Latest News
By Mark Voumard, Gordian Capital – Readers will be familiar with onshore domiciles such as Dublin or Luxembourg. How does Singapore differ?
“The introduction of the Variable Capital Company (VCC) structure earlier this year has been the latest in a number of initiatives undertaken by the Singapore government to grow the city state’s fund management industry and achieve its ambition of being the gateway to asset management opportunities in Asia”, says Allard de Jong, Head of the Fund Administration, Corporate Trust and Custody team of the Portcullis Group.
As the mass affluent investor segment is tipped for growth, wealth managers should ensure they have scalable solutions to manage the potential increase in client numbers which could come with capturing the progress in this area.
The outlook for the penetration of the Variable Capital Company legislation as a fund structure is upbeat as it soldiers on against the unfortunate timing of its launch, amid a global pandemic. More importantly, in practice the legislation works well and the fund launches have been successful.
The ASEAN region has demonstrated itself as a major area for investment and potential growth. However, much of this growth is still on the horizon and yet to be materialised. For the prospects of the ASEAN region to reach their true potential, the current environment requires cost efficiency, scalability and talent. These are critical factors to creating a supportive ecosystem.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been proactive and transparent with licensing requirements, compared to other jurisdictions. The Digital Acceleration Grant (DAG) programme incentivises firms to modernise operations, equipping smaller managers with the necessary technology and helping new funds get off the ground. This programme, coupled with geopolitical influences, contributes to Singapore accelerating as a safe-haven for money and financial institutions.
TFG Asset Management, the alternative investment management unit of Tetragon led by Reade Griffith, is taking a minority stake in Contingency Capital, a new litigation finance-focused fund manager founded by ex-Fortress Investment Group partner and managing director Brandon Baer.
Contingency Capital, a multi-product global asset manager which will sponsor and manage litigation finance-focused investment strategies, will formally launch on 1 November.
As part of the deal, Tetragon will place an initial USD50 million commitment with Contingency’s first commingled investment fund, as well working capital and an option to invest further amounts. TFG Asset Management will also offer operational support, including
Specialist fixed income manager, BlueBay Asset Management (BlueBay), has appointed Adam Phillips in a newly created role as Head of Developed Markets Special Situations.Based in London, Phillips reports to Mark Dowding, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and will be responsible for building out BlueBay’s capabilities within stressed and distressed credit where he will be leading the launches of new special situations investment strategies that will be established in the coming months.
The new strategies will complement BlueBay’s existing event driven credit strategy, which Adam will also be managing, alongside Duncan Farley and Tim Leary.
The team believes there is
Ninety One has appointed Cathy Gibson as its Global Head of Trading. Ninety One says the newly-created London-based role will bolster the firm’s existing trading capabilities and trading infrastructure.Gibson will join Ninety One in the new year, and will report into John McNab co-Chief Investment Officer (co-CIO).
Gibson joins Ninety One from Royal London Asset Management, where she was most recently Head of Dealing. She has a strong track record of building successful, sustainable trading teams that are fully integrated into the investment process. Prior to Royal London, Gibson held senior positions at Deutsche Asset Management and Pioneer Investment
Zurich-based Vestun, a start-up boutique manager focused on AI-based investment programmes, has opened its market agnostic systematic US equity hedge fund programme to new outside investors.
The flagship strategy, which is managed on the firm’s Hawkrel AI platform and trades liquid US stocks, is designed to autonomously adapt its portfolio and risk exposure according to prevailing market conditions. It eschews traditional systematic hedge fund approaches which employ signals derived from statistical rules and historical events, instead building a less rigid investment process around uncorrelated, domain-specific intelligence gleaned from certain datasets.
Chayan Asli, Vestun’s founder and CEO, believes that relying on
Special Reports
FeatureD
- Insight
