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Cayman, New York and London-based alternative fund governance specialist, Danesmead Partners, has expanded its Cayman Islands office with the appointment of experienced independent director Brad Cowdroy as a principal of the firm.
Cowdroy (pictured), has almost 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, having worked extensively with hedge funds, funds of funds and private equity funds across different alternative investment strategies and a range of fund structures. He has specific expertise within fund administration, accounting, valuation, investor communications and regulatory risk management.
Prior to joining Danesmead Partners, Brad served as an independent director for several years with ICG
Hedge funds gained 1.21 per cent in December according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The index was up 10.44 per cent at the end of 2017.
“Tax reform in the US helped to propel the rise in global equities in December,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge.
The Event Driven Index soared 2.51 per cent in December, Technology was up 2.30 per cent, and Distressed Securities gained 2.19 per cent. Emerging Markets gained 1.79 per cent, Healthcare and Biotechnology added 1.53 per cent, and Pacific Rim Equities were up 1.15 per cent.
Fixed
The Investment Management Due Diligence Association (IMDDA), an organisation dedicated to the professionals who investigate facts concerning investment programs, has released an expanded training class schedule for 2018.
Developed by a task force of leaders in due diligence, each class is led by a renowned speaker sharing real-world insight on critical due diligence topics including risk management, regulatory developments and fundamental knowledge, plus guidance to address emerging challenges that investors face around the globe.
In the last two years hundreds of professionals involved in due diligence focussed on hedge funds, mergers & acquisitions, and private equity have participated in
Catalyst Funds, an alternative-focused mutual fund company, has partnered with BNP Paribas to create the BNP Paribas Catalyst Systematic Alpha Index (the BNPP CASA Index).
Additionally, Catalyst has launched the Catalyst Systematic Alpha Fund (ATRAX), which provides exposure to the newly-created index.
The BNPP CASA Index allocates between seven different strategies developed by BNP Paribas’ Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) group, each specifically designed to harvest non-traditional sources of returns. Using a rules-based, risk-budget model, the BNPP CASA Index systematically allocates across each of these strategies, as frequently as daily, and is designed to adapt to various market conditions. Although
RegTek.Solutions has launched Validate.Trade for SFTR, an independent data quality assurance solution for ESMA’s Securities Financing Transaction Regulation (SFTR).
Using the platform’s rich application, flexible API or simply Excel spreadsheets, clients can start testing the quality and integrity of their SFTR data, across all products and data fields. Validate.Trade for SFTR is live, helping operations and technology teams throughout their journey from analysis and testing to a production-ready SFTR compliance solution.
The European regulation, which aims to increase transparency across Securities Financing Transactions (SFTs), requires market participants to report all SFTs to an approved Trade Repository (TR). With over
Hedge funds focused on India and China were the strongest overall performers in the hedge fund industry in 2017, according to eVestment’s December 2017 Hedge Fund Performance Report.
Overall the global hedge fund industry experienced a strong year, returning 8.83 per cent. This is a welcome return to strong performance following the 5.7 per cent hedge funds returned in 2016 and the -0.71 per cent aggregate return the industry delivered in 2015.
From a regional perspective, Asia outperformed the rest of the world in hedge fund returns, with Asia-focused hedge funds overall returning 21.47 per cent in 2017.
India-focused
ResearchPool, the leading global digital platform for investment research, has signed a new partnership with Invest Securities to offer investment companies a MiFID II-compliant solution to access reports and analysts.
Invest Securities will also exclusively distribute its research on ResearchPool.com for non-clients.
“Invest Securities is convinced that research is a real differentiating factor in the investment process when it brings quality and knowledge of sectors, a good reason for focusing on six sectors,” says Anne Bellavoine, deputy CEO of Invest Securities and sponsor for the partnership “MiFID II is a challenge that we must meet by offering a website
GMEX Technologies Ltd (GMEX) has partnered with Colt Technology Services to deliver the GMEX Exchange-in-a-Box over the Colt PrizmNet financial extranet.
GMEX Exchange-in-a-Box is a multi-asset, multi-language hybrid voice and electronic trading platform providing both execution and surveillance capability for investment banks, brokers and trading venues. Addressing the growing demand from market participants to segregate or create their own matching systems, the solution delivers Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) and Request for Quote (RFQ) capability, alongside the latest central counterparty (CCP) and central securities depository (CSD) market infrastructure.
Supporting all major types of trading venues, including Recognised Investment Exchanges
The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index, which provides a representative baseline for how the broad liquid alternative investment category performs, returned 0.40 per cent in December, trailing the 0.73 per cent return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.
For the fourth quarter, the Wilshire Liquid Alternative IndexSM returned 1.51 per cent, in line with the 1.50 per cent return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index. The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index family is a joint offering between Wilshire Funds Management, the global investment management business unit of Wilshire Associates Incorporated, and Wilshire Analytics, creator of the Wilshire 5000 Total Market
Next February will be the fifth instalment of the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit (CAIS), hosted by Dart Enterprises at the stunning Kimpton Seafire Resort & Spa on Grand Cayman.
The theme of CAIS 2018 is the impact of technology on the industry: “Wired: The Rise of Alternative Investments in a Digital Age.”
“Each year, we want to create a theme that is relevant to the external influences facing the alternative funds industry and ensure that all the associated speakers, panels, and demonstrations that we arrange, are appropriate,” remarks Chris Duggan, Director of CAIS and VP of Community Development at Dart
