Managers
This month marks the five-year anniversary of the three successful GAM Star Credit Opportunities funds (EUR, USD and GDP) managed by Atlanticomnium SA in Geneva.
The funds have delivered strong performance in spite of many challenges during the period, including eurozone crises in various iterations, Russia’s slowdown, worries over the Chinese economy, as well as the latest political turmoil from the UK’s Brexit vote. Investors have enjoyed a total return of 53 per cent in the EUR fund, 60 per cent in the GBP fund and 44 per cent in the USD fund since launch.
The funds have delivered what
Incline Investment Management (IIM) is marking the fourth anniversary of its proprietary investment program, the Systematic Hybrid Strategy, which has outperformed its benchmark, the HFRX Macro: Systematic Diversified CTA Index by close to 25 per cent since its launch in July 2012.
The strategy’s objective is to provide non-correlated diversification with equity-like volatility. IIM says a classic case of the ‘crisis alpha’ it offers was apparent the day after the Brexit vote on 23 June when the Strategy was up 9.5 per cent. The Systematic Hybrid Strategy was up 9.45 per cent in June.
In response to demand for non-correlated
HTG Capital Partners is to acquire the introducing broker, money management and proprietary trading businesses of Kottke Associates.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to the completion of certain closing conditions.
Chris Hehmeyer, manager and CEO of HTG, says: “HTG is very excited to partner with the Kottke team. Neal and his partners are giants in our industry, and I am honoured to now be in business with someone I have known for over 30 years. HTG will now provide its expertise, technology and high level of service to the Kottke prop traders, customers
Operations technology startup Predictive has acquired 2338 Technologies, an early-stage, privately-backed startup developing machine learning technologies.
The purchase price has not been disclosed.
2338’s technology will now power PredictiveOps, a SaaS application that is aiming to transform language in hedge fund documents and regulatory filings into useable data for operations planning and automation.
As part of the transaction, 2338’s founder and CEO Carl P Evans III has agreed to join Predictive as co-founder, chief product officer, and corporate counsel. Evans brings over 15 years of software, hardware, robotics, machine learning development, and technology management experience to Predictive.
Exiger, a regulatory and financial crime, risk and compliance firm, has acquired The Poseidon Group, a Hong Kong and Singapore-based due diligence and business intelligence firm.
With the addition of Poseidon into its growing portfolio of specialised due diligence and business intelligence solutions for global and regional banks, private equity groups, hedge funds, multinational corporations, foundations, and endowments, Exiger gains significant expertise and manpower in Hong Kong and Singapore, bolstering the firm's ability to service the needs of clients operating in the Asia Pacific region.
"Over the past 10 years, Velisarios Kattoulas and his team at Poseidon have developed
Boutique asset manager Unigestion has launched a long/short strategy, the second of two factor funds created in collaboration with its client Railpen, which were announced in January.
The first of the strategies, the long only “Equity Compass” strategy, which launched in December 2015, has attracted GBP50 million of assets and has returned 5 per cent in the first six months since launch, outperforming its benchmark by more than 3 per cent.
Following this success, the long /short “Alternative Equity Compass” strategy was launched mid-May 2016 and the strategy has already proven successful, having performed well during the days following
OptionMetrics, a provider of historical option price data, tools and analytics, has bolstered its global technology, development and operations team with the addition of veteran systems engineers, software engineers and quality assurance specialists.
The new hires are a direct response to three consecutive record quarters of overall revenue growth (Q4 2015, Q1 2016 and Q2 2016), and new sales growth of 40 per cent over the comparable quarters in 2014 and 2015.
The new team members come to OptionMetrics with decades of experience at top financial firms including American Express, Barclays, and Bank of America. They are based at
Activist Insight, a provider of news and data on shareholder activism around the world, has acquired New York-based data-provider Activist Shorts Research.
Activist Shorts Research, founded in 2014 by Adam Kommel (pictured) and Wayne Gerard, profiles over 100 activist short-sellers who publish research illustrating why they activist believe stocks are overvalued. These investors have become increasingly prominent in recent years after targeting the likes of Herbalife and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International.
The combination will broaden Activist Insight’s coverage of this area, while giving Activist Shorts customers access to live news coverage and opportunities to enjoy Activist Insight’s current suite of
The open-end structure of most investment vehicles discourages asset-managers from trading against mispricing – to the detriment of investors and market efficiency, Oxford University research has shown.
“The findings from my study, co-authored with Professor Mariassunta Giannetti from the Stockholm School of Economics, raise the question of why so many financial institutions are open-ended, when the structure actually incentivises against arbitrage,” says associate professor of finance Bige Kahraman (pictured), Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. “An open-end structure, in which investors can react to perceived under-performance by withdrawing capital, leads to short-termism and a persistent over- or under-valuing of assets.”
Sprott Asset Management, a USD10 billion Toronto-based alternative asset manager, has rolled out a second iteration of the firm’s private credit trust strategy, Sprott Private Credit Trust II, with hedge fund specialist Arif N Bhalwani.
Bhalwani is the chief executive officer and managing director of Third Eye Capital Management, a sub-adviser to Sprott Asset Management.
Sprott Private Credit Trust II focuses on identifying short-term opportunities primarily in North American companies that are otherwise unable to access financing.
The strategy of the fund is to invest in underlying funds that hold an actively managed portfolio of asset-based loans that will be focused on private and public companies, primarily in Canada and the US, that are otherwise unable to
