Funds
State Street Corporation has completed its acquisition of Charles River Systems, (Charles River Development), a deal that enables a global interoperable platform connecting the front, middle and back office with one provider.
This platform, supported by deep enterprise data management capabilities, will accelerate investment workflows, provide advanced data aggregation, analytics and compliance tools, and connect and exchange data with other industry platforms and providers.
“The combination of State Street and Charles River Development will create an open platform that will standardise data and systems across multiple asset classes and the entire investment lifecycle. We are delighted to welcome
Intercontinental Exchange has acquired the remaining equity of MERSCORP Holding, owner of Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, (MERS). ICE has owned a majority equity interest in MERS since 2016.
The price and terms of the transaction have not been disclosed and will not be material to ICE’s earnings or have an impact on capital return plans.
MERSCORP owns and operates the MERS System, a national electronic registry that tracks the changes in servicing rights and beneficial ownership interests in US-based mortgage loans. Earlier this month, ICE successfully moved the MERS System infrastructure to the ICE Mahwah data centre, an integral
Variant Investments has launched the Variant Alternative Income Fund, a ’40 Act closed-end interval fund with a strategy designed to provide an alternative to public market exposure by focusing on niche assets with strong cash flows and low market correlations.
As listed in the prospectus, the fund will invest in assets such as music royalties, litigation finance, and government receivables.
Variant Investments was formed in 2017 by three Directors of Research from CTC | myCFO, a firm serving ultra high net worth individuals and single-family offices. The team has decades of experience investing in niche markets and is eager to
Liquidnet’s global institutional trading network has announced that its global buy-side community of more than 930 member firms can now trade Brazilian equities anonymously through its platform.
The launch comes amid significant institutional interest in the Brazilian market, and emerging markets in general.
The addition of Brazil brings Liquidnet’s global reach to 46 equity markets worldwide and, now, six continents.
“Over the past few years, we’ve focused our expansion efforts on emerging markets around the world, including the launches of India, Taiwan and Pakistan,” says Brennan Warble, Head of Americas at Liquidnet. “The introduction of Brazil as
Pictet Asset Management (Pictet AM) has expanded its Total Return fund range with the launch of the Pictet-TR Akari fund, a UCITS-compliant Japanese equity market neutral fund with weekly liquidity.
Pictet-TR Akari aims to achieve long-term capital growth with low equity market correlation, by combining bottom-up stock selection with Japanese market specific technical factors. The fund will take exposure principally to liquid and mainly large-cap stocks while targeting overall beta neutrality.
The fund will be managed by Senior Investment Managers Teruhiko (Eric) Nishimura and Tomohiro (Tomo) Yamaguchi, who are based in Tokyo. The team has been managing capital in
PEGAS, the pan-European gas trading platform operated by Powernext, saw a strong push on its futures market during the month of September to achieve its highest volume in 2018 on this segment with 96.8 TWh.
A total volume of 169.4 TWh was traded over September 2018 (September 2017: 184 TWh), including 173 GWh on the options market.
Spot trading volumes in September reached 72.4 TWh , up 19 per cent over the previous year (60.9 TWh). 24.9 TWh were traded on the Dutch TTF market area which was an increase of 43 per cent (September 2017: 17.5 TWh). The
Argentex, an FCA-regulated provider of foreign exchange services to corporate and private clients across EMEA, has reported another year of strong growth across all key metrics.
The growth was achieved despite considerable exceptional costs in the financial period, as the business continued its investment in compliance functions related to the implementation of MIFID II, GDPR and PSD2 regulation.
Revenue of GBP13.2 million, was up 24.5 per cent year on year (2017: GBP10.6 million), while gross notional currency traded increased by 37 per cent to GBP7.8 billion (2017: GBP5.7 billion). The company also saw 19 per cent growth in trading
eVestment, a specialist in institutional investor data and analytics, has acquired RedQuarry, the provider of a cloud-based investment research management solution.
RedQuarry was founded in 2014 by Chris Tinsley and Jared Potter. Tinsley, Potter, co-CEO Patrick Adrian and the rest of the firm’s staff will join eVestment operating out of their current Tacoma office. The team’s unique blend of investment consulting and software development experience positions it to continue building innovative solutions specifically tailored for the institutional investment community.
RedQuarry’s proprietary software, which will be rebranded as eVestment Research Management, equips clients with tools to manage their investment research process
The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT and the clearing house European Commodity Clearing (ECC) have supported the Irish power exchange SEMOpx by setting up a Day-Ahead and Intraday market in Ireland and Northern Ireland, including clearing and settlement.
The markets were launched on 30 September 2018, with first trading day for delivery on 1 October.
In the context of a broad power market reform in Ireland, the Irish Transmission System Operator (TSO) EirGrid and the Northern Irish TSO SONI launched a tender for the operation of Day-Ahead and Intraday markets as well as clearing and settlement. EPEX SPOT and ECC
GAM Investments has launched an offshore version of its alternative risk premia strategy, which currently has USD1.8 billion of assets under management, as at 28 September 2018.
The new product will complement GAM’s existing range of strategies available to institutional investors, including existing systematic strategies managed by the GAM Systematic team. GAM Systematic has USD 4.7 billion of assets under management, as at 30 June 2018.
GAM’s alternative risk premia strategy typically targets around 15 risk premia strategies across the style categories of value, momentum and carry. The team uses a disciplined research process to design, systematically implement and
