Managers
By Don Steinbrugge, CFA – CEO, Agecroft Partners – It is no secret that the vast majority of investors, including hedge funds managers, have underperformed market indices over time. However, some managers have distinguished themselves generating very strong risk adjusted returns.
Outperforming an index requires an information advantage over what is broadly available in market. It also requires a way to process that information to more accurately price securities and select those that demonstrate divergence versus the market. It is becoming increasingly more challenging to achieve this, resulting in an arms race for alpha. Investment processes must be constantly enhanced
BlackRock has launched a suite of open-ended Emerging Market Debt (EMD) funds that integrate environmental, social and governance factors (ESG).
BlackRock says the new range of UCITS funds complements its existing EMD offering and aims to provide investors with a choice of products that may empower them in reaching their financial objectives and expressing their preferences. The funds are actively managed against a respective set of ESG benchmarks – the JESG EMD indices – launched by JP Morgan in collaboration with BlackRock in April 2018. The funds will provide investors with exposure to debt securities issued by government, public local
Prime Capital AG, an independent asset manager and financial services provider, has launched PCAM Select, a new multi-strategy fund of hedge funds.
PCAM Select expands Prime Capital’s absolute return offering and follows the highly successful PCAM Blue Chip Ltd, which was launched in 2007 and has been hard-closed since the end of 2017 after reaching an investment volume of approximately USD850 million. PCAM Select’s underlying portfolio currently comprises 16 target funds that invest across the entire strategy spectrum. Up to 25 per cent of the capital is invested in medium-sized, agile managers, while the majority of the capital is invested
IHS Markit, a specialist in critical information, analytics and solutions, has completed its USD1.855 billion acquisition of Ipreo, a financial services solutions and data provider.
Previously, IHS Markit had announced its intent to acquire Ipreo from private equity funds managed by Blackstone (NYSE:BX) and from the Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division on 21 May 2018; closing happened on 2 August 2018.
“We are moving quickly to integrate the IHS Markit and Ipreo services across multiple business lines to provide greater value to our customers,” says Lance Uggla (pictured), chairman and CEO of IHS Markit. “We look forward to seeing them
AcadiaSoft Inc, a provider of margin automation solutions worldwide, and risk analytics firm Quaternion Risk Management have formed a partnership to provide risk services for firms subject to initial margining requirements for non-centrally-cleared derivatives.
The initiative couples AcadiaSoft’s proven capabilities in automation with Quaternion’s extensive quantitative expertise and will enable AcadiaSoft clients to access a range of services via the secure environment of the AcadiaSoft Hub.
“Combining AcadiaSoft’s existing infrastructure with our risk analytics tools presents opportunities to create new products that will greatly benefit both the smaller players in the non-centrally-cleared market facing near-term hurdles, as well as
EEX Group significantly increased trading volumes in its biggest markets during the first six months of 2018.
On the power market, which faced significant regulatory uncertainty last year, EEX Group was again able to increase volumes. Furthermore the Natural Gas and Emission Allowance markets also achieved significant gains. In addition, EEX Group launched further measures in the smaller market segments for Agricultural products and Global Commodities with a view to strengthening its global position.
Peter Reitz (pictured), CEO of EEX, says: “These results clearly show that we have successfully dealt with the challenges of 2017 demonstrating that we are
PEGAS, the pan-European gas trading platform operated by Powernext, registered a total volume of 140.7 TWh in July 2018 (July 2017: 150.3 TWh), including 894,000 MWh traded on its Options segment.
The overall spot volume climbed by 55 per cent over the previous year, following, among others, a sharp increase in gas-for-power demand mainly caused by a resilient heatwave over Europe.
Spot trading volumes in July reached 84.2 TWh, up 55 per cent over the previous year (54.2 TWh). The Dutch TTF market area registered more than a two-fold increase with 29.2 TWh (July 2017: 13.2 TWh). The German
IBV Capital’s IBV Capital Global Value Canadian Feeder Fund is now available on the Royal Bank of Canada retail investment platform.
The Fund invests according to IBV Capital’s disciplined value investment philosophy, which relies on deep, global research and analysis to identify mis-priced opportunities.
“We’re excited to be a part of the RBC retail platform,” says IBV Capital President and CEO Talbot Babineau (pictured). “We believe our Global Value Canadian Feeder Fund’s flexible, global investment mandate will greatly appeal to RBC advisors and their clients.”
IBV Capital focuses on producing attractive long-term rates of return, while preserving
Pacific View Asset Management (Pacific View) has marked the five-year anniversary of its US Small Cap Growth Strategy, which utilises a Momentum At a Reasonable Price approach to portfolio construction.
Over the five years up to the end of June 2018, the strategy performed in the top 15 per cent of its peer group with less volatility than the Russell 2000 Growth Index.
“We believe our Momentum At a Reasonable Price investment process represents a differentiated approach. It has shown that it is possible to generate excess returns with momentum factor exposure while exercising strong valuation discipline,” says Mike
In July 2018, the European Energy Exchange (EEX) increased volumes on its power derivatives markets by 46 per cent to 213.8 TWh (July 2017: 146,2 TWh).
On the Spanish power market, volumes exceeded the mark of 10 TWh for the first time, doubling last year’s volume (10.6 TWh, July 2017: 4.3 TWh). Furthermore, the markets for France (18.2 TWh, +18 per cent) and Italy (37.3 TWh, +70 per cent), in particular, developed positively.
In Phelix-DE Futures, trading volumes amounted to 128.7 TWh which is clearly above the total July volume in 2017 in the products for the German market
