Latest News
Velox Clearing (Velox), a new technology-forward clearing firm led by a team of clearing industry veterans with nearly 170 years of collective experience, has officially launched.
Velox Clearing aims to provide a robust technology solution that is complemented by best-in-class customer service.
Headquartered in Southern California, Velox offers securities clearing, settlement, custody, margin lending, stock loan, and prime brokerage solutions to small- to mid-sized broker-dealers, registered investment advisers (RIAs), hedge funds and automated (black box) traders. Velox brings superior efficiency and speed to the back-office, supporting its customers’ business operations by combining modern, responsive technology with high-touch service, competitive pricing,
Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) is launching a new a technology-focused long/short strategy on its alternative UCITS platform in partnership with New York-based alternative investment manager Shannon River Capital Management (Shannon River).
U Access (IRL) Shannon River UCITS is managed by Spencer Waxman’s (CIO and Founder) Shannon River. and will allocate capital opportunistically and dynamically across SMID cap, “mispriced growth” stocks in technology-related sectors. More specifically, the investment focus will be in areas where disruptive technological changes have occurred, including among others intellectual property, software, media, entertainment, equipment, connectivity and logistics.
The strategy will utilise a fundamental approach, while research
Hedge funds returned to the black in September, posting an industrywide monthly return of 0.32 per cent, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
By comparison, the S&P Total Return Index was up 1.87 per cent in September.
For the year-to-date through September, hedge funds returned 7.00 per cent. Over the same period, the S&P Total Return Index gained 20.96 per cent.
September’s gain was a welcome reprieve after a losing month in August (-0.96 per cent). Sector performance was mixed, gainers outnumbered those in the red by a 5:3 margin. Emerging market funds – excluding Eastern
BNY Mellon’s Pershing (Pershing) has launched its new manager gateway, a consolidated digital solution that features a centralised portal, delivering simplified account access and a seamless model delivery process.
A successor to the Manager Workstation, Pershing’s Manager Gateway helps asset managers act on service requests and orders with ease, reduces duplicative efforts and automatically collects and processes information on behalf of their clients.
Manager Gateway features a new, intuitive user interface, and includes: an enhanced workstation application that streamlines day-to-day processes for investment managers; and a workflow tool that allows model providers to efficiently create, manage and deliver models to investment
Sycomore Asset Management (Sycomore AM) has broadened its range of SRI funds with the launch of SRI Next Generation, a fund with a focus on companies offering business models that are compatible with sustainable growth objectives.
Sycomore Next Generation aims to deliver steady returns with limited risk, while complying with sustainability development considerations. Sycomore Next Generation will allow Sycomore AM to focus on companies able to generate sustainable performances and meet their ESG-related guidelines.
As a balanced, wealth-management strategy, the fund’s allocation to equity (0-50 per cent) and bond (0-100 per cent) markets is managed opportunistically. The fund’s bond
The Supervisory Board of European Commodity Clearing AG (ECC) has appointed Jens Rick as Chief Information Officer (CIO) effective 1 November with responsibility for the operation and development of ECC’s clearing systems and IT operations.
Rick also joins the Management Board of the clearing house.
The role of CIO is a new position at ECC before and reflects the growing importance of the IT landscape and its operation and development within EEX Group. Rick has been Chief Information Officer of European Energy Exchange AG (EEX) since 1 February 2019.
Prior to his appointment to the EEX Management Board, Rick
New Change FX (NCFX), an independent data and analytics business, has joined IOWA.rocks, a new financial data marketplace.
NCFX enables market participants who require objective trade cost measurement capabilities to quickly and easily calculate all related expenses against a recognised and registered independent data feed. They are the only ESMA approved and FCA authorised administrator of live spot FX benchmarks for the FX market. Operating under the EU Benchmark Regulation 2016/1011, NCFX delivers quality and credibility at an affordable price.
NCFX data is created by aggregating aggregated live market bids and offers in real time. Only data at ‘institutional’
Patrice Rassou (pictured) has been appointed chief investment officer (CIO) of Ashburton Investments, the asset management business of FirstRand Limited.
This new role, which comes into effect from April 2020, has been created to coordinate the various investment management activities of the FirstRand group. The appointment follows a review of Ashburton Investments’ strategic positioning to ensure it is fully enabled to scale.
Sizwe Nxedlana, the recently appointed CEO of Ashburton Investments, says: “Patrice brings the necessary skills required to strengthen existing investment management processes and ultimately deliver the right client outcomes by leveraging the group’s capabilities.”
Rassou joins
By Beatrice Bedeschi – A month after the drone attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities, Saudi Arabia has surprised observers by being able to bring oil production capacity to nearly pre-attack levels, which has quickly stabilised oil prices after the spikes seen in the immediate aftermath of the incidents.
Nonetheless, in the long-term the country remains heavily exposed to potential further similar incidents, raising the issue of security of supply at key production assets, commentators told Hedgeweek.
On 14 September, a number of explosions were recorded at Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil field and Abqaiq oil processing plants, owned
Specialist fixed income manager, BlueBay Asset Management (BlueBay), has launched a new actively managed emerging markets short duration bond fund, The BlueBay Emerging Market Aggregate Short Duration Bond Fund.
The UCITS fund, domiciled in Luxembourg, combines emerging market sovereign and corporate debt into one portfolio and consists of hard currency assets trading at a spread over US Treasuries. Managed as a single, high-conviction strategy, the fund seeks access to the broadest spectrum of short-dated emerging market credit across 58 countries and 13 industry sectors.
The portfolios managers are Jana Velebova, Polina Kurdyavko and Anthony Kettle who utilise expertise from
