Managers
Quad Advisors, a hedge fund incubator and accelerator, has signed two growing hedge funds as its first resident firms.
Quad Advisors provides small and mid-size hedge funds a scalable trading platform, in-house analyst research, risk assessment, accounting and technology services, as well as access to Quad and investor capital.
"This is the next step in the continuing evolution of Quad," says John Guarino, managing partner of Quad. "Hedge funds we accept into Quad Advisors have instant access to capital and benefit from our lower cost and expense structure. We view this as a natural extension of our business, and
The current state of the US economy is ‘just right’, according to Alan Higgins, Chief Investment Officer, UK, at Coutts…
Recent data shows the US economy is still in the Goldilocks zone – not so hot that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will have to put rates up sooner than expected, and not cold either, but just right. We see US interest-rate rises as still being some way off, and only gradual when they do come, so not a big worry for equity markets for now.
Recent comments from the Fed have suggested that Chairman Janet Yellen and her colleagues don’t
Man Group has closed the acquisition of Pine Grove Asset Management, a US-based fund of hedge fund manager specialising in the management of credit-focused hedge fund portfolios.
Pine Grove has approximately USD1.0 billion of assets under management.
The close of the transaction further enhances Man Group’s presence in the US and adds to Man Group’s fund of hedge funds business, FRM. Pine Grove will also reinforce FRM’s efforts to offer clients a wide variety of investment opportunities including SEC-registered US 40 Act funds and complementary fund of hedge fund products.
Pine Grove is a credit-focused fund of hedge
Software AG and Adaptive Consulting have formed a strategic partnership combing Adaptive’s front office applications expertise with Software AG's streaming analytics, complex event processing (CEP), in-memory data management and universal messaging solutions.
Matt Barrett, director of Adaptive Consulting says: "Formalising our relationship by becoming a partner made a lot of sense for us. Adaptive's consultants have worked with Software AG's Universal Messaging product for a number of years and found it to be one of the most reliable, performant and feature-rich messaging products available on the market. We are now really looking forward to working with Software AG's product teams
Valu-Trac Investment Management has launched the VT WoodHill Foundation Absolute Return Fund, a UCITS-compliant UK large-cap equity OEIC authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
WoodHill Asset Management acts as an introducer appointed representative to Valu-Trac for work exclusively in connection with the VT WoodHill Fund. WoodHill’s Paul Wood is one of two founding partners at WoodHill and worked previously at Sloane Robinson and Everest Capital.
The fund owns a portfolio of high quality UK large capitalisation equities that are selected for strong fundamentals, including a low level of borrowings, earnings growth and value creation. When appropriate the fund
Funds advised by Pamplona Capital Management have sold a large holding of mortgage backed securities that forms part of a securitisation structure backed by approximately 2,000 UK mortgages with a total value of approximately GBP285 million.
Pamplona sold the securities for over GBP85 million in a competitive process to funds advised by Davidson Kempner, a major US institutional investor.
The mortgages are spread across the UK, with more than 40 per cent being in London or the South East, and are loans against both owner-occupied and buy-to-let properties.
Pamplona acquired the underlying mortgages in 2010, having bought them
The alternative UCITS market saw its AuM grow by 15.6 per cent to EUR184.2bn through the first six months of 2014 according to the Alceda Half Yearly UCITS Review. However, whilst inflows remain strong, performance has tailed off. Through the first half of 2013 alternative UCITS funds returned 5.95 per cent compared to just 0.52 per cent this year.
Having ended 2013 as the best performing strategy with gains of 12.3 per cent, the AH Equity Long Short Index was flat to the end of June 2014. Despite this, Equity Long Short strategies have seen AuM rise 66.8 per cent
BNP Paribas Securities Services is to acquire Prime Fund Services (PFS), a provider of fund administration, custody and banking solutions for alternative investment managers, from Credit Suisse.
The move is part of BNP Paribas Securities Services’ strategy to develop its global fund administration franchise. 


The transaction will result in a global fund administrator dedicated to alternative investment managers that will service over USD 231 billion of alternative assets.
The offering brings together PFS’ administration expertise in the alternative investment sector and BNP Paribas Securities Services’ extensive custody and depositary network and global reach.


PFS employs staff in
Lyxor Asset Management, now a fully licensed alternative investment fund manager (AIFM), has launched two AIFMD compliant funds of managed accounts.
The Lyxor Diversified Fund (LDF) and the Lyxor Focus Fund are liquid, multi-strategy funds invested across the hedge funds of Lyxor’s managed account platform (MAP).
With this new status, Lyxor is now authorised to offer professional investors in Europe a complete offering of alternative investment solutions and is one of the few asset managers with flagship strategies open for investment under AIFMD.
LDF and Focus invest in between 15 and 25 Lyxor managed accounts across a range
Man Group has reported a positive first half to the year with funds under management, gross sales and net inflows all showing increases during the period.
Funds under management (FUM) are up seven per cent to USD57.7 billion (31 December 2013: USD54.1 billion), gross sales are up 91 per cent to USD12.4 billion (H1 2013: USD6.5 billion) and net inflows are USD2.8 billion (H1 2013: net outflows -USD5.0 billion).
Redemptions, meanwhile are down 17 per cent to USD9.6 billion (H1 2013: USD11.5 billion).
Adjusted profit before tax (PBT) is up 10 per cent to USD148 million (H1 2013:
