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GTT Communications has acquired Custom Connect, an Amsterdam-headquartered provider of high-speed network connectivity serving multinational enterprises and financial trading firms.
“The acquisition of Custom Connect extends GTT’s network and strengthens our service offerings in high growth financial markets,” says Rick Calder (pictured), GTT president and CEO. “These enhanced capabilities reinforce GTT’s market leadership in cloud networking and our commitment to connecting people – across organisations and around the world.”
“Custom Connect and GTT are highly complementary businesses and the combination provides strategic advantages to our clients as well as our organisations,” says Olav van Doorn, Custom Connect CEO. “GTT
Gemini experienced record-breaking growth in 2017, with an 80 per cent increase in the number of registered fund launches executed during the year.
When surveyed, clients cited the key drivers in selecting Gemini for their new funds, including:
• Gemini’s turnkey solutions, which help them scale their operations and focus on their strategy
• the firm’s established risk management, cybersecurity, and compliance processes
• its agility in handling complex/evolving investment strategies
• a joint-venture approach to client relationship management offering a true business partner
• the firm’s extensive network of other service provider relationships (eg, legal, auditing, etc)
“New markets,
Hedge funds gained in December to end 2017 with positive returns in every month, the first perfect calendar year of positive performance since 2003.
The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index climbed 0.9 per cent in December, topping the monthly performance of most equity markets, including the Nasdaq, Russell 2000, Nikkei 225, Shanghai Composite and France’s CAC 40.
The advance brings the FY 2017 performance to a gain of 8.5 per cent, the best calendar year performance since 2013, extending the record Index Value to 14,054, according to data released today by HFR, the established global leader in the indexation,
James Beszant, EY Hedge Funds Co-Leader, comments on the outlook for 2018…
Hedge funds will be questioning if two is a trend as they look to the year ahead, given that 2017 continued the tricky market conditions of the year before. Despite this, there remained plenty of examples of good performance, and assets continued to be allocated to strategies and managers that offered a clear investment proposition and good medium-term track record. There remains a huge opportunity for managers to offer a proposition to investors that is differentiated from more traditional strategies, which is keeping levels of optimism high for
Hang Seng Indexes Company Limited (Hang Seng Indexes) has launched the Hang Seng SCHK New Economy Index, which aims to reflect the performance of companies available for southbound trading under the Stock Connect scheme that operate in ‘New Economy’ industries.
The new index provides a reference benchmark for investors who are interested in companies focusing on services and innovative technology. The universe of the new index covers securities from 29 sub-sectors, including Automobiles, Telecommunication Services and Pharmaceuticals. In addition, companies in the Consumer Goods, Consumer Services and Financials industries that mainly conduct their business using an online platform are also
AllianceBernstein has launched the AB Alternative Risk Premia Portfolio offering institutional investors a way of accessing alternative sources of return in a systematic and cost effective manner.
The strategy is designed to provide a low correlation from traditional asset classes with relative attractive returns. The fund launches with over EUR 200 million/ GBP190 million of investments from clients.
The portfolio’s multi-strategy approach allocates to more than fifty alternative risk premia strategies including long/short equity, equity market neutral, event driven, macro, and CTA/managed futures. Portfolio Managers Stuart Davies (pictured), and Vikas Kapoor have over 23 years of industry experience, including
Stater Blockchain Limited, the owner of FCA regulated Prime of Prime brokerage Stater Global Markets, is to acquire Hashcove Limited, a UK-based blockchain focused tech company co-founded by Kunal Nandwani.
Hashcove has deep domain expertise in Smart Contracts and KYC and has customised solutions including the Cove Identity App for blockchain-based document verification. Additionally, Hashcove also provides technology around Crypto Exchanges and Wallets. Their 20-strong team of blockchain technologists represent the best of breed within the domain of distributed ledger and digital currency.
According to Tim Connell, Owner, Stater Blockchain: “Our strategy has always been to focus on best of breed technologies
Willis Towers Watson’s Asset Management Exchange (AMX) has more than quadrupled its assets under management, to USD3.2 billion, less than a year after launch, following the onboarding of GSA Capital Partners (GSA) and Systematica Investments (Systematica).
AMX, the open architecture exchange, focuses on providing asset owners with a smarter, easier and cheaper way to access managers, while offering managers access to significant global capital. Since launch in February 2017, the AUM on the exchange has grown by over 300 per cent, with eight funds now onboard and a significant further pipeline.
Oliver Jaegemann, Global Head of AMX, says: “AMX
Law firm Bressler, Amery & Ross has promoted hedge fund lawyer David I Hantman to partner.
Hantman joined the firm in September 2007 and was promoted to Counsel in January 2017. His primary area of practice is securities litigation and arbitration. He represents broker-dealers and registered representatives in these forums, as well as in investigations and regulatory enforcement actions and plays a central role in leading the firm’s expungement practice. Hantman has also been instrumental in defending funds against such investor claims as misrepresentation, fraud and unsuitability.
Prior to Bressler he served as a risk mitigation consultant and as
The total value of funds business in Guernsey grew by approximately GBP20 billion over the 12 months to the end of the third quarter of this year.
Figures from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) show that, at the end of September 2017, the net asset value of all funds under management and administration in Guernsey stood at GBP269 billion – an 8 per cent increase on September 2016. The figures also confirm two consecutive years of growth, with the net asset value of funds growing by nearly GBP25 billion between Q3 2015 and Q3 2016.
The annual increase was
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