Funds
In Q4 2013 the alternative UCITS sector grew by 21 per cent compared to Q4 2012, showing continued demand and investment in alternative strategies, according to the Alceda Quarterly UCITS Review.
Strong equity markets, rallying into the year end, supported the demand for alternative UCITS strategies and drove the Q4 performance up 2.7 per cent, bringing year to date gains to six per cent.
Tracking the Absolute Hedge Alternative UCITS Index, which encompasses 468 funds, assets under management (AUM) reached a total of EUR159.4bn, an increase in AUM of 3.2 per cent on the previous quarter.
As equity
Gary D Halbert has acquired certain assets of active money manager database Theta Investment Research of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
The new firm, Theta Research, will be based in Austin, Texas as are Halbert’s other interests, namely Halbert Wealth Management, ProFutures, and Forecasts & Trends E-Letter.
Since 2000, Theta has been a source of performance information for active money managers. Offering subscriptions via the Internet, Theta publishes information on managers and their models on both a daily and monthly basis, allowing for the analysis of style, risk and performance.
For investment managers, Theta’s database will provide third-party verification of the
Global and US long/short equity strategies would appear to be the top two most favoured strategies among investors in Q1 according to the latest Alternative UCITS Barometer report by ML Capital.
The report finds that there is three times more interest in allocating to market neutral funds, which contrasts to the overall view of investors’ increased appetite for riskier assets. The report finds that some investors favour a barbell approach by strategically balancing an overweight position in long/short equity with a market neutral allocation. Some investors are expecting potential headwinds in the markets – look at what’s happening in emerging
Swiss banking group SYZ & CO has launched the Oyster Continental European Selection, a new sub-fund of its Luxembourg domiciled Oyster UCITS SICAV.
Available for investment by UK clients, Oyster Continental European Selection delivers Eric Bendahan’s long-term high-conviction stock picks in a concentrated portfolio.
Many UK investors are splitting their European equity exposure between continental Europe and the UK. The Oyster Continental European Selection fund is tailored to the needs of the UK investor base by providing a successful European equities strategy in a format that excludes UK equities. In this way, it allows UK investors control over weightings
Compliance and regulatory services provider Cordium has acquired HedgeStart, a provider of UK tax, accounting and regulatory compliance consulting services to the investment management and securities industries.
The deal marks another chapter in a period of planned expansion for Cordium, following quickly on from the acquisition of The Sigma Partnership in December 2013.
The HedgeStart acquisition allows Cordium to add a corporate and private client tax capability to its wide range of client services. It also expands Cordium’s core compliance specialism and provides a further boost to its regulatory accounting division.
All of HedgeStart’s staff and the majority
Following three completed investments since mid-2012, NewAlpha Asset Management has announced the fourth incubation partnership between the French managers-only seeding fund Émergence and Rcube Asset Management.
Émergence has provided EUR30m of funding for Rcube’s Global Macro UCITS Fund, which is aimed at French and international institutional investors.
Approved by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Rcube Global Macro UCITS fund implements a global macro investment strategy across all asset classes (excluding commodities), using only the most liquid instruments.
The investment process is built on a framework of macroeconomic models and discretionary analysis. The quantitative part
Pictet Asset Management has launched the Pictet Absolute Return Fixed Income fund, domiciled in Luxembourg and UCITS compliant.
Andres Sanchez Balcazar, senior investment manager and co-head of global and regional bonds, is the fund manager. He has over 16 years of experience in managing bond portfolios and is supported by three experienced investment managers.
The fund has a flexible and benchmark-unconstrained approach which targets positive returns while helping to protect the fund against rising rates. It is well diversified across rates, spreads and FX and can invest across all fixed income sectors in both developed and emerging markets. Economic
Altin, the USD230m multi-strategy fund of hedge funds listed on the London and Swiss stock exchanges, has disclosed its entire hedge fund portfolio holdings as part of its policy of transparency to investors.
The portfolio, featuring more than 40 underlying hedge funds and representing over 10 investment strategies, is well diversified and has a NAV performance of +191.36 per cent since its inception in December 1996.
A number of hedge funds were added to the Altin portfolio in the last quarter of 2013 as follows.
In the global macro strategy there were three additions: ABD Managers plc – Tactical
By James Williams – Irish law firm Matheson has provided an update from its London office on the introduction of a new corporate vehicle for Irish funds – the Irish Collective Asset Management Vehicle (ICAV).
The ICAV is set to give managers another option in addition to the public limited company (plc) that has, to date, been the most popular vehicle for Irish collective investment funds.
The General Scheme of the ICAV Bill was approved for legal drafting by the Irish Government on 17 December 2013. Matheson notes that it is “anticipated that the ICAV will become the vehicle
Asset management firms are still using too much jargon in their Key Investor Information Documents (KIIDs) and not enough plain language, as indeed they are required to do.
A survey of 110 advisers at the end of 2013 by Kii Hub found that 67 per cent of advisers believe most or all KIIDs continue to use jargon. They did, however, agree that the documents are clearer and “more concise” than other fund documents.
It has been 18 months now since asset managers were required to offer KIIDs to investors in every share class of UCITS funds offered to European investors.
