Funds
Swiss-Asia Financial Services, a provider of dedicated incubation services to hedge funds, reports that rising alternative funds incubated on the platform have sustained growth despite global economic slowdown.
Steve Knabl (pictured), chief operating officer and managing partner at Swiss-Asia Financial Services, says: “Although Asia hedge funds are opening at a slower pace, the selective outperforming funds operating on the Swiss-Asia platform are facing a steady upwards growth trajectory. By cushioning high operating fees, we want to continuously provide entrepreneurial finance professionals with the best possible independent fund management platform that positions them for long term success.”
When Credence Global
LCM partners has closed the LCM Partners Credit Opportunities III strategy, with in excess of EUR2 billion in commitments across a mix of managed accounts and a commingled fund from pension funds and foundations in the US, Continental Europe and the UK.
“LCM Partners is incredibly proud to include some of the most prestigious institutional investors as clients following the close of the LCM Credit Opportunities III strategy. We are honoured to represent state retirement schemes, public and private sector workers and foundations. We take our responsibility to manage our clients’ assets prudently very seriously and it is this approach
Multi-strategy hedge fund manager Elliott Management Corporation, through an affiliate, is to acquire a controlling interest in Aeolus Capital Management (ACM) and its affiliated entities.
The transaction is subject to the completion of definitive documentation and regulatory approval and is expected to be completed before year end.
The selling shareholders – Peter Appel, founder of ACM, and Allied World Assurance Company – will each retain significant minority ownership positions, with Appel continuing to serve ACM as its non-executive chairman and Allied World continuing as a substantial capital provider to the investment funds managed by ACM.
The ACM management
Following the completion of its acquisition of Cantab Capital Partners in October, GAM has launched its first purely quantitative equities UCITS fund, GAM Systematic Global Equity Market Neutral.
The fund was developed by the Cantab investment team, which now operates within GAM Systematic and uses a disciplined and systematic investment process. The new fund invests in the 2,500 most liquid equities globally, employing multiple proprietary models – both fundamental and behavioural – to identify the relative attractiveness of each stock. This results in a highly liquid, diversified equities portfolio with extremely low correlation to global equity markets and within a
Data-drive asset manager ACSI Funds has launched its inaugural exchange-traded fund, the American Customer Satisfaction Core Alpha ETF (BATS: ACSI), which sheds light on customer satisfaction for more than 350 national brands.
In 1994, ACSI Funds’ sister company, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), created the only national cross-industry measure of customer satisfaction, which uses a proprietary econometric model to gather and interpret data. This signal has provided the basis for ACSI’s hedge fund offering, which was launched in 2006.
The ACSI Funds ETF provides investors with core US equity exposure by interpreting ACSI’s exclusive data to build a
Offshore global law firm Carey Olsen has retained its tier one position in Guernsey and Jersey for both its financial and corporate and investment funds advice in International Financial Law Review 1000 (IFLR1000).
IFLR1000 rankings are based on independent research over a 12-month period and serve as a definitive guide to the world’s leading financial law firms.
Clients said of Carey Olsen: “The best offshore law firm both in terms of service and for technical capability and drafting”, “very fast, strategically helpful advice” and "responsive, technical and excellent to deal with”.
A total of 20 Carey Olsen lawyers
Latitude Investment Management, an investment advisory firm recently founded by Freddie Lait, has launched its first fund, The Latitude Horizon Fund (UCITS V).
The fund, which has begun accepting investment from new shareholders, is a global long only diversified growth fund targeting absolute returns, with lower volatility and lower fees.
Latitude Investment Management is backed by Odey Asset Management and other private investors, including family offices and individuals from the fund management industry.
The Latitude Horizon Fund will invest in a concentrated portfolio of stocks which have high-quality business characteristics and strong, or improving, industry dynamics. Alongside this,
By James Williams (pictured) – The private equity secondary market has experienced significant growth in deal volumes and investor interest in recent years. According to Cogent Partners, secondaries volume was USD22.5 billion in 2010. This rose to USD27.5 billion in 2013, and reached USD42 billion in 2014. Last year, deal flow was estimated to have reached USD40-50 billion.
As SEI stated in its paper Private Equity Liquidity: A Work in Progress, (www.seic.com/enUK/im/15106.htm) the growth of the secondary market has probably had more impact on private equity liquidity than any other development to date. This then, is an area of the market that has experienced a significant deepening of liquidity.
By Alan Chu (pictured), Meyler Capital – There’s a high concentration of Scotch distilleries in Scotland: over 100 fully-licensed operations in a country with a population of < 5.5 million people. To put it in perspective, there are more Scotch whisky distilleries than there are McDonald’s outlets in Scotland. On top of that, there are plenty more start-up distilleries entering the fray each year.
Scotch whisky has been around for a long time, with the majority of big-names having existed since the 1800s. It’s not easy for new entrants to penetrate the market.
It’s gone through its fair share of
Public pension funds look set to continue following the lead set by CalPERS and other high profile schemes by pulling out of hedge funds, says Don Steinbrugge of Agecroft Partners.
CalPERS was the first high profile public pension to pull out of hedge funds, and was followed a year and a half later by one of the New York City retirement plans. Recently, the number of public pension funds exiting or reducing their hedge fund exposure has accelerated.
Agecroft Partners believes this trend will increase over the next 12 months due to growing political pressure on investment staffs of
