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The Dutch alternative investments community has raised EUR18,000 from a lottery and auction in aid of the Alternatives4Children charity foundation at its fifth annual Black Tie Dinner. This takes the total raised this year on behalf of the charity to EUR110,000 (net of costs). The event at Amsterdam’s Sofitel Legend The Grand Hotel saw over 140 industry professionals show their support for the foundation through sponsorship, a lottery and a charity auction.   Marc de Kloe (pictured) Co-founder of A4C and managing director at Adamas Asset Management, says: “This annual event is a great opportunity to bring together members of the Dutch alternative financial industry who can network and at the
The markets have experienced significant volatility in the last few months. China's decision to devalue its currency, the collapse of commodity prices and the uncertainty caused by global quantitative easing have all caused significant disruption to financial markets. In August, all three major equity indices in the US suffered their biggest losses since 2011.     Hedge funds need to manage volatility and to do that effectively requires a risk management system that is real-time, user driven and flexible enough to provide the instant analysis that is required.     This is precisely what TFG Financial Systems provide. Offered as
The RiskAPI service, developed by PortfolioScience, is a fully hosted and customisable risk solution that integrates seamlessly with existing applications and programming frameworks to generate risk calculations for multi-asset, multi-currency portfolios and individual positions. It is available as both an Enterprise software API and an Excel Add-In. Rather than being a risk calculator, per se, it is a complete end-to-end solution. "Our system has all the underlying data, and all the necessary analytics, connections and external data feeds within the infrastructure; everything needed to generate a full spectrum of risk calculations," explains Ittai Korin (pictured), President, PortfolioScience. "If they want,
Managing derivatives risk in the portfolio is a demanding task at the best of times. But as global regulators make inroads to drive transparency in OTC markets, managers find themselves having to file detailed risk positions under CFTC regulations in the US, EMIR reporting in Europe, not to mention the unnecessarily dense Annex IV report under AIFMD.  Quite what regulators hope to gain by getting such voluminous data remains to be seen. Still, managers must comply. OTC derivatives are increasingly being traded on Swap Execution Facilities (SEFs) under Dodd-Frank, with exchanges such as CME Group rolling out products such as
By Chris Kundro, Wells Fargo Global Fund Services – There are many professionals, both internal and external to a fund manager, who play an important role in controlling a fund's operational infrastructure and mitigating a fund's operational risk. COOs, CFOs, and CCOs manage the functions necessary to support a hedge fund, while fund directors, auditors, and operational risk analysts ensure that a hedge fund's infrastructure is sound and secure. However, unlike portfolio managers and traders that have always had portfolio management, trade order management, and other systems to leverage, operational professionals have historically lacked sophisticated or comprehensive systems for managing
Operational Due Diligence (ODD) has become increasingly important across the alternative investment industry and more resources and attention are being placed on this function. This was one of the main findings from a session on ODD at the recent Global Alternative Investment Management (GAIM) Ops Conference in the Cayman Islands. Kristin Castellanos (pictured) of Deutsche Bank's Head of Regulatory Fund Services within its Institutional Cash & Securities Services, moderated a panel on the subject of ODD and how the process has changed over the past decade. She says: "10 years ago, most ODD was conducted around account policies and procedures.
One aspect to operational risk, which can have a meaningful impact on performance, not to mention the integrity of the manager, is valuations. According to Deutsche Bank's Global Prime Finance group's third annual Operational Due Diligence Survey, asset valuation is in sharp focus for 38 per cent of investors surveyed. Unilaterally, respondents said they would review a fund's valuation policy during their ODD review whilst 78 per cent stated they would verify the valuation procedure during the on-site review.  Asset valuation is inherently a function of the quality of data inputs. A SunGard survey last year revealed just how important
Campbell & Company, an absolute return investment advisor, specialising in systematic managed futures and equity market-neutral strategies, has opened an office in New York City, marking its first expansion beyond its headquarters in Baltimore. Campbell opened its new office in Midtown Manhattan in order to facilitate meetings and better serve its growing base of domestic and international investors.   Michael Harris, Campbell President, says: “We are excited to have a presence in the heart of Midtown, on Madison Avenue and 53rd Street, that is easily accessible to our investors and other stakeholders. This is a natural progression for us as
The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GSFC) has signed MoUs with both the SFC and HKMA regarding consultation, cooperation and the exchange of information related to the supervision of AIFMD entities. CEO of the GFSC, Samantha Barrass, says: “Signing the AIFMD MoUs with the two Hong Kong regulators is an important development for us. It supports open, strong cooperation with the SFC and the HKMA in our regulation of AIFMD establishments, and is a very useful tool for us as a regulator”.   These are very welcome agreements for the GFSC, especially following the recent marketing initiative to Hong Kong by
PwC has teamed up with IncuBus Ventures to launch Future of Work, a 12 week incubator programme that will focus on startups in AI, Cyber Security and Smart Office solutions. The programme starts on 11 January 2016 and will look to develop early stage startups with an MVP ready for the world’s best accelerators and further funding.   This is done through nine hours of programme content (mentor sessions, skills based workshops and office hours) a week, plus additional services and activities to help develop a strong foundation for the startups to continue growth beyond the programme.   Applications are

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