2014 was a great year for ML Capital. Following a period of successful asset raising and a number of fund launches, firm-wide assets broke through the USD1bn barrier to reach USD1.2bn. The distribution and European-regulated fund structuring specialist has achieved more than 100 per cent growth every year since it was established in 2009.  In 2013, ML Capital initiated the successful relocation of its headquarters to Dublin and invited the Smurfit family to partner with the business – supporting the future growth of the firm. Having launched the MontLake UCITS Platform in Ireland 5 years ago, Dublin was a logical

2014 was a big year for New York-based HedgeMark International, LLC. On May 1, 2014 the firm became a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNY Mellon.  “A key part of our strategy, which dovetails well with HedgeMark’s acquisition by BNY Mellon, has been to focus exclusively on supporting institutional clients in the development and operations of their own dedicated, private managed account platforms. Our approach is resonating well in the marketplace among some of the largest institutional hedge fund investors who are increasingly looking for more tailored investment solutions and wish to move their assets into managed accounts,” comments Andrew Lapkin (pictured), CEO,

By Marianne Scordel – When we wrote about the European hedge fund industry a year ago, we described several long-term trends that had emerged recently and were contributing to the re

Multi-award-winning hedge fund administrator Opus Fund Services was established in Bermuda in 2006, subsequently expanding its footprint into the US with offices in Chicago (2008), San Francisco (2009), New York (2013) and most recently Portland (2014). It serves over 200 fund managers and 300+ funds with a combined AUM exceeding USD10bn. The service model offered by Opus is based on complexity made simple: ONE platform, ONE process, ONE price, ONE solution.  This is serving Opus well. According to Jorge Hendrickson (pictured), Director of Sales and Business Development, 2014 was a strong year in terms of onboarding with 154 new clients

Sadis & Goldberg LLP is one of New York’s leading financial services-focused law firms. The Financial Services Group is headed up by partner Ron Geffner (pictured) and consists of a team of 13 seasoned legal professionals. They routinely handle a diverse range of enquiries providing legal counsel to several hundred investment advisers, broker-dealers and commodity pool operators running hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds and separately managed accounts.  Reflecting on 2014, Geffner says that the matters undertaken in the Financial Services Group were more complex in nature when compared to prior years. “We believe this a direct result of

State Street’s liquid alternatives financing and servicing capability is well positioned to support asset managers, both traditional and alternative, who are looking to diversify their product range. It has built a state-of-the-art global platform that provides fully integrated reporting, compliance, accounting, custody, settlements and investment analytics.  “Our perspective is that the liquid alternatives opportunity is huge, both for our clients and ourselves. Assets are now over USD700bn, asset levels have doubled over the last five years and projections are that liquid alternatives could become 10 to 15 per cent of total global mutual fund assets.  “Strategically, our goal is to

Celebrating its 150th year anniversary in 2014, Société Générale took the decision in May 2014 to buy out Credit Agricole’s 50 per cent stake in Newedge, a leading Prime Broker in Equities, Fixed Income, Listed and OTC Products. Newedge is now able to leverage the strengths of Société Générale and operate as a full-scale prime services business under the new moniker, Société Générale Prime Services.  “It’s about leveraging the strength of the investment bank with the multi-asset class, multi-instrument prime brokerage model we’ve built here,” says James Shekerdemian (pictured), Global Head of Prime Brokerage Sales at Société Générale Prime Services.

2014 was another encouraging year at Concept Capital Markets LLC, one of North America’s leading introducing brokers.

The Lyxor Epsilon Managed Futures Fund first launched back in 1997. It was only in 2011, as demand for UCITS-compliant alternative fund strategies started to grow in Europe, that Lyxor then decided to launch a regulated version of the flagship.  The Lyxor Epsilon Global Trend Fund is a daily liquidity UCITS IV-compliant fund. Both strategies are medium to long-term trend followers and between them total aggregate AUM is approximately USD300m (including managed account mandates). The UCITS fund currently has net assets of around USD60m.  Since inception, the Lyxor Epsilon Global Trend Fund has generated annualised returns of 4.70 per cent