Managers
CME Group is to acquire NEX Group in a deal valued at USD5.4 billion. CME Group will pay GBP10 per share – a premium of around 3 per cent to the stock’s closing price on 28 March – consisting of 500 pence in cash and 0.0444 CME Group shares.
The proposed transaction has been approved unanimously by the board of directors of both companies and is expected to close, pending approvals by regulators and NEX shareholders, in the second half of 2018.
This deal brings together two trading-industry heavyweights to create a global markets company offering futures, cash and
Alternative investments specialist Aquila Capita has launched a CTA UCITS compliant-fund that will be managed by its Systematic Trading Group. The AC-Adaptive Trends Fund (the ‘Fund’) combines various investment strategies such as momentum and carry with an innovative risk-balancing portfolio construction method allowing it to implement long and short positions.
This combination enables the strategy to benefit from market momentum and volatility whilst profiting in less-trending markets, which differentiates the strategy from most other CTAs.
The Fund aims to generate positive performance in most market conditions by investing in global futures contracts across equities, bonds, commodities and currencies, enabling
Institutional investors now have more than USD2.00 trillion invested in hedge funds, and more than 5,250 institutions – 45 per cent of the total institutional investor universe – actively invest in the asset class, according to Preqin.
A small proportion of these investors, though, account for the greatest allocations, with just three investor types representing more than half of all institutional capital in hedge funds. Public pension funds and private sector pension funds represent 9 per cent and 15 per cent of hedge fund investors respectively, but they account for 22 per cent and 19 per cent of institutional capital
Dallas, Texas-headquartered Esposito Securities is a US-registered broker dealer offering a wide range of services for the ETF industry as well as global equity trading and advanced options strategies.
The firm is known for its ETF seeding program which lay behind the end of February launch of the NYSE Pickens Oil Response ETF, a fund that traded 215,000 shares on its first day. Since going live, the fund has continued to see volume, averaging more than 50,000 shares traded per day. This week saw the launch of another ETF seeded by Esposito, KNG or the CBOE Vest S&P 500 Dividend
Columbia Threadneedle Investments has launched a new, global absolute return credit strategy – the Threadneedle (Lux) Global Investment Grade Credit Opportunities Fund (the Fund).
The Fund will emulate the investment approach taken in the successful Threadneedle Credit Opportunities Fund. The Fund’s managers are Alasdair Ross and Ryan Staszewski. Ross is the Head of Investment Grade Credit EMEA, and one of the team of portfolio managers responsible for the Threadneedle Credit Opportunities Fund. Staszewski is a Senior Investment Grade Portfolio Manager based in London and one of the lead managers of Columbia Threadneedle’s UK and European Strategic bond portfolios.
The
The State Street Global Investor Confidence Index increased to 111.9, up 4.8 points from February’s revised reading of 107.1.
Investors across all regions expressed an improved appetite for risk, with the North American ICI rising by 5.8 points to 109.8, the European ICI increasing by 1.6 points to 102.1, and the Asian ICI increasing by 1.3 points to 109.6.
The Investor Confidence Index was developed by Kenneth Froot (pictured), and Paul O’Connell at State Street Associates, State Street Global Exchange’s research and advisory services business. It measures investor confidence or risk appetite quantitatively by analysing the actual buying and
Alter Domus, a provider of Fund and Corporate Services to alternative investment managers, has completed the acquisition of Cortland Capital Market Services (Cortland) in the US.
Headquartered in Chicago and with offices in New York, London, Los Angeles, Austin, Indianapolis, and China, Cortland is a leading independent investment servicing company providing third-party fund administration and middle and back-office outsourcing to financial institutions, including alternative investment managers, real estate private equity firms and credit funds. It currently has over USD200 billion of assets under administration.
The firm was founded in 2008 by Doug Hart CEO, Russ Goldenberg, Tim Houghton and
Fair Oaks Capital was launched in 2013 by senior professionals previously at GSO Capital Partners and Apollo Global Management. It characterises itself as a research-driven investment manager with a focus on fundamental corporate credit analysis.
“Our focus is to identify the highest conviction strategies in credit markets at any point in time for our liquid and long-term funds. We aim to offer investors differentiated opportunities which offer attractive risk-adjusted returns and low correlation with their more traditional positions,” explains Miguel Ramos, Partner.
Fair Oaks Capital’s first fund was launched in June 2014 as a listed, closed-ended vehicle which invests in
Pillar Capital Management (‘Pillar’) was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Bermuda. The firm manages open-ended Bermuda incorporated funds invested in the global property catastrophe risk market.
The senior management team at Pillar, headed up by CEO and CIO, Stephen Velotti (pictured), has an average of 25 years’ experience in the reinsurance marketplace.
Pillar Capital is focused on providing alpha to investors through the reinsurance space. It aims to provide an attractive yield for investors while managing the risk it takes to achieve its returns. Analysing the entire market from the large reinsurance sector to the small ILW market
It’s fair to say that Optima Fund Management has seen a lot of change in the hedge fund industry, given that it is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Since Dixon Boardman founded the New York-based firm in 1988, it has steered a steady course. It has continued to evolve in line with market trends so as to unearth the best hedge fund talent, which feature in a range of multi-manager funds, the first of which, a long/short equity FoFs, has been running since the year of Optima’s inception.
“Despite all the changes in the industry, Optima’s success is based
