Funds
The days of managers setting up new long-only large-cap US equity UCITS are largely gone, according to Philip Lovegrove, partner in law firm Matheson’s Asset Management Department. “Products are getting more complex and one of the manifestations of this is that for a number of years now, we have been seeing a lot of strategies and instruments that have traditionally belonged in the hedge fund world being brought into the UCITS world,” says Lovegrove.
This assumes the strategy fits the regime, however. Indeed, sometimes the biggest constraint on UCITS can be the ‘eligible assets’ rules. These rules forbid UCITS from
Back in February 2018, Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division, announced that it was partnering with Amundi with regards to its Luxembourgish funds based on the bank’s proprietary systematic strategy suite as well as to help support and expand its alternative UCITS offering. Amundi will take on the role as management company of the whole fund range and in addition become the investment manager for the proprietary systematic UCITS and SIF platforms.
Much was made of the announcement, with some in the media looking for ulterior motives; was this a regulatory response of some sort? Was this a sign that Goldman Sachs
Man Group has launched the Man Group RI Fund Framework, a formalised structure that quantifies the degree of RI focus for all Man Group funds, and the Man Group RI Exclusions List, a proprietary list of sectors and companies ineligible for the company’s portfolios.
These developments follow the recent formalisation of Man Group’s RI team, which is overseen by Sandy Rattray (pictured), Chief Investment Officer of Man Group, with ongoing activity led by Steven Desmyter and Jason Mitchell as Co-Heads of Responsible Investment.
The new RI Fund Framework is designed to establish a baseline requirement of ESG standards, and
The Capzanine Situations Spéciales fund is providing financial and strategic support to Legal, the leading independent French coffee roaster.
Affected by a fire in 2016, Legal had to meet medium-term financing needs to finish the modernisation of its industrial tooling and continue its development.
After working in close collaboration with the management and the shareholders to clearly understand Legal’s financial and strategic issues, Capzanine intervened to set up a EUR5.4 million, five-year bond financing in order to enable the company to finalise its investments and support its growth approach.
Capzanine was particularly convinced by the involvement and agility of the
Following a difficult October, CTAs continued to face challenges in November, with the SG CTA Index was down 1.09 per cent and the SG Trend Index down 1.75 per cent.
However, the SG Trend Indicator outperformed the Trend Index as it was up 2.51 per cent. This was driven by gains in commodity markets especially from short positions in the energy sector.
Apart from the uplift in commodities, trend following strategies struggled in other sectors with losses in currencies and equities. There were strong reversals against established trends in particular in Australian and New Zealand Dollar. Furthermore, trends in
The average Alternative UCITS fund is continuing to have a difficult time in terms of performance in 2018, with the LuxHedge Global Alternative UCITS Index posting a loss of 0.59 per cent in November, bringing YTD results down to -3.64 per cent.
Dispersion in this space remains very large with the best performing fund returning 35 per cent this year and the worst performer down -28 per cent. A bit less than 20 per cent of funds in our index universe are able to still show positive YTD results.
Assets under Management in the overall universe have declined 2.5 per
The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index was down 0.17 per cent in November, trailing the global equity market as represented by the MSCI AC World Index (Local) which edged 1.11 per cent higher, according to the company’s lastest Index Flash Update.
Roughly 23.2 per cent of the hedge fund managers tracked by Eurekahedge outperformed the market index in November.
On an asset-weighted basis, hedge funds lost 0.73 per cent in November, bringing their year-to-date losses to 3.79 per cent, as captured by the Mizuho-Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index (USD). North American hedge funds meanwhile, gained 0.89 per cent in November, on the
The Exchange Council of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) has welcomed the expansion of the product portfolio on the power derivatives market and agreed on the addition of new products in the rulebook.
EEX plans to introduce a number of power derivatives contracts for the Central/Southeastern European region. In the course of 2018, liquidity on these power spot markets have shown considerable growth rates, resulting into growing demand for long-term trading and risk management instruments. Against this background, EEX will launch Power Futures contracts in cooperation with the local spot exchanges in Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. The products include Euro-listed
When President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act) last December, one of the key points that the media focused on was the reduction in corporate tax from 35 per cent to 21 per cent; the biggest cut in more than three decades. This was big news for corporate America.
But as some rightly questioned, what would US corporations do with this tax windfall? Are they going to use it to invest more? If they do, it would likely lead to an immediate boost to growth, which could be inflationary in the short-term. Or are
Alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital (SkyBridge) and EJF Capital, a hedge fund and private equity fund manager, have launched the SkyBridge-EJF Opportunity Zone REIT (SOZ REIT).
The new REIT has a mandate to invest in US Treasury-certified Opportunity Zones, which are low-income communities where recycled capital gains can receive favourable tax treatment.
Opportunity Zone Funds present compelling investment case
The offering is structured as a private, non-exchange-traded REIT available to accredited investors at a minimum investment of USD100,000 with 1099 tax reporting and quarterly distributions. SOZ REIT is expected to be diversified by geography, property type, and developer, focusing on
