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The State Street Global Investor Confidence Index decreased to 70.2 in January, down 9.4 points from December’s revised reading of 79.6.
Confidence among North American investors worsened, with the North American ICI decreasing from 74.5 to 66.8. The European ICI decreased by 2.6 points to 90.3 and the Asia ICI decreased by 10.3 points to 100.2.
“As we progress into 2019, our global Investor Confidence Index reflects a warp-speed deterioration in confidence. While confidence itself is not necessarily at an all-time low, this month’s unprecedented low level reflects the extraordinary rate of retreat hastily beaten by professional managers. Noteworthy
CloseCross, a multi-party, decentralised derivatives trading platform in beta, has opened its investment round with USD3 million backed by Amnis Ventures, a privately owned venture fund based in Houston, Texas.
The investment puts CloseCross at a post-money valuation of USD60 million.
CloseCross is committed to a disruption of the current financial derivatives market by deploying patented multi-party settlement mechanisms and proprietary algorithms. Its aim is to create a derivatives environment where market participants enter collective smart contracts instead of traditional one-to-one contracts. CloseCross’ testnet application is currently available in beta in 140 countries across both iOS and Android platforms.
On 3 December 2018, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) published amendments to December 2017’s AML Guidance notes on the Prevention and Detection of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. Under the AML/CFT regime, a clear distinction has been made between delegation and reliance with respect to how an investment fund manager handless its AML obligations.
Many Cayman hedge funds go the ‘reliance’ route, using a trusted service provider whose own AML officer performs the duties in line with the service provider’s own compliance framework. This is unlikely to change under the AML/CFT regime, but CIMA will expect fund managers to check
2018 was an extremely busy year for Walkers, one of the Cayman Islands’ leading international law firms. The firm saw a tremendous amount of activity in private equity and related downstream corporate work, while with respect to hedge funds the Cayman team was busy doing restructuring work.
“We had instructions in relation to changes to fee terms, to re-energise products and make them more attractive to current investors and new investors. Overall, we were very busy across the group,” says Caroline Heal, Partner, Walkers’ global Investment Funds group.
The last 12 months has certainly seen Cayman continue to implement global
Prior to the election of the new Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, in October 2018 after winning 55 per cent of the vote, there had long been a trend among Brazilian fund managers to allocate capital offshore to invest outside of the country. Now, as the markets begin to stabilise, investors – both locally and globally – are starting to reconsider Brazil again for investment opportunity.
For fund administrators such as the Maitland, who have become increasingly active in Brazil over the last four years, this shift represents a significant opportunity to assist managers with their offshore investment vehicles – typically
The cryptocurrency market is predicted to reach USD1 trillion according to Smartereum as the market capitalisation continues to grow. Currently, the estimated size of the crypto market is approximately USD417 billion, a very modest number and one that remains dwarfed by other traditional and alternative asset classes. To put things into context, global private equity alone raised more than USD453 billion in 2017.
So despite all the hype and hyperbole surrounding cryptocurrencies, the fact remains that this is still a nascent asset class. That is not to say, however, that the wider ‘digital asset’ marketplace is not set for significant
Q&A with Joanne Huckle, Ogier
As someone who advises both hedge funds and private equity managers, are there common themes affecting both sets of clients?
The once-rigid boundaries between the hedge funds industry and the private equity industry are becoming blurred – we’re seeing traditional hedge fund managers increasing investments in private equity opportunities such as real estate and illiquid private debt, a marked growth in the number of new hybrid fund launches, and institutional investors and family offices alike are reallocating capital to private equity funds in search of higher returns. In the background of course, new legal and
Q&A with Jude Scott, Cayman Finance
What is the most important aspect of maintaining Cayman’s reputation as the world’s leading offshore IFC?
The key element that ties together all of our efforts to operate a premier global financial hub for alternative investment funds and a culture of compliance with our laws, regulations and global standards is the world class, legal public accounting, administration fiduciary and asset management professionals that make up the Cayman Islands financial services industry. Our approach as an industry – what we call The Cayman Model — puts extraordinary value on our business culture and the women
The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s mutual evaluation of the Cayman Islands at the end of 2017 led to a revision of the jurisdiction’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and was the catalyst for the new Cayman AML guidance. The CFATF report recommended enhancing international co-operation, broadening asset freezing powers and offences and expanding the scope of AML regulation.
“These changes to the Cayman AML regime together with the implementation of the Cayman tax information exchange regulations and economic substance legislation are each directed at ensuring that Cayman remains at the forefront of international compliance initiatives,” says Matt Mulry, Partner
Q&A with Gary Smith, Partner, Loeb Smith Attorneys
Could you briefly explain the concept of the Segregated Portfolio Company?
Once registered under the Cayman Islands Companies Law, a segregated portfolio company (“SPC”) can operate segregated portfolios (“SPs”) with the benefit of statutory segregation of assets and liabilities between portfolios.
Under Cayman Companies Law, an SPC is an exempted company which has been registered as a segregated portfolio company. It has full capacity to undertake any object or purpose subject to any restrictions imposed on the SPC in its Memorandum of Association (“Memorandum”). The SPC is able to create one or more
