Funds
The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index was up 1.13 per cent in April, supported by the global equities which advanced on encouraging economic data and accommodative central bank policies.
Positive earnings surprises helped renew investors’ optimism in the global equity market, which rallied 3.38 per cent during the month as represented by the MSCI ACWI (Local). Returns were positive across geographic mandates, with hedge fund managers focusing on North America leading the pack as they gained 1.37 per cent in April. Asian hedge funds trailed behind their peers focusing on other regions, but still managed to generate positive returns. Looking at
The US CLO market is holding up well with new issuance expected to reach USD135 billion in 2019. This has prompted TowerBrook Capital Partners to set up a new platform, CAVU, with LibreMax Capital. And with PineBridge Investments suggesting there is significant relative value in CLOs, it would seem to be a good time to get the CAVU platform off the ground.
The supply dynamics for collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds – the biggest buyers of leveraged loans – are set to remain favourable for 2019 in the US, with banks forecasting that approximately USD135 billion of CLO new issuance could
Independent asset manager Unigestion has enhanced its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) capabilities by implementing an ESG Risk Ratings solution from Sustainalytics.
The solution will help Unigestion to further refine its existing in-house ESG indicators at a security level and expand its robust analysis of the ESG footprint of sectors and countries across the different asset classes managed by the firm. It will help Unigestion not only to avoid future ESG-related risks, but also to better exploit new opportunities offered by sustainable investing.
With a long track record of integrating ESG criteria in both its investment approach and its
Affiliated Managers Group (AMG) is to acquire an equity interest in Garda Capital Partners. After the closing of the transaction, the senior partners of Garda will continue to hold a majority of the equity of the business and direct the firm’s day-to-day operations.
With approximately USD4 billion in assets under management as of 30 April, 2019, Garda is an alternative investment manager specialising in fixed income relative value strategies and is headquartered in Minneapolis. Garda serves a diversified set of sophisticated institutional clients around the world, and throughout the firm’s 15-year history of continuous senior leadership, its flagship investment strategy
PEGAS, the pan-European gas trading platform operated by Powernext, registered a total volume of 207.1 TWh in April 2019 (April 2018: 146.4 TWh).
The spot segment reported a total volume of 125.5 TWh which represented a 60 per cent increase over the previous year (April 2018: 77.7 TWh) due to the good performance on most PEGAS spot market areas and a new record on CZ VTP which registered 787 GWh (previous record in March 2018: 582 GWh). In addition, 22.3 GWh were traded on PEGAS’ options segment.
In April, the spot segment amounted to 125.5 TWh. Dutch TTF market
One-year-old startup the Diamond Standard Co has launched the world’s first fungible diamond commodity product – a universal asset to secure any digital transaction.
“Diamonds are a valuable natural resource, but unusable by institutional investors. Unlike gold and platinum, each diamond is different, so price is negotiable,” explains Cormac Kinney, founder and CEO of Diamond Standard Co. “We created a diamond commodity by grouping sets of diamonds in a fair and transparent way. The sets are fungible, and the diamonds are independently certified, and the key is that they are sourced through a regulated exchange, with market-driven price discovery.”
Diamond
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) increased volumes on its power derivatives markets by 35 per cent to 331.9 TWh in April (April 2018: 246.6 TWh). In particular, volumes traded in the German Phelix-DE product (232.2 TWh, +82 per cent) contributed to this growth.
The markets for France (24.7 TWh, +25 per cent), Italy (46.9 TWh, +21 per cent), Spain (9.5 TWh, +32 per cent) and Central-/South-Eastern Europe (8.9 TWh, +44 per cent) achieved double-digit growth.
In April, EEX introduced order book trading for Greece and, in doing so, extends the existing Trade Registration offering for this market. In April, 78,000
Aegon Asset Management has made two new hires to strengthen its now 14-strong global responsible investment team.
Brunno Maradei joins Aegon Asset Management as Global Head of ESG based in The Hague, the Netherlands and Julius Huttunen joins the company as Responsible Investment Manager, based in Chicago, US. Both will report into Roelie van Wijk-Russchen, Global Head of Responsible Business & Public Affairs.
Maradei joins AAM on the 1st of May from the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where he was a Senior Investment Officer leading execution teams for project finance deals outside the European Union, focusing on climate-friendly impact
EEX Group significantly increased its sales revenue and annual net profit in 2018 achieving the best corporate result in its history so far.
On the power market, EEX Group again recorded the biggest power trading volume worldwide. On the markets for emission allowances and natural gas, EEX Group was the second- and, respectively, third-biggest trading platform worldwide in the past financial year. In North America, EEX Group launched new contracts for emission allowances and also strengthened its presence in Asia with the establishment of EEX Asia. In total, the Group has further expanded its global position and generated significant volume
Systematic global macro strategies have become a more popular feature in recent years as quant managers leverage improved technology and modelling tools to generate uncorrelated returns. Anoosh Lachin and Asif Noor, co-portfolio managers of Aspect Capital’s Systematic Global Macro programme talk to Hedgeweek about the current market environment and why 2018 proved to be a smash to the boundaries for the programme.
A recent study by Barclays Capital found that systematic macro strategies attracted USD19 billion of net inflows between 2016 and 2018, while in comparison, discretionary macro strategies registered net outflows of USD30 billion. The findings are just one
