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Roger Hollingsworth, who has served as head of government relations at the Managed Funds Association (MFA) association since 2008, has resigned.
Richard H Baker, CEO of MFA, says: “Roger contributed to building an effective government relations team and provided leadership during a period of extraordinary change in the financial markets and the hedge fund industry. MFA wishes Roger success in all future endeavours.”
Hollingsworth (pictured) says: “I have been honoured to work alongside Congressman Baker and the talented team he has assembled at MFA over these past eight years. It’s also been a privilege to work with, and on
John B Oden and Oden Capital Management (OCM) are to pay USD100,000 to settle CFTC charges over the unlawfully operation two commodity interest pools, Oden Currency Fund (OCF), operated by Oden, and Oden Currency Fund I (OCF I), operated by OCM.
The CFTC Ooder requires Oden and OCM jointly and severally to pay a USD100,000 civil monetary penalty and imposes a five-year ban on their solicitation of funds for, or trading in commodity interests on behalf of others, or applying for registration, claiming exemption from registration, or engaging in any activity requiring registration with the CFTC.
The order also
Nearly half of UK investors are positive about Brexit, although two fifths are fearful of Trump and 73 per cent lack faith in Prime Minister Theresa May, according to research carried out by IW Capital.
A survey of 1,000 UK investors, aimed assessing the true impact of 2016’s triple threat of political shocks and their direct effect on the UK investor community, found that one in 10 investors feel the political events of 2016 will influence their investment decision this year more than any other factor.
In addition, 36 per cent of investors think record-low interest rates will negatively
Convergex, an agency-focused global brokerage and trading related services provider, has deployed Ancoa’s market surveillance platform to monitor all trading activity across its domestic (US) and international cash equities and options brokerage businesses.
The deployment monitors trading activity of all lit and dark venues including Millennium, Convergex’s proprietary ATS.
Convergex delivers comprehensive solutions that include its ETF Direct platform and algorithms, global high-touch and electronic trading, options trading and technologies, prime brokerage services, global clearing, commission management, corporate access and more, to nearly 3,000 clients accessing over 100 global market centres. Convergex has international coverage of options and cash
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) full-service institutional straight-through-processing (STP) suite of products processed close to one billion trades for the first time in 2016, across equities, fixed income, equity swaps and repurchase agreements.
DTCC’s products automate trade lifecycle events between 3,800 investment managers, broker/dealers and custodian banks.
“As a user-owned and governed firm, DTCC takes very seriously its role in advancing solutions that help to secure and shape the future growth and development of the marketplace,” says Paula Arthus (pictured), managing director and head of Omgeo and Data Services at DTCC. “DTCC’s mission is to create market
CME Group has declared a first-quarter dividend of USD0.66 per share, a 10 per cent increase from the prior rate of USD0.60 per share.
The dividend is payable on 27 March 2017 to shareholders of record as of 10 March 2017.
Through its exchanges, CME Group offers a range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. CME Group provides electronic trading globally on its CME Globex platform.
The company also offers clearing and settlement services across asset classes for exchange-traded and
Neptune Networks, an open-standard network for bond real-time AXE indications, has added Nomura and Jefferies to its network.
The Neptune network provides a venue for institutional investors to access sell-side pricing on the key bonds they are looking to buy and sell.
This makes it easier to execute orders, prove best execution, minimise information leakage and comply with regulation such as SEC Rule 22e-4, and its equivalent in EMEA, which expands on the existing framework for the oversight and management of liquidity risks.
Seventeen bond dealers are already live on the real-time network (the remaining four are expected
Proper fund governance has long been championed by leading offshore law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman, which for the last decade has encouraged its hedge fund clients to hold at least annual directors meetings. Initially this was met with some resistance according to Robert Briant (pictured), Partner and head of Conyers’ BVI office, who confirms that such resistance has softened over the last few years.
“Even though there is no requirement in the BVI for the directors to meet annually, they do meet and are happy to meet when we suggest it. So that is a positive change. Some funds
One of the reasons as to why the BVI introduced the Incubator and Approved Fund products in May 2015 was, partly, in response to the fact that fund launch numbers in the global hedge fund industry had started to steadily decline. Rising regulatory and compliance costs were hurting start-up managers and dissuading people from coming to market.
In that sense, the BVI was quite prescient and demonstrates the forward looking approach that its regulator, the BVI Financial Services Commission (the "Commission"), takes to ensure that the jurisdiction remains as accessible as possible to start-ups and emerging managers, as well as
Circle Partners is an independent fund administrator with offices in the BVI, Cayman Islands, and across the EU, the Americas and Hong Kong.
"We've seen a lot of growth in new BVI fund vehicles over the last 12 months – both the Incubator Fund and the more popular Approved Fund," reflects Peter Jakubicka (pictured), Business Development Manager at Circle Partners. "These vehicles have been the main driver of business for us in the BVI and we've seen continued interest in the first few weeks of January this year; this is partly due to the fact that Cayman has not introduced
