When it comes to representing the offshore hedge fund industry, the Cayman Islands remains the clear choice among practitioners and fund managers of all varieties. Its funds industry continues to do well. In 2013, for example, Cayman recorded a historical high of 11,379 funds.  Crucially, despite fears over regulation in markets such as Europe such as AIFMD, and what impact this could have on offshore markets, last year the jurisdiction closed the year with 11,010 funds which still represented one of the highest year-end numbers historically. “We expect that in tandem with the current growth of the global hedge funds

As Asia’s only full service prime broker, Nomura is well positioned to provide access to this region. However, with more than 65 per cent of its wholesale revenues generated outside Japan in 2013/14, Nomura has a comprehensive global offering.  “Our capital introduction service provides clients with unparalleled access to Japanese institutional and retail investors via our dedicated local team. As well as extensive relationships with active asset allocators in Asia, the team runs highly-regarded flagship events across the region and globally,” says Ben Challice (pictured), Global Head of Prime Finance.  “We can also leverage our strength in Japan and Asia

At New York-headquartered Prosek, the tag line is to “unbox communications” and deliver unique, unconventional strategies for financial firms. At the helm is Managing Partner and CEO Jennifer Prosek (pictured), who built Prosek from a small Connecticut PR company to an international communications consultancy with offices in London and a number of key partnerships with agencies in Asia and South America.  Over the years, Prosek has developed a wide range of financial communications strategies for firms ranging from Franklin Templeton to Aberdeen Asset Management. More recently, Prosek made a commitment to the hedge fund sector as managers started to care

ConceptONE LLC specialises in regulatory and risk reporting, an area of expertise that is fast gaining prominence as alternative fund managers begin to comprehend the enormity of regulatory compliance. ConceptONE’s Risk and Regulatory Reporting Services provide comprehensive support to managers who need deep analytics either on individual portfolios or at the enterprise level. The reports cover all aspects of risk and regulatory reporting, from market risk, credit risk, counterparty risk through to operational risk. ConceptONE’s real-time portfolio and risk management system, enables managers to monitor parameters such as real-time P&L, liquidity exposures, limit monitoring, in addition to supporting stress testing

For the fifth consecutive year, the Best North American Accounting Firm is Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. With a staff of more than 350 and numerous specialised industry and service teams, Anchin is a full-service accounting, tax and advisory firm that provides investment companies, privately-held businesses, and high net worth individuals with a wide range of traditional and non-traditional services.  Start-up funds remain a key area of focus says Jeffrey Rosenthal (pictured), CPA, Partner- in-Charge of Anchin’s Financial Services Group. New managers are finding it hard to reach critical mass and raise capital. Part of this is failing to stand

2014 was a busy year for Cordium, not least because of the uncertainty that arose around the implementation of the AIFM Directive. Originally, the FCA had set the registration deadline for UK AIFMs to be 22 January, before eventually accepting HM Treasury’s interpretation of the law and setting 21 July 2014 as the final filing deadline. As Stephen Burke (pictured), Managing Director, EMEA, reflects: “Our clients were continuing to look at what the deadlines were, what they needed to do and by when. It was a significant issue for them.”  On top of this, managers also needed to start reporting

TradingScreen is a leading provider of electronic trading solutions. Through the innovative use of technology, TradingScreen delivers a proven execution management platform and a global network to access any market, any counterparty and trade any financial instrument, from anywhere. TradingScreen is the largest EMS and growing OMS for the buy side. It has also launched TradePlus, a leading OMS for the sell side, and is now offering a full-fledged exchange platform for new market segments to exchanges, sell side firms, buy side firms and consortiums that want to create liquidity pools.  Last year, Singapore Exchange (SGX) selected TradingScreen to create the

Pacific Fund Systems (PFS) is a global leader in supporting investment fund accounting and administration through its integrated share registry/fund accounting platform, PFS-PAXUS and its real-time web portal, PFS-CONNECT. Rather than having an administrator rely on multiple systems, PFS-PAXUS delivers true integration using a single database infrastructure to deliver greater workflow efficiencies, reduced risk, and more timely valuations. The PFS-PAXUS platform is continually evolving with PFS releasing two major system upgrades per annum. In 2014 both upgrades contained significant new regulatory-related functionality including the full automation in the system for AIFMD Annex IV and FATCA reporting. In terms of supporting

ASPN Solutions (The Alternative Share Private Network “ASPN”) is a comprehensive front, middle, and back office solution designed to empower institutional investors to build, execute and monitor multi-manager hedge fund portfolios. Developed within Protégé Partners, a FoHF manager that invests in emerging managers and seeds new managers, and the same team that built Altvest, the first internet hedge fund database, ASPN is the first end-to-end solution that can run on any device or operating system. Dr Ken Akoundi (pictured), one of the founders of RiskMetrics and most recently the Global Markets head of the McKinsey spinoff, Opera Solutions, joined ASPN