Funds
Craig Botham, Emerging Markets Economist at Schroders comments on the latest GDP figures from India and Brazil…
"Surprising first quarter growth figures for both India and Brazil were released today. In both economies, we think the numbers could trigger monetary policy easing. India’s economy grew 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, some way below City expectations of 7 per cent growth, year-on-year, and much lower than the previous quarter’s 7.5 per cent growth. Brazil, which released its figures at the same time, managed to beat expectations by contracting less than expected, at 1.6 per cent. We expect
BNP Paribas Securities Services has completed the acquisition of Credit Suisse’s Prime Fund Services (PFS) business, a provider of fund administration, custody and banking services for alternative investment managers.
This acquisition makes BNP Paribas Securities Services a leader in the alternative fund administration space with USD237 billion in assets under administration.
Patrick Colle, General manager of BNP Paribas Securities Services, says: “This acquisition is a key step in the development of our global fund business and puts us in a good position to support the convergence of traditional and alternative managers.
“Our clients will benefit from the combination of PFS’
The current year is on track to be the best year for M&A ever. Since the beginning of the year, global M&A volumes have reached USD1800bn according to Bloomberg, the best first five months in twenty years. Such figures include announced, pending and completed deals and are thus subject to revisions. Overall, US deals dominate, accounting for 45 per cent of M&A activity year to date and in terms of sectors, health care is leading, followed by financials and communications.
By James Williams – Sovereign Wealth Funds are showing a lot of appetite for real estate assets as total AUM in this segment of the alternative funds space continues to build and investors look to diversify their portfolios.
North America remains the most favoured region, with 59 per cent of SWFs allocating to that market; down from 72 per cent in 2013 according to the latest research by Preqin in its 2015 Preqin Sovereign Wealth Fund Review.
Indeed, 57 per cent prefer a global approach, broadening out their portfolios to include trophy real estate assets as well as exposure to private
Following on from last week’s extract from the Preqin Hedge Fund Spotlight | May 2015, which focused on the largest hedge fund managers in the industry, Simon Dhadwal takes an in-depth look at the ‘USD1bn Club’ of institutional investors allocating at least USD1bn to hedge funds, including the significance of this group, investment preferences and new entrants to the Club.
The past 12 months have seen mediocre performance generated by the industry as a whole and a handful of high-profile pension funds publicly announced their intention to scale back their hedge fund allocations. Nevertheless, assets under management (AUM) across
Irish accountancy firm MKO is joining with US accountancy firm, EisnerAmper, to form a new global network called EisnerAmper Global. MKO will now trade under the brand of EisnerAmper Ireland.
Alistair MacDonald, managing partner of EisnerAmper Ireland, believes the firm will now be better placed to serve its clients and continue to play a key role in bringing financial services and international trade to Ireland in advising leading Irish corporates and state bodies.
“Becoming part of EisnerAmper Global will give our clients access to global perspective and cutting-edge services by leveraging the expertise of circa 200 partners and 2,000 people
In an extract from the Preqin Hedge Fund Spotlight | May 2015, Joseph McGee takes a look at the ‘USD1bn Club’, a group of the world’s largest hedge fund managers, and identifies the traits and characteristics that are unique to this distinguished group which controls a vast proportion of industry capital.
Over the past year, hedge fund industry assets have increased, surpassing the USD3tn mark as of December 2014. One notable group active in this space is managers with at least USD1bn in assets under management (AUM) – the ‘USD1bn Club’ – comprised of some of the largest hedge
ENSO Financial Analytics (ENSO) has launched ENSO Color Portal, which allows managers to receive prices and anecdotal colour tailored specifically to their trading activities.
Hedge funds typically receive an extensive amount of information from brokers – most of which is not related to their actual portfolios. ENSO Color Portal allows them to customise, qualify and rank the commentary and balance sheet opportunities they want, all in seconds.
ENSO Color Portal revolutionises the way that dealers interact with hedge funds. Apart from allowing them to communicate rates and commentary to both existing and future clients, they can now quantify the number
Emerging markets hedge funds have benefited from the strong recovery of the Russian Rouble, higher oil prices, lowering of interest rates by the Chinese Central Bank, and a surge in trading volume on the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program.
As a result of these, hedge funds investing in Russia and China posted strong gains in recent months, with the HFRI EM: Russia/Eastern Europe gaining nearly 20 per cent since the start of February, and the HFRI EM: China Index adding over 20 per cent YTD 2015 through April.
Despite volatility to conclude 2014, total hedge fund capital invested in Emerging
Aberdeen Asset Management is to acquire FLAG Capital Management, LLC (FLAG), a manager of private equity and real asset solutions with offices in Stamford CT, Boston, MA, and Hong Kong.
This acquisition is in line with Aberdeen’s strategy to strengthen and grow its global alternatives platform and solutions provision via multi-manager coverage of hedge funds, property and private market allocations, infrastructure investments and pan-alternative capabilities. FLAG’s well-established private equity teams in the US and Asia will help broaden Aberdeen’s private markets solutions activity within the alternatives arena.
As of 31 December, 2014, FLAG managed assets of approximately USD6.3 billion
