include accounting and valuation, back-office outsourcing, investor services, treasury services, and customised reporting. KRFS is an affiliate of Kaufman Rossin & Co
“We see this acquisition making us a top-20 provider in the hedge fund administration business,” says Ned Burke (pictured), CEO of ALPS Holdings, Inc., the
- 04/01/2016
The nature of how research is disseminated and accessed within the funds industry is changing. In some respects, sellside institutions are adopting a Good Cop Bad Cop stance. On the one hand, they are starting to scale back the value of the research they send out to smaller clients. On the other hand, they are committed to providing best execution prices to those same clients.
One of the primary drivers behind this scaling back, which is known as ‘ghosting’, is that under Mifid II, sellside institutions will be required to disentangle research from trade commissions and as such place greater
- 04/01/2016
The State Street Global Investor Confidence Index (ICI) rose to 108.3 in December 2015, up 1.0 point from November’s revised reading of 107.3, driven by an increase in the European ICI from 96.2 to 103.7 along with the Asian ICI rising 4.6 points to 105.1.
By contrast, the North American ICI decreased by 5.9 points to 106.6.
The Investor Confidence Index was developed by Kenneth Froot (pictured) and Paul O’Connell at State Street Associates, State Street Global Exchange’s research and advisory services business. It measures investor confidence or risk appetite quantitatively by analysing the actual buying and selling patterns of
- 04/01/2016
Todd W Betke has joined K&L Gates from Pepper Hamilton as a partner in the firm’s Washington DC office.
Betke focuses his practice on commercial, legal, and regulatory issues surrounding private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund formation, as well as related acquisitions and dispositions of portfolio companies and assets. He has served as outside counsel to dozens of funds over the course of his 20-year career, and has extensive experience with the formation, regulation, and operation of varying types of funds, including Small Business Investment Companies licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Betke represents investment funds with capital
- 04/01/2016
Exchange traded fund sponsor and asset manager WisdomTree has launched the WisdomTree Dynamic Long/Short US Equity Fund (DYLS) and WisdomTree Dynamic Bearish US Equity Fund (DYB) on the BATS Exchange.
DYLS offers a stock selection strategy designed to add alpha in the core long stock portfolio, while hedging market drawdowns with a dynamic hedge on the market. DYB also offers a stock selection strategy designed to add alpha in the core long stock portfolio, but is designed to provide “more bearish” net positioning. DYLS and DYB each have a net expense ratio of 0.48 per cent.
As markets have become
- 04/01/2016
China Everbright Limited (CEL) has launched a multi-strategy alternative investment fund (FoF) with an initial RMB5 billion of committed capital, RMB1.25 billion of which is from CEL’s principal capital.
The fund’s target is RMB10 billion, which will be invested in CEL's primary market funds as well as in leading private equity funds that maintain good cooperation with CEL, an excellent market reputation and a strong performance track record.
CEL believes that a multi-strategy alternative investment fund (FoF Fund) can significantly diversify the investment portfolio of institutional investors, alleviating the volatility attributed to similarity in investment portfolios.
- 04/01/2016
Japan is host to some of the largest pools of institutional investment assets in the world. It ought to be a magnet for asset managers of all kinds, and especially for the alternative investment managers that are garnering substantial shares of institutional assets in North America and Europe. Yet Japan has proved an exceptionally challenging market to penetrate, for reasons which range from the cultural to the structural.
However, says SumiTrust, there are now signs that Japan’s institutional investors are opening their portfolios to foreign and alternative assets. How should alternative managers approach this opportunity?
Japan is an
- 23/12/2015
- 23/12/2015
It all started so well. In February 2015, hedge funds posted their highest monthly gains (+2.13 per cent) for two years and there was an overall feeling of optimism in the air. As Preqin’s data reveals in its December Hedge Fund Spotlight, at the time 60 per cent of hedge fund managers felt that overall hedge fund performance in 2015 would exceed that of 2014.
Onwards into March, and further positive performance led to Q1 2015 being the best quarterly performance since Q4 2013, with the average hedge fund posting returns of +3.03 per cent.
And then, slowly but
- 23/12/2015
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