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Assured Guaranty’s subsidiary Assured Guaranty US Holdings (AGUS) is to acquire all of the outstanding equity interests in BlueMountain Capital Management (BlueMountain) and its associated entities for a purchase price of approximately USD160 million, subject to certain adjustments.
BlueMountain is an alternative asset management firm with USD19.3 billion in assets under management (AUM).The acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to certain customary closing conditions, including the receipt of consents and regulatory approval. As part of the agreement, BlueMountain’s co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, Andrew Feldstein, intends to join Assured Guaranty
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Heath P Tarbert has announced the following appointments to the CFTC’s executive leadership team.
Summer K Mersinger will serve as Director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, while Suyash G Paliwal will serve as Director of the Office of International Affairs. Both Mersinger and Paliwal will join the CFTC in August.
“I am grateful that Summer and Suyash will be joining our team of A-players. My office has moved quickly to bring in the best and brightest, and Summer and Suyash are no exception,” says Chairman Tarbert. “The CFTC is tackling unfinished
The rise in popularity of ETFs in recent years, as well as the continuing appeal of mutual funds has seemingly given index-based products the upper hand in the old passive versus active investment debate. But could active management be posed for a comeback? Tanzeel Akhtar investigates…
Whenever the active versus passive investment debate rears its head, discussions about fees and performance are never far away. While index-based funds are cheaper, the performance potential of hedge funds and other active investments is greater, so the argument goes. The truth of the matter though, is not so clear-cut.
Trip Miller, managing partner
Following a strong June, CTAs continued to make gains and reported positive performance in July too, according to the lates performance figures from Societe Generale Prime Services for the SG CTA Indices.
The SG CTA Index was up +3.53 per cent, adding to gains of +8.49 per cent YTD. Trend followers continued to lead performance, as the SG Trend Index was up +4.84 per cent and now stands in double digits at +12.63 per cent YTD. In fact, it has been in positive territory for five out of seven months this year.
Trend followers continued to benefit from upwards
International law firm Proskauer has appointed Leith Moghli as a partner in the firm’s Private Funds Practice, based in London.
“We are very excited to welcome Leith to the Proskauer team,” says Proskauer’s Nigel van Zyl. “We are committed to the strategic growth and expansion of our global funds practice to ensure our clients continue to have access to the very best talent. Leith’s hire is one of a number of significant developments in our implementation of that strategy. His experience representing leading sponsors and institutional investors across a range of industries will be a valuable asset to our clients.”
iBoxx TRS notional volumes hit a new all-time high of USD23.9 billion in June, surpassing the previous record high of USD19.3 billion set in March, and nearly three-times the volumes recorded in June 2015.
Increases in iBoxx TRS volumes on leveraged loans and investment grade corporates in both USD and EUR have been significant drivers of volume growth for H1 2019.
The exposure of iBoxx TRS is identical to a diversified bond portfolio that has credit and interest rate risk. iBoxx TRS give asset managers another tool to wield when choosing the most suitable tradable product for a given scenario.
DBS Bank, a financial services group in Asia, has joined the LiquidX Partners network having completed a primary receivables transaction with one of its key relationship clients via the network in the second quarter of 2019.
“Our partnership with DBS marks another step towards building digital ecosystems that enable businesses to deliver efficient and easily scalable solutions to its customers across borders. DBS’ strong digital agenda also makes the bank an ideal partner as they share a common vision that digitisation will play a key role in transforming the transaction landscape for trade finance and other adjacent working capital asset
Crypto Craft, a website that provides market information to cryptocurrency traders, has launched a news feed that breaks market-moving news for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Dash, and other decentralised coins.
The news feed is the first of its kind in that it marries professional trading standards with a deep understanding of cryptocurrency. When information is impacting the cryptocurrency markets, Crypto Craft is dedicated to having the story first.
“The news feed is our latest pursuit in connecting traders to the markets,” says David Lawrence, President of Fair Economy, Inc., creators of Crypto Craft. “Crypto traders were being underserved, either
Caspian, a full-stack crypto trading, portfolio and risk management platform, has launched pairs trading functionality paving the way for funds looking to use statistical arbitrage and relative value-based strategies.
Currently in use by several clients, Caspian’s price-spread and price-ratio Pairs algorithms enable funds to trade pairs using coins on any of the 35 exchanges Caspian is currently connected to, with coins and derivatives on the same or different exchanges.
“Caspian is the first full stack crypto trading platform to offer pairs algorithms, which demonstrates the maturity of the Caspian OEMS. We are seeing an increasing number of firms adopting
Templum, a financial technology company providing a marketplace for the primary issuance and secondary trading of alternative assets as smart securities, has appointed former AlphaPoint, TradingScreen, Lava Trading, and Bloomberg executive Brian Nadzan as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
In this new role, Nadzan’s global expertise at some of the most successful financial services technology firms will be integral in driving Templum’s continuing efforts to create efficiency and liquidity in the private markets.
More specifically, Nadzan will oversee the connectivity of Templum’s technology into financial services firms as well as integration of a range of partnerships. He will also manage Templum’s technology
