Funds
It looks like European regulators are continuing to seek to limit the instruments that UCITS funds may invest in, with unregulated hedge funds the next out-of-bounds category.
A legal update released by Dechert LP this week refers to a formal opinion published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on 20 November 2012 related to Article 50(2)(a) of the UCITS Directive, which permits UCITS to invest up to 10 per cent of its net assets in transferable securities and money market instruments.
A number of national regulators including the Central Bank of Ireland and the CSSF in Luxembourg have interpreted
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SMTB) has completed the acquisition of the global asset services division from Daiwa Securities Group.
The global asset services division comprises Daiwa’s fund administration/Ucits management company, custodian, trustee and authorized corporate director entities domiciled in Ireland, UK and Cayman Islands, including the activities in Hong Kong.
The main clients of global asset services are international asset managers and promoters whose investment strategies include hedge funds, funds of funds and private equity funds.
The acquisition, now branded as SuMi TRUST Global Asset Services, allows SMTB to expand its activities into servicing alternative investment funds. The group already
Alternative strategies within a Ucits framework continued to see improving demand in the third quarter, with growth in both the number of funds and assets under management, according to the Alceda Quarterly Ucits review produced by independent structuring specialist Alceda Fund Management.
Tracking the Absolute Hedge Global Ucits Index, the review revealed that the sector grew by 2.4 per cent from 292 funds at the end of Q2 to 299 funds at the end of Q3, with 11 fund launches and four fund closures in the quarter.
In addition, the review showed assets under management of the funds in the
IFG Trust and Corporate Group has acquired Jersey-based Moore Group.
This is the first acquisition since the group’s MBO in July this year when it separated from IFG Group Plc.
Growth is one of the group’s main objectives and the purchase of the Moore Group, which has administers assets in excess of USD17bn, will significantly expand its existing fund administration business both in terms of product set and geographical reach especially in the Far East.
Moore was established by Ian Moore (pictured) in 1996. Ian Moore will continue to work with the group and will assume the role of
The automotive sector is revving up interest with fund managers such as Paris-based Charles-Henri Neme, whose EUR400million Exane Funds 1 – Ceres A fund is targeting automotive stocks to increase cyclical exposure and piggyback on emerging market growth trends reported Citywire Global this week.
Neme said that the absence of automotive stocks in the long/short equity strategy was an anomaly “that needed to be corrected”, admitting that the fund was a little “too defensive”. “This posed problems in certain market rebound phases, as the cyclicals at our disposal – television, temporary staffing, hotels etc – were often too small to
Man Group has entered into a series of transactions with Hutchinson Investors, managed by the Baupost Group, to sell the residual exposure to the Lehman estates that it acquired in July 2011 from certain GLG managed funds.
The total consideration for the transactions is USD456m, payable in cash by the buyer.
Man may receive up to a further USD5m if overall recoveries by the buyer exceed certain thresholds in the future.
The Lehman claims were valued at USD346m as at 30th June 2012.
The transaction allows Man to benefit from the payment of the total consideration, while retaining certain
eVestment, a provider of institutional investment data and cloud-based analytic solutions, has acquired PerTrac, a provider of hedge fund analysis software and workflow solutions, and Fundspire, a cloud-based technology provider of hedge fund analytics.
Terms of the deals have not been disclosed.
With the acquisitions, eVestment now serves over 2,500 clients across the entire investment industry spectrum, including traditional and alternative money managers, consultants and financial advisers, funds of hedge funds, corporate and public pensions, endowments and foundations, sovereign wealth funds, banks and brokerages.
“We are very pleased to welcome PerTrac and Fundspire into the eVestment family and very excited
US Bancorp Fund Services, a subsidiary of US Bancorp (NYSE:USB), has agreed to acquire AIS Fund Administration (AIS), a provider of fund administration and related services to alternative investment managers.
The transaction adds approximately USD25 billion in hedge fund assets under administration to US Bancorp Fund Services’ existing alternative investments business, along with 176 employees in New Jersey, the United Kingdom and the Cayman Islands. With this transaction, USBFS will service USD50 billion in alternative investment assets and create a best-of-breed middle-office and back-office services platform to provide a wide range of support services to fund managers and investors
Leucadia National Corporation (NYSE: LUK) and Jefferies Group have approved a definitive merger agreement under which Jefferies’ shareholders (other than Leucadia, which currently owns approximately 28.6% of the Jefferies outstanding shares) will receive 0.81 of a share of Leucadia common stock for each share of Jefferies common stock they hold.
This exchange is intended to be tax-free to Jefferies’ shareholders.
The merger, which is expected to close during the first quarter of 2013, is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval to effect the merger by both Leucadia and Jefferies shareholders.
In order to avert the possibility that the transaction
Single manager alternative UCITS attracted EUR746million in net inflows in Q3 according to the latest quarterly compiled by MondoAlternative.
Interestingly, despite weekly liquidity funds only representing 21.7 per cent of the fund universe monitored by the firm, they attracted the most assets: EUR573million. This compares to just EUR24million for fortnightly funds. As to who was attracting the majority of Q3 inflows, the report shows that global asset managers – which they define as companies managing hedge funds and other investment vehicles – far outstripped smaller boutique hedge funds, attracting over EUR1billion in inflows.
Stefano Gaspari, CEO at MondoAlternative, was
