Funds
Active fixed income manager BlueBay Asset Management (BlueBay) has launched a Cayman version of its successful BlueBay Global Sovereign Opportunities Fund (UCITS) in response to client demand.
The new Fund is a discretionary global macro strategy investing in interest rates, currencies and sovereign credit across global markets, aimed at hedge fund investors. The Fund seeks to achieve an annual net return of cash plus 5-7 per cent over the full investment cycle, with an expected volatility of 8 per cent.
BlueBay launched its UCITS macro strategy in December 2015, with Russel Matthews (pictured),as the lead portfolio manager in a
Abacus Group has secured a minority investment from WestView Capital Partners. Drake Star Partners acted as an exclusive financial advisor to Abacus Group on this transaction.
Founded in 2008, Abacus Group has successfully served the hedge fund and financial institution market by providing superior technology, expertise, and service.
Abacus Group provides three main products and services – AbacusFLEX, a professionally managed hosted IT solution covering all the primary needs of a modern financial services firm including state-of-the-art security and compliance functionality; Application Hosting, a fully redundant and secured managed infrastructure allowing clients to host any application in the cloud;
In July 2017, the European Energy Exchange (EEX) achieved a total volume of 186.0 TWh on its power derivatives markets (July 2016: 244.0 TWh).
The July volume comprised 75.3 TWh traded at EEX via Trade Registration with subsequent clearing. Clearing and settlement of all exchange transactions was executed by European Commodity Clearing (ECC).
In Phelix-DE Futures, EEX reached its highest volume so far at 15.0 TWh. The steady increase shows that the product is well recognised by the market participants. The products for the Eastern-European markets which have been tradable at EEX since June 2017 contributed 2.1 TWh to
Risk assets were again on the rise in July and several asset classes broke records. Last week, the S&P 500 reached an all-time high, while the spot VIX index reached an all-time low. The MSCI World (net total return local currency index) is up for the ninth month in a row, which was unseen since 1987; according to the latest Weekly Brief from Lyxor’s Cross Asset Research Team.
Meanwhile, European high yield spreads reached 10-year lows according to Merrill Lynch indices. The latest leg of the risk assets rally is taking place amid a strong earnings season on both sides of the
Adjusted profit before tax (PBT) at Man Group was USD145 million for teh first six months of 2017, an increase of 38 per cent on the H1 2016 figure of USD98 million, according to the company’s latest interim results.
Funds under management meanwhile increased to USD95.9 billion in the period up USD 80.9 billion for the end of December 2016, while net inflows totalled USD8.2 billion, up from USD1 billion for the same period in 2016.
Luke Ellis (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of Man, says: “The first half of 2017 has been one of solid performance with 4% growth in management fee
ETC Global Group, on behalf of its subsidiary companies, ETC Global Holdings, Electronic Transaction Clearing, and Electronic Transaction Clearing Canada (collectively ETC); has entered into a new financing facility which will provide up to USD68 million in committed capital.
The Financing is being provided by certain affiliates of Cerberus Capital Management and Quantlab Investments. Proceeds from the Financing will allow ETC to immediately expand its United States and Canada broker dealer clearing operations and position the Company for further growth into new asset classes including options and FX, new product offerings including prime brokerage and stock loan, and other geographical
New York and Hong Kong-based alternative asset manager, Crystal Century Investment, is planning to expand its global platform into Japan under approval of the Japanese government’s Financial Services Agency.
The company has been granted a license to provide alternative investments and asset management services to accredited investors, with operations expected to commence from a Tokyo location during November 2017.
To complement its global presence, Crystal Century Investment will open the Tokyo office as the company expands its investment offering at a time when many investors are faced with what the company calls limited options in the US equity and
Recovery in southern Europe’s markets and stronger performance by manufacturing exporters have delivered for Quaero Capital’s value-driven European Smaller Companies strategy in recent months.
Corporate confidence indicators have continued to improve across Europe as the fears of political risk have given way to the resurgence of the political mainstream, supporting manufacturing exporters which are more sensitive to the economic environment.
With family ownership being particularly prevalent in the ‘Mittelstand’ exporters of Europe, the strategy’s sectoral exposure is well suited to this ‘Goldilocks’ scenario of firmer growth without inflation, according to the managers.
Quaero’s European Smaller Companies Team, writes:
Europe-domiciled bond funds received net inflows of EUR29 billion in June, the second-highest monthly tally since Morningstar started to publish European asset flows figures in 2007.
Total inflows for bond funds rose to EUR152.2 billion in the first six months of the year, a new high for semi-annual net inflows into the asset class.
Funds in the USD-hedged global flexible-bond category were the main beneficiaries of the rush to bond funds, specifically the PIMCO GIS Income Fund, rated Silver by Morningstar’s analysts. The fund amassed net inflows of EUR4.1 billion during the month and is now Europe’s largest open-end
Euronext has announced its results for the second quarter of 2017 including a 3.8 per cent increase in revenues to EUR137.3 million (Q2 2016: EUR132.3 million) on the back of improved trading volumes on both the cash and derivatives markets, with derivatives also benefiting from the closure of TOM in the Netherlands.
Operational expenses excluding Depreciation & Amortisation increased by 6.3 per cent to EUR58.1 million (Q2 2016: EUR54.6 million) due to the deployment of the company’s Agility for Growth initiatives, ongoing IT projects (including the development of our new trading platform, Optiq), and new business.
During the quarter,
