Latest News
The liquid alternatives space, which by definition includes alternative UCITS funds in Europe and '40 Act registered alternative mutual funds in the US, is not only attracting strong inflows. According to latest research from Preqin, the average alternative mutual fund returned 4.36 per cent in 2014. This compares to returns of 3.78 per cent for the average hedge fund.
The average alternative UCITS returned 1.45 per cent but if one considers performance at the strategy level, CTAs and equity market neutral funds held up well; according to Alix Capital, who run a series of alternative UCITS indices, their UAIX
SYZ Asset Management, the investment funds arm of Swiss banking group SYZ, offers investors two unique long/short strategies in its OYSTER UCITS-compliant fund range. The main differentiators between the two funds are summarised in the table.
Both funds are Luxembourg-domiciled, with each product providing its own diversification benefits as investors take steps to guard against expected equity market volatility on the one hand, and additional sources of returns to complement their fixed income portfolios on the other.
OYSTER market neutral
Market neutral strategies, as their name suggests, are non-directional in nature. As Joseph G. Nicholas, founder and chairman of HFR
Five years ago, UCITS funds weren't exactly a prominent blip on the radar screen at Société Générale Prime Services, but over the last two years, excluding managed accounts, they have accounted for approximately 50 per cent of all new funds onboarded by the business in Europe.
Andrew Dollery (pictured) is Director, Origination & Structuring at Société Générale Prime Services. He looks after many of its UCITS fund clients and is also actively involved in the structuring and servicing of '40 Act funds, as well as hedge funds and managed accounts.
"It is relatively easy to launch a UCITS fund. We
Preqin has appointed Edmond Ho as Chief Revenue Officer. Ho also joins Preqin's Management Team and will commence his role on 27 July 2015.
Ho brings with him a wealth of experience in information, data and analytics sales across EMEA, Asia and the Americas.
Since 2006, he has worked for Platts, a leading provider of energy, petrochemicals, metals and agricultural information, price assessments and data. Platts is part of McGraw Hill Financial.
For the past four years, Ho has held the positions of Global Head of Petrochemical and Agriculture Sales and Head of EMEA Mid-Market Sales. Prior to this, he
The TCW Group has partnered with Gargoyle Investment Advisor to offer its first alternative mutual fund, the TCW | Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund (TFHIX / TFHVX).
In conjunction with the offering of this Fund, TCW has formed TCW Alternative Funds, a new family of alternative mutual funds.
The TCW | Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund, which is advised by TCW and sub-advised by Gargoyle, seeks long-term capital appreciation with lower volatility than a stand-alone stock portfolio. The Fund aims to achieve this outcome through a combination of buying undervalued stocks and selling overpriced index call options. The Fund has a three-year
Following the strongest first quarter since 2008, managed futures endured a challenging second quarter of 2015, according to the latest performance data for Societe Generale Prime Services’ Newedge CTA indices.
June saw CTA managers experience losses at both the beginning and at the end of the month, resulting in all indices ending the month in negative territory.
The Newedge CTA Index declined 4.20 per cent during the month of June. However, the performance of the index at the end of the first half of the year was somewhat protected by stronger returns at the beginning of the year, standing
Total assets managed by the Top 100 alternative investment managers globally reached USD3.5 trillion in 2014 (USD3.3 trillion in 2013), according to research produced by Towers Watson.
The Global Alternatives Survey, which covers nine asset classes and seven investor types, shows that of the Top 100 alternative investment managers, real estate managers have the largest share of assets (33 per cent and over USD1 trillion), followed by hedge funds (23 per cent and USD791bn), private equity fund managers (22 per cent and USD767bn), private equity funds of funds (PEFoFs) (10 per cent and USD342bn), funds of hedge funds (FoHFs) (5
A recent survey of more than 290 investment professionals by the CFA Society of the UK (CFA UK), found most respondents (60 per cent) believe that financial reports contain too much irrelevant information, while 55 per cent feel they omit important information.
However, most (71 per cent) agreed that the quality of financial reporting has improved over the last 10 years.
The frequency of reporting has become an issue of debate with many (including John Kay) arguing that quarterly reporting drives short-termism. Our survey respondents were evenly split between those who favoured quarterly reporting and those happy with just
The Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) is to launch two RMB FX futures contracts, the USD/CNT FX futures (RTF) and the USD/CNH FX futures (RHF) on 20 July, 2015.
RTF and RHF are with contract sizes of USD 20,000 and USD 100,000 respectively. Trading hours for both contracts will be from 8:45am to 4:15pm to cover the trading hours of Taiwanese interbank spot FX market.
In addition, TAIFEX launched two new ETF Futures associated with China’s stock indices (FTSE China A50 Index and SZSE 100 Index) on 8 July, 2015. They added to TAIFEX current ETF Futures suite, and made it
La Française Inflection Point (LFIP) has launched an innovative, climate-themed global equities fund, just six months ahead of a pivotal United Nations climate change summit to be convened in the French capital.
La Française Lux-Inflection Point Zero Carbon (ZC), a long only Luxembourg SICAV sub-fund, was launched in mid-June with EUR25 million in seed capital provided by La Française.
Working with Paris head-quartered La Française, a multi-class asset manager with over EUR50 billion in assets under management, IPCM provided the in-depth carbon finance research underpinning the ZC fund, which is managed by LFIP. LFIP is now running close to
