Managers
Abacus Group, a provider of hosted IT solutions for hedge funds and private equity funds, has reported rapid growth throughout 2015, including the expansion of its US market footprint into key geographies, and new strategic partnerships.
Continued demand for Abacus’s managed cloud service offerings has produced in excess of 50 per cent annual year-over-year growth, leading the company to expand its presence into several key geographies including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Charlotte, and most recently Boston. These new locations are dedicated to improving and providing support for Abacus’s private cloud products and services that hedge fund and private equity firms,
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) and Power Exchange Central Europe (PXE) have signed an agreement in Prague whereby they will enter into a closer cooperation. In doing so, EEX will become the new majority shareholder, acquiring 66.67 per cent of PXE shares.
This transaction will be settled in cash from EEX own resources and is expected to be closed by the end of the first quarter 2016, subject to approval by the competent authorities.
EEX Group provides the central market platform for energy and commodity products which includes contracts for Power, Natural Gas, Coal, Oil, Environmental Markets, Freight, Metals
Cognolink, a research partner for hedge funds and private equity funds, has announced a new name and brand identity for the company, becoming ‘Third Bridge’ both in the UK and globally.
This move is designed to align the firm’s naming and identity with its strategy and future growth plans under one unified, global brand.
Third Bridge provides private equity firms, mutual funds, hedge funds and strategy consultants with qualitative insights to better understand the true value of their investment opportunities. These range from one-to-one or group consultations between investors and industry experts, to syndicated reports offering unbiased intelligence on
International law firm Simmons & Simmons has acted on the restructuring of the Sturgeon Central Asia Fund, to enable it to be one of the first funds to invest in Iran.
Although the repeal of pre-existing sanctions is good news for those wanting to do business with Iran, restrictions still apply – it’s a case of fewer sanctions, not ‘no sanctions’. As a practical matter, banks and financial institutions have been nervous about committing themselves to support transactions with Iran, whether as service providers, financiers or simply moving money. Whilst many more transactions can now be undertaken with Iran there
Karson Management, a provider of reserve, capital and collateral financing solutions, and BNY Mellon have successfully completion of the first K-Note reinsurance collateral financing transaction in Canada.
The patented K-Note financing platform has been designed by Karson around a number of BNY Mellon’s corporate trust, custody and collateral management services.
The multi-million Canadian dollar transaction involved the issuance and deposit of a K-Note into a reinsurance security arrangement (RSA) account established in accordance with the Canadian regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). The K-Note is backed by a payment obligation of a third-party financial institution
HazelTree has partnered with AcadiaSoft to enhance the Collateral Management capabilities of the HazelTree Integrated Treasury Management Solution.
The enhanced solution aiming at delivering seamless integration between the industry’s leading treasury management and margin automation solutions. It is expected to be generally available in the first quarter of 2016.
The HazelTree Integrated Treasury Management Solution serves hedge funds, fund administrators, managed account providers and family offices with powerful, proactive performance enhancement and risk mitigation capabilities. The HazelTree Collateral Manager enables firms to correctly identify, analyse and value collateral, interfacing with either an in-house or third party accounting system or
Hedge funds lost 0.64 per cent in December according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index was up 0.29 per cent at the end of 2015, its smallest yearly gain since 2011 when it declined 5.48 per cent.
The Index was unable to outperform the S&P 500 Total Return Index, which gained 1.38 per cent last year.
“The year ended on a down note for risk assets as investors pondered the implications of slowing growth after several years of tepid recovery,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge.
Eleven of Barclay’s 18
Cordium, a provider of compliance consulting, accounting, tax and software to the financial services industry, is evolving its EMEA compliance offering to a tiered services model.


With a focus on improving the choice, quality, efficiency and consistency of their service to clients, Cordium’s EMEA compliance offering will now be structured according to four tiers. These range from Cordium Classic, which is the firm’s current service level, with the addition of three new service levels – Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. 

For all levels, Cordium provides comprehensive compliance infrastructure and methodology, hosted within their proprietary software programme (Cordium Pilot).
The South East European Power Exchange (SEEPEX) and its project partners are to launch the Serbian Day-Ahead market on 17 February 2016, subject to member readiness.
Member tests have been conducted successfully and final regulatory issues are about to be cleared.
The launch of the SEEPEX Day-Ahead market will be a major step in the creation of a regional power trading solution for South East Europe (SEE) and is highly anticipated by the electricity market community.
SEEPEX will foster the development of a competitive, transparent and reliable electricity market for Serbia and South East Europe, boosting electricity trading
Liquidnet, the global institutional trading network, has launched its EMEA Next Gen Algo suite, which is designed to enhance the trading performance of its institutional Members.
Liquidnet’s Next Gen Algos are the only ones that fully leverage Liquidnet’s network of more than 800 global institutions offering over USD20 billion of EMEA average daily liquidity. Over 15 per cent of algo executions are traded in Liquidnet with an average execution size of USD590k (Q4 2015). Liquidnet is also introducing a special “I Would” feature which gives Members additional control over the blocks they access in Liquidnet whilst using the algo suite.
