Funds
The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark posted 2.82 per cent in March, the best monthly return for the asset class since January 2012 (+3.06 per cent), and only the third positive monthly return since May 2015.
All leading hedge fund strategies posted gains, with equity strategies seeing the highest returns of 3.79 per cent. However, after posting negative returns in the previous two months, performance for equity strategies funds in 2016 YTD stands at -1.10 per cent, the worst of any leading strategy. Overall, hedge funds are still showing negative performance for the year, with losses of 0.28 per cent
The growing scarcity of bank lending in the commercial property sector continues to create opportunities for alternative debt providers seeking to generate secure income. Now, a slowdown in property price growth has further improved prospects for the asset class, says Vincent Nobel (pictured), Head of Real Estate Debt at Hermes Investment Management…
The new lending landscape: The disintermediation of the European real estate lending market, catalysed by the financial crisis and its aftermath, continues. This market is no longer dominated by clearing banks, though they maintain large lending books. Instead, more loans are being provided by specialist fund managers sourcing capital
Altarius Asset Management (Altarius) and Portcullis Asset Management Limited (Portcullis), both licensed by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), have formed a strategic alliance to deliver a full suite of evolutionary AIFM services to alternative investment funds regardless of their AUM.
This evolutionary strategic alliance allows early stage managers to seamlessly adopt a full scope AIFM from a “de-minimis”. Many mangers who have experienced their AUM increase faster than expected have found the step from de-minimis to a full-scope AIFM to be disruptive, affect performance, distract from core activities and ultimately slow subscriptions at a critical growth point for the
Argonaut Capital, the GBP1.4 billion specialist European equity asset manager, has launched a sterling-hedged share class for its GBP395 million FP Argonaut European Alpha Fund.
The sterling-hedged share class, which has been launched in response to growing demand from clients, provides an option for investors wishing to protect against, or potentially benefit from, fluctuations in the euro/sterling exchange rate.
“UK investors often have strong views on the euro. Fears of a Brexit have recently triggered significant weakness in sterling, which may reverse post-referendum in the event of a pro-EU result,” says Barry Norris (pictured), Argonaut founder and manager of the
ShelteR Investment Management has launched the ShelteR Invest Best Alternative UCITS Fund (BAU) a Luxembourg UCITS fund providing investors with access to a smart portfolio of alternative UCITS fund strategies.
The fund targets a gross annual return of 6 per cent with volatility similar to bond markets. The fund manager believes the product is a true alternative to fixed income products where attractive returns are unlikely in today's low interest rate environment. The BAU fund returns are not as interest rate dependent, making this fund a real diversification vs traditional investments.
The fund management uses expertise of LuxHedge, the number
Castle Hall Alternatives has launched Due Diligence University, a growing collection of educational resources including webinars, white papers and online courses.
Commenting on the launch, Chris Addy, President and CEO of Castle Hall, says: “The guiding principle of Due Diligence University is to support asset owners as they conduct due diligence on third party asset managers. Due Diligence University operates with an investor centric perspective to deliver up-to-date knowledge and access to industry metrics and best practice benchmarks.”
The first Due Diligence University subject area will focus on cybersecurity. “Evaluating an Asset Manager’s Cybersecurity Environment” is the topic of an upcoming
AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) has partnered with State Street and MKT MediaStats to evaluate data-driven indicators that help analyse economic and market information.
MKT MediaStats is focused on financial market implications of increasingly available ‘big data’ from multiple sources, and is founded and led by well-known academic researchers. It leverages and extends into the commercial realm of considerable academic research done by its partners. The State Street PriceStats inflation series is a daily measure of inflation derived from prices posted to public websites by hundreds of online retailers.
“AXA IM, MKT MediaStats and State Street share a commitment to
At a time when the world is grappling with zero inflation, near-zero interest rates and oil prices at a 12-year low, one could be forgiven for thinking that the alternative investment funds (AIF) industry might be supercharging in reverse.
If anything, however, the opposite is true. The AIF brand continues to build and attract new investors.
Retail AIFs are on the rise thanks to the liquid alternatives revolution and total AUM in the AIF industry is forecast to reach USD13 trillion by 2020, accounting for 40 per cent of the investment fund industry's assets and 70 per cent of its
Linedata has completed the acquisition of Derivation, a specialist provider of risk, analytics, and portfolio management solutions to institutional and hedge fund managers.
This acquisition immediately enhances Linedata’s comprehensive, global platform across its clients’ entire investment process with support for all asset types and structures.
Derivation provides advanced risk and portfolio management, performance measurement, and powerful reporting tools. Linedata will integrate these capabilities into Linedata’s Global Hedge and Longview Asset Management solutions.
With this acquisition, Linedata affirms its strategy of being a leader in Asset Management. In addition to directly bringing Derivation’s solutions on board, this year Linedata
March was the best month for aggregate hedge fund performance in two years and some segments, notably activist, credit and emerging markets funds, performed extremely well, according to eVestment’s latest Hedge Fund Industry Performance Report.
For the quarter, overall industry returns were negative, the industry’s first negative Q1 since 2009 and only its second on record.
Activist hedge funds produced their best monthly performance in March since 2010. Gains from the concentrated, equity/capital structure-focused funds of +5.35 per cent were enough to bring Q1 2016 into positive territory. Activist managers have been through a difficult stretch, declining an average of
