Funds
Hedge funds focused on India and China were the strongest overall performers in the hedge fund industry in 2017, according to eVestment’s December 2017 Hedge Fund Performance Report.
Overall the global hedge fund industry experienced a strong year, returning 8.83 per cent. This is a welcome return to strong performance following the 5.7 per cent hedge funds returned in 2016 and the -0.71 per cent aggregate return the industry delivered in 2015.
From a regional perspective, Asia outperformed the rest of the world in hedge fund returns, with Asia-focused hedge funds overall returning 21.47 per cent in 2017.
India-focused
The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index, which provides a representative baseline for how the broad liquid alternative investment category performs, returned 0.40 per cent in December, trailing the 0.73 per cent return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.
For the fourth quarter, the Wilshire Liquid Alternative IndexSM returned 1.51 per cent, in line with the 1.50 per cent return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index. The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index family is a joint offering between Wilshire Funds Management, the global investment management business unit of Wilshire Associates Incorporated, and Wilshire Analytics, creator of the Wilshire 5000 Total Market
Societe Generale Prime Services has announced the result of the annual review of constituents for its range of CTA indices and for the first time since inception in 2000, there have been no changes to the flagship SG CTA Index and SG Trend Index.
Tom Wrobel (pictured), Director of Alternative Investments Consulting at Societe Generale Prime Services, says: “There were no changes to our SG CTA Index and SG Trend Index in 2018, however, total assets under management continue to grow as these strategies continue to attract attention from institutional investors. The asset cut-offs for inclusion in all our CTA
Hedge funds closed the final month of 2017 in positive territory with the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index up 0.84 per cent in December while the MSCI World Index finished the month up 1.19 per cent.
That’s according to the Eurekahedge January Index Flash Update which reveals that for 2017 as a whole, hedge funds were up 8.24 per cent, while underlying markets as represented by the MSCI World Index returned 17.55 per cent over the same period.
Equity long-biased hedge funds have been the star performers for 2017 returning 16.78 per cent, whilst long volatility and tail risk funds
Getting distribution right is crucial when launching UCITS funds. The last thing a manager wants is to struggle to grow their AUM. Not only does it look bad in the eyes of prospective investors, an inadequate marketing effort can quickly become a costly and frustrating exercise.
ML Capital has a two-fold approach to distribution, namely Passive and Active, which focuses on the manager and the investor respectively. ML Capital ensures the highest possible service quality for all fund structures on its MontLake UCITS platform so that the investor has the best possible investment experience.
Passive distribution is offered to all
Goldman Sachs Fund Solutions is a bespoke solutions-oriented fund investments platform that was launched in 2004 within the Securities Division. The platform, at large, provides investors with access to unique internal strategies via regulated funds (UCITS and AIFMD-compliant funds), unregulated funds, as well as managed accounts. In addition, it offers investors access to carefully selected external alternative fund managers; referred to specifically as the Third Party Managed (UCITS) Platform.
Laura Elliott (pictured) is an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and oversees manager selection on the UCITS platform. Commenting on the importance of the alternative UCITS space, she says: “We see
ML Capital is an independent European regulated fund structurer that is rightly well known for its MontLake UCITS and MontLake QIAIF platforms, the success of which has seen firm-wide AUM grow to EUR5 billion since its inception in 2009.
However, ML is more than that. With a newly established footprint in Luxembourg that takes the firm beyond its Dublin home base, ML Capital can support fund managers in Europe’s two main fund jurisdictions in a far-reaching capacity that goes beyond being just the operator and investment manager of MontLake. As Cyril Delamare (pictured), CEO of ML Capital, articulates, the firm
In many ways, this is just the first stage of growth for alternative UCITS. There is still a huge amount of future growth potential yet to be realised. If one looks at the supply/demand dynamics for UCITS, there are roughly USD9 trillion invested in UCITS products, 30,000 funds and only 800 alternative UCITS with approximately USD350 billion in AUM; a fraction of the total AUM.
From an opportunity perspective, only 3.8 per cent of UCITS AUM is in alternatives. Even if investors only move 2 per cent of their traditional long-only capital in to alternative UCITS, that would represent USD200
GTT Communications has acquired Custom Connect, an Amsterdam-headquartered provider of high-speed network connectivity serving multinational enterprises and financial trading firms.
“The acquisition of Custom Connect extends GTT’s network and strengthens our service offerings in high growth financial markets,” says Rick Calder (pictured), GTT president and CEO. “These enhanced capabilities reinforce GTT’s market leadership in cloud networking and our commitment to connecting people – across organisations and around the world.”
“Custom Connect and GTT are highly complementary businesses and the combination provides strategic advantages to our clients as well as our organisations,” says Olav van Doorn, Custom Connect CEO. “GTT
Gemini experienced record-breaking growth in 2017, with an 80 per cent increase in the number of registered fund launches executed during the year.
When surveyed, clients cited the key drivers in selecting Gemini for their new funds, including:
• Gemini’s turnkey solutions, which help them scale their operations and focus on their strategy
• the firm’s established risk management, cybersecurity, and compliance processes
• its agility in handling complex/evolving investment strategies
• a joint-venture approach to client relationship management offering a true business partner
• the firm’s extensive network of other service provider relationships (eg, legal, auditing, etc)
“New markets,
