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Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP), an investment team within Morgan Stanley Investment Management, has closed the unit’s latest investment fund, the Riverview Strategic Opportunities Fund III (SOF III) with over USD500 million in commitments.
The fundraise saw robust interest from both institutional and high net worth investors with the raise being completed within a few weeks. The Fund is an opportunistic hedge fund solution focused on hedge fund secondaries and co-investments.
“We are pleased investors continue to see promise in our fund’s differentiated approach as hedge funds look to alleviate the constraints they face in the market and
Risk-on markets bolstered hedge fund returns in July, with L/S Equity strategies outperforming, according to the latest Weekly Brief from Lyxor’s Cross Asset Research team. Yet the reversal in growth stocks, due to the tech reversal at the end of the period, eroded some of the previous gains. Market Neutral managers ended the month flat as a result.
CTAs were volatile in July. They made the most from rising equity markets and higher Treasury yields. Yet, half of their gains were eroded by speculations on the BoJ’s monetary policy stance at the end of the period. Their long Japanese
By Don Steinbrugge, CFA – CEO, Agecroft Partners – It is no secret that the vast majority of investors, including hedge funds managers, have underperformed market indices over time. However, some managers have distinguished themselves generating very strong risk adjusted returns.
Outperforming an index requires an information advantage over what is broadly available in market. It also requires a way to process that information to more accurately price securities and select those that demonstrate divergence versus the market. It is becoming increasingly more challenging to achieve this, resulting in an arms race for alpha. Investment processes must be constantly enhanced
Outsourced trading: a growing trend
Ayrton Senna was arguably the greatest Formula 1 racing driver of all time but he never needed to worry about the brake systems or the engine firing on all cylinders. His job was to get behind the wheel and drive faster than the competition.
By analogy, today’s hedge fund manager has increasingly come to recognise that there is no point trying to handle every aspect of running a hedge fund. A range of tasks, from compliance and middle-office reporting to administration and IT services are being outsourced so that the portfolio manager can focus on
BKCM LLC has promoted Derek Kim and Kevin Lu to Head of Research and Head of Systematic Strategies, respectively. BKCM is an independent investment firm specialising in cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused investment opportunities.
“Crypto-blockchain technologies are an emerging global asset class that demands a combination of deep insight and strong execution – Derek and Kevin bring both,” says Brian Kelly, founder and CEO of the firm. “They are both multi-disciplined, adept at systematic investing, research and trading, and they are committed entrepreneurs. Everything a firm needs to be successful in this space.”
Kim, Head of Research, has extensive experience in
BNP Paribas Securities Services has bolstered its alternatives investment services team with the appointment of Diarmuid Ryan as Global Head of Hedge Fund Services.
Ryan (pictured), joins BNP Paribas from State Street Alternative Investment Solutions where he held several senior executive positions in New York and Ireland over the past 10 years.
In this newly created role, Ryan will focus on deepening relationships with new and existing clients across the US, EMEA and APAC, and delivering strategic end-to-end solutions, including digital services, tailored to their requirements.
Ryan will be based in Dublin, reporting into BNP Paribas Securities Services’
SANNE has appointed Stephanie Hopkins and Stephen McKenna as Co-Heads of the firm’s Private Debt & Capital Markets business for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
Effective 1 August 2018, Hopkins (pictured), and McKenna will be responsible for the strategic direction, management and delivery of SANNE’s Private Debt & Capital Markets business with specific focus on the continued development of the division to ensure that clients receive the highest levels of service and technical expertise across all jurisdictions.
Their focus will also continue to be on delivering strong growth through organic initiatives while continuing to drive best
BlackRock has launched a suite of open-ended Emerging Market Debt (EMD) funds that integrate environmental, social and governance factors (ESG).
BlackRock says the new range of UCITS funds complements its existing EMD offering and aims to provide investors with a choice of products that may empower them in reaching their financial objectives and expressing their preferences. The funds are actively managed against a respective set of ESG benchmarks – the JESG EMD indices – launched by JP Morgan in collaboration with BlackRock in April 2018. The funds will provide investors with exposure to debt securities issued by government, public local
QuantHouse, an independent provider of end-to-end systematic trading solutions including market data services, algo trading platform and infrastructure solutions, has added Actant’s derivative trading solutions to the QuantHouse API Ecosystem.
Actant’s trading solutions deliver algorithmic programming flexibility and control to proprietary trading firms, market makers, investment banks and hedge funds trading the world’s major derivative and equity exchanges.
By combining their automated trading services with QuantHouse’s market data and underlying infrastructure, Actant can now offer fully hosted solutions globally, while QuantHouse API Ecosystem participants can access advanced derivative and risk analytics services in real-time, via a single API.
The US investment management industry this year is riding a continuing wave of strong equity market performance, but the buy-side know they can’t be complacent with the tightening vice of MiFID II regulation in Europe and the rising flow of assets into passive vehicle.
That’s according to the TABB Group’s 14th annual benchmark International US Equity Trading study; ‘US Institutional Equity Trading 2018: Adapting to the New Reality’.
Based on in-depth interviews with 100 buy-side head traders during the first and second quarters of 2018 – including 82 per cent traditional asset managers, 18 per cent hedge funds with
