Managers
Artivest, a financial technology firm based in New York, and Altegris, an alternative investment manager based in San Diego, have successfully closed their previously announced merger.
The merged company, named Artivest, is headquartered in New York and California. Artivest serves over 10,000 clients worldwide, with approximately USD3 billion of asset flows, USD2.5 billion of which are alternative assets under management. Artivest’s digital alternative investment platform is a fully-encrypted online marketplace for qualified investors and financial advisors seeking access to world-class private equity, hedge fund, real assets and managed futures strategies, among others.
“Artivest is now the largest independent alternative
Apex Group (Apex) has completed the acquisition of Deutsche Bank Alternative Fund Services (Deutsche Bank AFS), adding USD170 billion in assets under administration to the Group’s portfolio in the process.
First announced in October 2017, the acquisition of Deutsche Bank AFS strengthens Apex’s breadth of service, including the addition of depositary and custody services, and builds on the strong working relationship and history of collaboration between the two companies. With the successful close of this transaction, Deutsche Bank AFS employees will be fully integrated into the Apex team, and Deutsche Bank AFS clients will gain immediate access to an additional 18
Hedge funds posted their second consecutive month of gains, up 0.33 per cent in May and 0.48 per cent year-to-date.
Performance has varied sharply with small to medium sized hedge funds delivering gains while funds managing in excess of USD500 million in assets seeing losses of 0.34 per cent with their sub-group of billion dollar hedge funds declining 0.88 per cent in May.
Total hedge fund assets grew by USD26.4 billion over the past five months, which compares with a growth in total AUM of USD92.9 billion over the same period last year. Investors have been selective in
Olga Chernova, is founder and CIO of Sancus Capital, a long short credit manager and one of the leading female figures in the credit space. Raised in the former Soviet Union, she moved to the United States when she was 16 and had a distinguished career at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan trading credit derivatives before founding Sancus in 2009.
Chernova says: “We are a credit fund focused on arbitraging inefficiencies in the credit markets using derivatives and structured products.”
The fund has USD150 million under management from insurance companies, a fund of funds and family offices. It has annualised
New Switzerland-based index provider LIMEYARD has launched its Crypto Asset Index, together with Decentriq, a FinTech enabling financial institution, to benefit from distributed ledger technology based in the Swiss crypto valley.
LIMEYARD writes that the LIMEYARD Crypto Asset Index (LYCAI) has been designed to represent the cryptocurrency market while addressing regulatory and compliance related concerns.
The Index has been licensed to be used as benchmark for the Blockchain Technologies Note (DE000A19VT92), listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is available for licensing by other financial products.
Stefan Deml, Founder and CTO of Decentriq, says: “We’re delighted to join forces with
Hedge fund investors turned cautious in April 2018, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator, even as the equities markets rebounded and volatility began to calm down. Industry assets levelled off at an all-time high of USD3.0 trillion.
Data drawn from more than 5,000 hedge funds in the BarclayHedge database estimated that the hedge fund industry (excluding CTAs) redeemed USD1.9 billion (0.1 per cent of assets) in April, the first net outflow of 2018 and a turnabout from inflows of USD6.1 billion (0.2 per cent of assets) in March. Industry assets climbed 3.3 per cent year-to-date and surged 22.5 per
Hedge funds delivered positive performances last week, with CTAs outperforming, according to the latest Weekly Brief from Lyxor’s Cross Asset Research team.
A stronger USD v major currencies, rising equities, in Europe especially, and the fall of German Bund yields boosted CTAs’ returns last week. The slide of energy prices shaved off part of the gains. The other strategies were overall flat.
On a year-to-date basis, Fixed Income Arbitrage and L/S Equity outperformed. Event Driven rebounded in Q2 on the back of tighter deal spreads that fostered Merger Arb’s performances. CTAs faced challenges in May due to trend reversals.
Dromeus Capital, an emerging markets investment specialist, is to invest EUR200 million in Greek Commercial Real Estate assets. Prices for commercial real estate assets have fallen sharply since their peak before the Greek financial crisis and yields are amongst the highest in Europe.
The fund is the second Greek-focused fund launched by Dromeus; the first, Dromeus Greek Advantage, has returned an annualised 15.17 per cent since its launch in October 2012.
Dromeus says the fund will focus on the acquisition of undervalued office properties in prime locations in central Athens and that the current market conditions are creating ideal
Saemor Capital’s Saemor Europe Alpha Fund gained another 1.1 per cent in May, bringing year-to-date gains to 3.7 per cent.
From a style perspective the month was dominated by a substantial under-performance from value factors.
Saemor Capital writes: “Our model is well diversified and the good performance from momentum and quality compensated for value. In addition our tactical positioning – overweight earnings momentum and quality – helped further. Since markets rose steadily till 22 May and then saw a rather sharp correction towards the end of the month, factor performances and top and bottom stock contributions were mixed.
Ampersand Portfolio Solutions has published a new white paper in its series entitled ‘Looking Under the Hood’.
The latest paper provides an in-depth look at the details associated with structuring overlays as a way to hedge equity-related risk. In prior white papers, The Risk Contribution of Stocks, Parts 1-3, Ampersand introduced a concept to diversify beyond stocks and bonds without having to sell the stock/bond portfolio holdings.
This new paper goes further, the firm writes, and shines a light on ways to structure a dynamic futures-based equity hedging strategy designed to mitigate downside equity risk. Ampersand Portfolio Solutions, a
