Funds
The IMS Group (IMS), a leading global governance, risk and compliance services group has acquired all outstanding shares in the New York based subsidiary of the same name, IMS Consulting US (IMS US).
This is the second acquisition this year of a US compliance company for The IMS Group which last month invested in HedgeOp Compliance (HedgeOp), the leading US provider of specialised compliance software and consulting services for investment advisers.
IMS US, founded and managed by Micah Taylor, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of IMS. Taylor and his team will retain their current roles and will continue
State Street Global Markets, LLC (SSGM), intends to join SwapClear, LCH.Clearnet’s global over-the-counter (OTC) IRS clearing service, by June, 2012 subject to regulatory approval. SwapClear’s total clearing membership is currently 61.
“Our membership will provide our institutional investor clients with a key venue for clearing the multiple swap products now being brought into a cleared environment under the emerging regulatory changes in Europe and the United States,” says Clifford Lewis (pictured), executive vice president and head of State Street’s Exchange business. “State Street’s diverse, global client base demands a wide range of clearing choices across regions, exchanges and products. We
Cisco Systems Inc, Comcast Corp (Class A shares) and FedEx Corp have been added to the Dow Jones US Contrarian Opportunities Index.
The index is designed to systematically measure the performance of stocks that lag behind the broader market in terms of recent performance, but outrank their peers based on fundamentals and other qualitative criteria.
Including Cisco Systems (the world’s 31st-largest company, measured by free-float market capitalisation), Comcast (54th-largest) and FedEx (223rd-largest), a total of 54 companies were added to ― and 52 deleted from ― the index as part of a regular semi-annual review by Dow Jones Indexes,
2012 was a promising start for alternative UCITS funds with the UCITS Alternative Index Global gaining 1.37 per cent having fallen 3.64 per cent in 2011.
A new fund which aims to give clients access to both GAM’s investment management expertise and Barclays Capital’s quantitative stra
Total assets in Irish-domiciled funds have exceeded EUR1trillion, an all-time high, reflecting what Gary Palmer (pictured), Chief Executive of the Irish Funds Industry Association (IFIA)
Armstrong Investment Managers has invested into the newly launched sterling share class of the Swiss & Global JB Absolute Return Europe Equity Fund, managed by Andy Kastner, through its flagship IM Distinction Diversified Real Return Fund.
The Julius Baer Absolute Return Europe Equity Fund has delivered strong performance since it was launched at the end of September 2010. The fund has generated a return since inception of +9.9% (as of 31 December 2011) outperforming its benchmark while harnessing lower volatility compared to European markets.
The fund pursues a market-neutral long-short pair-trading strategy. Using a multi-tier process, the team led by
SEB has integrated its offering within alternative investments by merging the SEB-owned London boutique Key Asset Management unit with the SEB Alternative Investment Team (AIT) in Stockholm .
The new team will be managed by Mikael Spångberg (pictured) as Managing Director, Stockholm and Chris Rule as deputy and Chief Investment Officer, London.
The two investment teams have worked together informally for the past few years and bring different specialities to the new venture. Key has one of the oldest track records in the Fund of Hedge Funds industry while the SEB AIT brings competence within the seeding and incubation business.
The changes coincides
Finisterre Capital, the long/short emerging market total return specialist, has launched the Finisterre Equity Fund. Joint Portfolio Managers of the new fund are Alistair Candlish and Edward Cole, who joined Finisterre in August, 2011. The duo was hired as a team from Newsmith, where they were partners in the firm and jointly ran Newsmith’s EM equity fund.
Finisterre’s new fund is a global emerging market equity strategy that seeks to maximise absolute returns within a framework of reduced volatility relative to the market and peers. The fund employs a top-down macro process that seeks to gauge and predict changes
Aquila Capital’s AC Risk Parity 7 Fund has reached a four year track record of consistently positive year-on-year returns.
Available as a UCITS fund since the 5 February 2008, the Fund got off to another strong start in 2012, generating a 2.95% return in January 2012.
The AC Risk Parity 7 Fund has been recognised as the largest, and one of the top performing, quantitative funds by the UCITS Alternative Index Blue Chip (“Blue Chip Index”), comprised of 50 of the world’s top UCITS hedge funds currently open for investment. It is the fifth largest Multi Asset UCITS fund
