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Faced with low interest rates and relatively high valuations for risk assets, large global institutional investors are looking to protect themselves against downturn risks through maintaining their cash levels and selectively increasing allocations to active strategies.
That’s according to a new survey by BlackRock which finds that while 65 per cent of clients plan to leave cash allocations unchanged for the year ahead, there is an interest in active management among institutional investors, which should play out across a diverse set of alternative asset classes, including illiquid assets and hedge funds, and also within public equities.
The survey of
Acolin Fund Services AG (Zurich) and Hugo Fund Services SA (Geneva) have formed a joint venture aimed at enhancing the two companies’ positioning within the global fund distribution market.
A new entity has been formed, Acolin Holding AG, under which both companies, and all other Acolin Group companies, will be consolidated. The new structure has been approved by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
Daniel Häfele (pictured), founder and CEO of Acolin Fund Services AG, will serve as CEO and Chairman of Acolin holding’s Board of Directors. Yves Hervieu-Causse, founder and CEO of Hugo Fund Services SA will
The Castlewood Select Opportunity Fund posted a 2.61 per cent gain for Q4 2017, capping a 12-month return of 16.79 per cent net of fees and expenses for the Macro Fund.
According to Mark Wittenstein (pictured), Managing Partner of the Castlewood Select Funds, the results extend to nine the Fund’s string of consecutive quarterly advances and the 2017 performance marks the third straight year of double-digit gains for investors.
“By some measures, investors rarely had an easier time making money than they did in 2017. Markets put together an impressive string of fresh highs and there were almost no
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) registered the first trade on Industrial Wood Pellets Futures on its platform on Monday, 15 January 2018.
The trade for 10 lots in the Feb 18 delivery is equivalent to 1,000 tonnes and was brokered by Tradition on behalf of Vattenfall Energy Trading and Total Gas & Power Ltd.
The contracts complement EEX’s product portfolio of energy-related, globally traded commodities and allow market participants an effective price hedging tool with financially settled futures. Quoted in US dollars, the product offers access to a wide range of existing EEX market participants, from utilities and producers
Torstone Technology, a provider of post-trade securities and derivatives processing, today announced that it has entered the Norwegian market by connecting its flagship Inferno platform to Verdipapirsentralen ASA (VPS), Norway’s Central Securities Depository.
Inferno is a modern, flexible, scalable and cost-effective post-trade platform which will enable seamless connectivity to VPS for firms trading VPS-registered securities, such as shares listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (Oslo Børs) as well as bonds and commercial paper issued in Norway. Its real-time, event-driven, service-orientated architecture enables firms to achieve very high rates of straight through processing (STP).
At the request of a market participant, VPS had
BakerHostetler has added Douglas W Greene (pictured), as a partner in its national White Collar, Investigations and Securities Enforcement and Litigation practice team, where he will lead the Securities and Governance Litigation team.
Greene, based in Seattle, is widely respected for his work defending securities and corporate governance cases on behalf of directors, officers and public companies. He joins BakerHostetler from Lane Powell, where he led the firm’s securities litigation practice group.
For more than 20 years, Greene has focused exclusively on securities and corporate governance matters, one of a handful of practitioners nationwide who handle such matters full
Sydney-based Morphic Asset Management is launching a new global equity strategy on the Trium UCITS platform, employing ESG factors to generate alpha on both short and long positions.
The Trium Morphic ESG L/S Fund launches on 20 February 2018, targeting European investors. It will be managed by experienced portfolio managers Jack Lowenstein (pictured), and Chad Slater.
Both managers have a multi-decade track record in successful, sustainable investing and will apply a fundamental equity long/short approach to the fund, targeting absolute returns. Multi-level risk management is at the heart of their approach and the fund will offer investors daily dealing.
TraderTools, a fintech firm providing FX market participants innovative solutions for liquidity access and distribution through its Unique Liquidity Network (ULN), has completed migrating all of its customers to the Abacus Private Cloud, leveraging Abacus tier-3 data centres in both the UK and the US.
Abacus Group is a provider of hosted IT solutions and application hosting for alternative investment firms and financial services software providers.
The TraderTools ULN provides a single point of access to aggregated liquidity from a diverse pool in G-7 and emerging market currencies. TraderTools helps clients tap into effective credit solutions that brings speed to market,
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed Timothy Lind, former Global Head of Financial Regulatory Solutions at Thomson Reuters, as Managing Director of DTCC Data Services.
Lind (pictured), will be responsible for guiding the firm’s data businesses, including services that leverage the vast amounts of data derived from DTCC’s global processing platforms while ensuring on-going alignment with all risk management and regulatory requirements.
Lind is an industry veteran with deep expertise in global capital markets infrastructure, including the deployment of technology for operational efficiency, data governance, transaction automation, regulatory compliance and risk management. Prior to DTCC, he
J8 Capital Management has launched the UI-J8 Global Absolute Return UCITS Fund, opening up the firm’s systematic investment strategy to an institutional as well as retail audience.
The fund is now open for subscriptions and scheduled to launch on 28 February 2018. The founder share class, which features discounted management and performance fees, will be closed after launch.
Dr Tillmann Sachs (pictured), Chief Investment Officer and Founder of J8, says: “We are delighted to launch a Luxembourg UCITS fund based on our profitable J8 Global Absolute Return Strategy and equally thrilled to be able to open systematic global absolute
