Managers
LME Clear, the clearing house for the London Metal Exchange market, has received approval from the Bank of England (BoE) to launch a trade-compression service, giving members the opportunity to reduce the notional value of their positions and simplify their portfolio management.
“In some cases, LME Clear’s new compression service could reduce the notional value of a member’s positions by as much as 90 per cent. At the same time, it will reduce the number of positions members manage, which increases operational efficiency and minimises risk,” says Trevor Spanner (pictured), CEO at LME Clear.
The new post-trade, risk-neutral system will
This article investigates the future plans of institutional investors in infrastructure, featuring the latest data from the Preqin Quarterly Update: Infrastructure, Q2 2015.
When investing in the infrastructure space, the majority of investors will target domestic opportunities in the next year (Fig 1). However, a large proportion of investors also seek geographical diversification when making investments, particularly North America-based institutions, with 57 per cent of these investors targeting global opportunities in the next 12 months.
As the infrastructure asset class matures and investors become more sophisticated, many establish separate infrastructure allocations, as opposed to targeting the asset class through
This extract from the Preqin Quarterly Update: Private Debt, Q2 2015 offers insight into the annualised contributions and distributions of direct lending and mezzanine funds, as well as examining the current record levels of dry powder in the asset class.
Fig 1 shows the relationship of annualised contributions and distributions, as well as the net cash flows, for an investor with a USD10 million commitment to a direct lending fund. This examination of the typical cash flows to and from an investor further highlights the relative illiquidity of the private debt asset class. Given the lower risk/return profile of direct
Eurex Exchange has launched new futures and options based on the STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index expanding its dividend index product suite, which currently comprises the DivDAX and Euro STOXX Select Dividend 30 indices.
Whereas the two existing contracts cover German and European stocks, the STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index offers investors the ideal tool to invest into 100 high dividend-yielding companies across developed countries from North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. As of June 2015, nearly 1.7 billion euros in assets are invested in ETFs that are based on the STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index.
“The STOXX
Greece is back from the brink and now it is like the latest leg of the Greek saga was just a bad dream. The 85% probability of Grexit which some prominent commentators predicted a few days ago is now forgotten and market conditions in Europe have normalized in the wink of an eye. During the period under review, the Eurostoxx 50 was up 9.5%, equity volatility fell 10% (VSTOXX), high yield spreads tightened 26 bps in Europe and the 10-year bund yield rose by the same order of magnitude.
ETFGI reports that the second quarter has seen assets invested in the global ETF/ETP industry finally beat the assets under management in the hedge fund industry.
Deborah Fuhr says: “According to our analysis there was USD2.971 trillion invested in the 5,823 ETFs/ETPs listed globally at the end of Q2 2015.”
Assets had dropped slightly from their record high of USD3.015 trillion at the end of May 2015, Fuhr writes. HFR reports that assets in the global hedge fund industry reached a new record high of USD2.969 trillion invested in 8,497 hedge funds over the same period, some USD2 billion smaller
Custom House Fund Services, a provider of financial services to the alternative investment sector, has acquired the majority of the US clients of the former Dundee Leeds Management Services.
The transition became effective 1 June and represents USD1billion in assets.
Custom House has AUA in excess of USD20 billion, eight offices worldwide and over 220 employees.
Along with expansion in Asian markets and enhancements to its proprietary Gateway technology platform, this deal builds upon the strong momentum of Custom House since its separation from TMF Group earlier this year.
“We know that our former clients will
Behringer Securities is to distribute the Insignia Macro Fund, a daily-liquidity, open-end mutual fund managed by Meritage Capital.
The Fund, launched in 2013, seeks long-term risk-adjusted returns by employing global macro-managed futures investment strategies. The Fund is unique from other liquid alternative macro offerings primarily because of its allocation to discretionary focused managers.
"Historically, global macro strategies have shown higher long-term returns with lower volatility than developed equity markets – and little correlation to stocks, bonds or other investments," says Alex Smith, CEO of Meritage Capital. "We are pleased that the Fund will be distributed on Behringer Securities' platform,
Holland Clearing House is to be renamed ICE Clear Netherlands, effective 27 July, 2015 following its acquisition by ICE in December 2014. ABN AMRO Clearing Bank holds a minority stake.
ICE Clear Netherlands is focused on providing a reliable service against transparent and predictable pricing, using robust risk management systems. The Dutch clearing house provides central counterparty clearing (CCP) services for a range of equity and index derivatives contracts listed on TOM (The Order Machine), a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) based in the Netherlands.
ICE operates seven clearing houses across North America, Europe and Asia to meet the requirements
Last week London ground to a halt. Tube drivers went on strike for 24 hours. Chaos ensued as city workers jumped on their bikes, hailed cabs or, worse, squeezed onto the next available bus to get to the office.
It is perhaps fitting, therefore, that just days before the strike Hedgeweek went to visit Murano Systems, a company who likes to think of itself as a matchmaker for hedge funds and institutional investors. Like London, the hedge fund industry, which now boasts anywhere up to 14,000 hedge funds, has bottlenecked into one almighty traffic jam.
Murano exists to help allocators
