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Smartkarma, an Asia-based provider of independent investment research, has opened a new UK office to serve as a hub to build out its independent research analyst community in Europe and support its buy-side investor clientele.
Arzish Baaquie (pictured), who joined the firm in 2014 and previously led the Special Situations offering, is spearheading the growth of Smartkarma in the UK and will build a team based in Baker Street, London.
Smartkarma’s move to the UK coincides with major banking legislation, MiFID II, which takes effect in January 2018 and is forcing transparency around the supply and payment of research.
Research from TeleWare reveals that just 42 per cent of senior decision makers are confident in their firm’s knowledge of MiFID II requirements. Although only 99 days away, worryingly more than half (54 per cent) believe more education is needed on details of the European directive.
MiFID II is set to impact three times more financial firms than its predecessor. It aims to strengthen investor protection and inject greater transparency into markets. From asset managers to traders, brokers, banks and exchanges, everyone is having to prepare for the new regime that comes into effect on 3 January 2018.
The
DRS Markets, an international trading platform for ‘Contract For Difference’ trading (CFDs), has launched in London with a fully FCA regulated platform.
The company, which offers flexible trading across several channels, evaluated multiple jurisdictions before choosing London so that investors can take confidence in the quality of its platform, processes and services. It will work with investors around the world to trade through London.
DRS Markets offers very competitive commission charges on its trading products, giving investors one of the most cost-effective ways to benefit from CFDs, and a highly attractive margin structure. It currently offers access to over
OP Investment Management (OPIM), a member of the Oriental Patron Financial Group, has made a strategic investment in Fundseeder Holdings (Fundseeder), an emerging financial software company located in Florida, United States.
OPIM is a leading hedge fund structuring and incubation platform based in Hong Kong. The firm partners with Asian investment managers to build offshore hedge fund products, combining early stage track records with the firm’s institutional infrastructure and ecosystem. OPIM also works with established institutional investors, funds of funds, and family offices to evaluate undiscovered trading talent in the ever-expanding emerging manager space.
Founded by US financial industry
Cowen Inc has been named Best North American Prime Broker at the 2017 Hedgeweek USA Awards for the third consecutive year.
The award is based on a peer review system whereby Hedgeweek’s readers, including institutional and high net worth investors, as well as hedge fund managers and other industry professionals at fund administrators, prime brokers, law firms, custodians, and advisers, select the top performer in a series of categories.
Jack D Seibald (pictured), Global Co-Head of Prime Brokerage Services, said, “We are proud that we have again earned the Best North American Prime Broker Award from Hedgeweek and are
Axioma has appointed Nico Kicillof to the newly created position of Managing Director, Head of Platform Engineering. He was previously Head of Software Development Lifecycle at Two Sigma, the technology-driven institutional investor, since 2015.
“Streamlining flows of content into Axioma’s expanding range of cloud-based products and solutions is a core strategic objective,” says Ian Webster, Chief Operating Officer. “Only the cloud gives us the cost-efficient computing power, access to the latest technologies, and the scalability and flexibility required to create the robust on-demand data and analytics that are critical to the success of our clients.”
“Nico’s extensive engineering experience
McKay Brothers International (MBI) is to connect UK data centres Slough-LD4 and Basildon with trading hubs in Milan and Zurich at the lowest known latencies.
The company expects its new private bandwidth service between the UK and Milan’s I.Net data centre to go live in mid-October. The private bandwidth service between the UK and Zurich is expected to be live in the first quarter of next year.
“Milan and Zurich are important trading centres for our subscribers,” says MBI managing director Francois Tyc (pictured). “We are thrilled to extend our European network and offer our subscribers a level
ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens comments on the European Commission’s adoption of a proposal and communication following its review of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs)…
As a global association representing the interests of funds and their investors located around the world, ICI strongly supports the goal of supervisory convergence in the European Union. When done properly, supervisory convergence, like that envisioned for the European Securities and Markets Authority, can lower barriers and improve efficiencies in markets to the benefit of funds and investors.
The Commission’s proposed approach, however, risks closing off Europe to third-country fund managers by limiting
The SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator for September 2017 measured 3.72 per cent, up from 3.55 per cent in August.
“SS&C’s Forward Redemption Indicator for September 2017 fell to 3.72 per cent as compared to the 4.22 per cent reported for the same period a year ago in September 2016. This decline marks the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year improvement in redemption notices,” says Bill Stone (pictured), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies. “It’s noteworthy that these gains in asset retention have been made in a year of generally bullish financial market performance, indicating that investors are confident that
SIX Swiss Exchange has joined the xyt hub to provide high quality tick data to its trading participants, enabling them to develop, evaluate and backtest new trading and execution strategies while providing greater transparency over trading activity.
Connected to more than 100 venues globally and across asset classes, the xyt hub launched in September 2017 to enable the global trading community to integrate tick data and analytics in a more convenient and cost-effective way, via a single API. The xyt hub allows trading firms to consume, analyse and visualise all the data they require through cloud-based technologies, featuring Data-as-a-Service and
