Funds
State Street’s Global Investor Confidence Index (ICI) decreased to 114.6 in July, down 12.5 points from June’s revised reading of 127.1.
Confidence among North American investors decreased with the North American ICI falling 20.6 points to 122.6, down from June’s revised reading of 143.2. Meanwhile, the Asia ICI rose by 2.6 points to 89.5 while the European ICI fell 2.1 points to 100.4.
The Investor Confidence Index was developed by Kenneth Froot and Paul O’Connell at State Street Associates, State Street Global Exchange’s research and advisory services business. It measures investor confidence or risk appetite quantitatively by analysing the actual
Quantifi, a provider of Analytics, trading and Risk Management solutions, has been selected by CQS, a global multi-strategy asset management firm to provide enhanced pricing and risk management analytics.
By leveraging Quantifi’s advanced analytics CQS has enhanced capability in terms of modelling and risk management practices. CQS was also impressed with the level and quality of support they received from senior members of Quantifi that, combined with the smooth integration of Quantifi’s analytics into their existing system, accelerated the time to market.
Quantifi’s comprehensive suite of best-of-breed analytics provide timely, accurate and independent valuation for a wide range of
Total hedge fund assets decreased 1.57 per cent in June 2015, bringing the industry’s total assets under management to USD3.118 trillion, according to eVestment’s latest Hedge Fund Asset Flows report.
Investors added USD12.1 billion of new capital to the industry in June, while performance decreased AUM by an estimated USD61.9 billion.
With June’s USD12.1 billion inflow, investors added an estimated USD48.6 billion into hedge funds in Q2, the second largest quarterly inflow since Q3 2009, and USD75.0 billion in H1 2015. YTD inflows are below H1 2014 inflows of USD97.4 billion, but they are the second largest two quarter span
Funds under management (FUM) at Man GLG jumped 8 per cent to USD78.8 billion for the six-month period ended 30 June 2015 (31 December 2014: USD72.9 billion), according to the firm’s latest interim management statement.
Gross sales meanwhile totalled USD10.5 billion (H1 2014: USD12.4 billion), redemptions stood at USD13.1 billion (H1 2014: USD9.6 billion), with net outflows of USD2.6 billion (H1 2014: net inflows USD2.8 billion) and investment movement of USD3.8 billion (H1 2014: USD0.7 billion).
Manny Roman (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of Man, said:
“While the first quarter of the year saw a more stable environment in
Ivy Investment Management Company is launching two new income-oriented mutual funds in partnership with Apollo Credit Management that, once approved by the SEC, are scheduled to become available in October.
Both funds will include allocation sleeves that will seek to follow current Ivy Fund strategies and the Apollo Total Return Fund strategy, which is Apollo’s flagship strategy in liquid alternative credit.
• Ivy Apollo Strategic Income Fund will include sleeves intended to replicate the Ivy High Income Fund strategy and the Ivy Global Bond Fund strategy, with flexible allocations to each of those strategies of between 10 per cent
Featuring the latest data, this extract from the Preqin Quarterly Update: Private Equity, Q2 2015 looks at the rising amount of dry powder in the industry and up-to-date performance statistics.
With the fundraising market remaining robust and average final close sizes climbing, dry powder has continued to increase. The level of committed capital available to private equity fund managers for investment is standing at a new high, at USD1.3 trillion (Fig 1). This is an 18% increase since December 2014, with over half of the increase in dry powder attributable to private equity real estate and buyout funds.
Fig 2
EBS BrokerTec, ICAP’s electronic foreign exchange and fixed income business, has combined MyTreasury – an ICAP owned, established Money Market Fund (MMF) platform for the corporate treasury community – into its product portfolio.
Furthermore, by leveraging its existing platform and established network, EBS BrokerTec is adding an FX offering onto MyTreasury which will be available later this year. It will be branded “EBS Treasury”.
The addition of the existing MyTreasury business into EBS BrokerTec, coupled with the integration of FX, is another key milestone in EBS BrokerTec’s expansion, increasing its product offering to include money market funds and expanding its
Lawson Conner has launched Lawson Conner Guardian, a comprehensive set of solutions to help protect fund managers and financial services firms from the increasing threats of cyber security.
Lawson Conner has supported over 100 firms in the past to stay compliant and to implement solutions to reduce the risks such as cyber security risks.
Recently, risks of cyber attacks have grown exponentially as fund managers and financial services firms have become more integrated with counter-parties and system architectures have grown in complexity. Due to the industry’s heavy reliance on data and the sensitivity of the data involved in financial services
FTSE has launched the FTSE All-World ex Coal Index Series, a suite of benchmarks that will omit companies that have certain exposure to coal or general mining companies with proved and probable coal reserves.
The new index series will assist market participants in managing their portfolio exposure linked to fossil fuels.
The methodology behind the indexes is based on the exclusion of companies whose principal business activity is either Coal Mining or General Mining as identified by the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB). In addition, revenues must arise from various forms of Coal Mining as stated by the Standard Industrial
VAM Funds has launched the Focused Global Equity Fund, a best ideas strategy incorporating portfolio hedging to reduce volatility and downside risk.
The VAM Focused Global Equity Fund is a Luxembourg-based UCITS IV compliant fund that combines two core elements:
• A concentrated and conviction-based focus on stock selection with a high active share that acts as the dominant driver of the fund’s performance,
• An active risk management strategy that supports the focused portfolio construction with the objective of reducing volatility and downside risk.
Nigel Watson (pictured), VAM Sales Director, says: “We’ve seen strong demand from advisers for
