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According to a recent risk alert issued by the SEC, investment advisers continue to show deficiencies when it comes to best execution of client securities transactions.
The alert, issued by the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations of the SEC, highlighted six areas where advisers typically came up short, including not performing best execution reviews, not seeking comparisons from other broker-dealers, and not fully disclosing best execution practices and soft dollar arrangements.
Jamie Nash (pictured), a lawyer with Kleinberg Kaplan, notes that advisers have a fiduciary duty to seek best execution of client securities transactions, taking into consideration
Kingdom Trust, a regulated financial institution offering qualified custody for digital asset investments like Bitcoin and Ethereum, has secured insurance for assets held on its qualified custody platform through Lloyd’s of London.
“Qualified custody by a regulated, insured financial institution is a top priority and critical hurdle for institutions to invest in the digital asset markets,” says Matt Jennings, CEO of Kingdom Trust. “By adding another trusted specialist like Lloyd’s to our platform, we’re ensuring that current and future clients will have access to a highly-secure, complete safekeeping solution tailored to meet the challenges of institutional finance.”
The company
SmartStream Technologies has added Quality Assurance (QA) testing as a service for its TLM Collateral Management solution. The new service enables collateral administration desks to stay current with changes in the market and regulations, whilst providing the best service to clients.
Many banks have stringent internal testing requirements for new functionality to ensure continuity, connectivity and integration. To reduce the amount of time and expertise devoted to this rigorous testing regime, whilst optimising the effort, cost and outcome, SmartStream is partnering with banks to provide QA testing as a service, delivered by its TLM Collateral Management platform.
SmartStream will
UBS AG (UBS) is to pay a USD15 million civil monetary penalty and to undertake remedial relief to settle CFTC charges of attempted manipulation and spoofing of the precious metals futures markets.
A CFTC order finds that that from January 2008 through at least December 2013, UBS, by and through the acts of certain precious metals traders on the spot desk (Traders), attempted to manipulate the price of precious metals futures contracts by utilising a variety of manual spoofing techniques with respect to precious metals futures contracts traded on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX), including gold and silver, and by trading in
JonesTrading Institutional Services (JonesTrading) has appointed Timothy (Tim) Baker as Senior Vice President in its Equity Sales Trading Group.
Baker will be responsible for trading and account coverage, with a particular focus on special purpose acquisition companies’ (SPAC’s) and other special trading situations.
Baker brings over 14 years of experience to the role. He was most recently Director at Cowen, which acquired his prior firm, CRT Sterne Agee, where he served as Managing Director, Partner, and Head of Trading. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.
Baker will focus on all special situations including SPAC’s, Contingent Value
Pictet Asset Management (Pictet AM) has added a new strategy to its USD42 billion actively managed thematic franchise, the UCITS-compliant Pictet-SmartCity fund, which aims to capture the strong growth potential of companies finding smarter solutions to the challenges posed by rapidly increasing urbanisation.
Pictet-SmartCity is a global thematic equities strategy that aims to exploit the powerful trends driving urbanisation. Its objective is long-term capital growth by investing in companies around the world that are helping to develop the cities of tomorrow.
These companies will be active mainly, but not exclusively, in the following areas: mobility and transportation, infrastructure, real
Coinfloor’s spot exchange in Gibraltar has received an in-principle authorisation as a distributed ledger technology (DLT) provider from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission under the jurisdiction’s Financial Services (Distributed Ledger Technologies Providers) Regulations 2018.
Introduced in January this year, the regulations are aimed at supporting the sustainable growth and globally transformative potential of distributed ledger technology and have been designed to provide “an efficient, safe and innovative regulatory framework for firms engaging in activities not otherwise subject to regulation”.
Amadeo Pellicce, COO of Coinfloor, says: “In Gibraltar we have found an excellent mix of credible and forward-thinking industry players,
DDJ Capital Management, an independent manager of high yield and special situation investments on behalf of institutional investors, has marked the three-year anniversary of its DDJ Opportunistic High Yield Fund.
The open-end mutual fund (DDJIX, DDJCX, and DDJRX) received a 5-star overall rating from Morningstar as of 31 July 2018.
For the three-year period that ended 31 July 2018, the Fund outperformed (on both a gross and net basis) the ICE BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Non-Financial Index, a broad unmanaged high yield index that excludes financial issuers. In addition, according to Morningstar, the Fund’s Institutional share class
Amber Capital, an established event-driven investment manager in Europe, has been selected by Swiss bank Lombard Odier to manage PrivilEdge – Amber Event Europe (AEE) fund, a sub-fund of Lombard Odier Group’s open architecture UCITS umbrella range of funds.
The AEE fund aims to capture investment opportunities relating to corporate events and special situations by leveraging the experience and expertise of the Amber Capital investment team in a dedicated Europe-focused long/short equity strategy within a UCITS compliant format. Olivier Fortesa, Portfolio Manager of PrivilEdge – Amber Event Europe Fund, has been focussing on event-driven and special situation strategies since he
Societe Generale has appointed David Abitbol as the new Head of Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS), effective 1 January 2019.
Based in Paris, Abitbol will report to Séverin Cabannes, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, responsible for the bank’s Global Banking and Investor Solutions activities.
Abitbol replaces Bruno Prigent, who is retiring after 38 years at Societe Generale, 27 of which were with Societe Generale Securities Services. Prigent retains his current role within SGSS until the end of 2018 and will focus on ensuring a smooth transition of the business.
“I sincerely thank Bruno Prigent for his long-standing commitment to
