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The vote by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on 27 November 2014 to not reduce oil production levels was widely publicized and had a significant effect on managed futures and CTAs throughout Q4 2014, particularly on funds with a focus on trading oil. Throughout this period, the Brent Crude Oil price index fell by nearly 40%, from $94.80 at the close of September to $57.55 on 31 December. It is clear that the volatility of this commodity provided opportunities for funds implementing short strategies but exposed those unable to navigate the market.
As the chart below illustrates,
Lionpoint Group has launched a new service to help alternative investments clients address manager and investor requirements for greater transparency of underlying portfolio companies and investment holdings.
Primary services include process optimisation, operational efficiency improvements and the implementation of enabling technologies to support the collection, validation, normalisation, performance reporting and analytics associated with underlying holdings in Private Capital, with a focus on Private Equity, Real Estate and Infrastructure. Offerings also include support with risk and compliance monitoring as well as Portfolio Company and underlying investment valuations.
While remaining product agnostic, the Lionpoint Group team has solution expertise with products including AssetEye,
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) Global Markets Entity Identifier (GMEI) utility, offered in collaboration with SWIFT, has issued over 165,000 legal entity identifiers (LEIs) to entities from over 140 jurisdictions, representing approximately 50% share of the LEIs issued worldwide.
With this progress, DTCC and SWIFT have played a significant role in the growth of the Global LEI System (GLEIS) and are key partners with the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF), which was created last year to help manage the overall system.
The GMEI utility is expected to continue to grow in the coming years as regulators increasingly mandate
Candriam Investors Group, the pan-European multi-asset manager, has appointment Matthieu David as Head of Candriam Investors Group Italy.
David will report directly to Renato Guerriero, Global Head of European Client Relations, who recently was appointed Member of the Executive Committee.
David will be responsible for Candriam’s business development strategy in Italy in order to leverage Candriam’s proprietary platform and investment expertise. In addition to consolidating Candriam’s presence in the pension fund and institutional mandates sector, Matthieu David will lead the company’s growth in asset management and distribution. David leads a team of four sales managers and will coordinate local
Man GLG, the discretionary investment management business of Man Group (Man), has appointed Himanshu Gulati as Head of US Distressed Credit, based in New York.
Gulati, who joins from Perry Capital, the US hedge fund business, will manage a new distressed investment strategy which Man GLG plans to launch later this year.
Gulati, a specialist in distressed and special situations investing, joins Man GLG after almost nine years at Perry Capital where he was a Managing Partner responsible for Distressed Credit and Special Situations investments. Prior to Perry Capital, Gulati worked at Rockview Capital, a credit focused fund. In
Armstrong Investment Managers (AIM) has appointed Cenk Aydin as Managing Director for MENA to expand AIM’s international network into Turkey and the Middle East.
Cenk, who is British-Turkish joins AIM from JP Morgan where he was Head of Corporate Segment for Europe, Middle East and Africa. He previously worked as Chief Operating Officer for the Global Transaction Services Business of Bank of America EMEA. Over the course of his career he has undersigned major deals totalling up to USD100bn.
Cenk currently serves on President's Advisory Group of the EastWest Institute, a New York based think-tank and is Vice Chairman of
Digital Vega, provider of the award-winning Medusa multi-dealer FX Option platform, saw year-on-year growth of over 160% in 2014 with daily trading volumes breaking all previous records.
Mark Suter, Executive Chairman, says: “We were really pleased with last year’s progress and we remain very optimistic for 2015 given the continued pick up in volumes; we have always been at the forefront of what was a fledgling market, and based on last year’s strong performance, we have proven the model conclusively and have achieved critical mass both in terms of available liquidity and client adoption. We feel that this is further
BGC Partners has launched BGC Trader for Yen Interest Rate Swaps (IRS). BGC is the first interdealer broker to launch a fully electronic platform for the Yen IRS market.
This new market offering utilises BGC Trader, BGC's proprietary multi-asset, integrated voice and electronic price execution platform. By leveraging BGC's existing global technology and applying it to this market, BGC has become the first interdealer broker to introduce rapid and efficient price discovery, order management and execution for customers seeking access to the Yen IRS market. BGC has electronically executed Yen IRS trades with a variety of domestic and international banks
Morgan Stanley has launched a new fund, the MS Tremblant Long/Short Equity UCITS Fund under its FundLogic Alternatives Plc umbrella.
The fund provides exposure to Tremblant’s Long/Short Equity Strategy (the Strategy), which employs a fundamental and research driven approach. The Strategy aims to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns by identifying potential investments trading at material dislocation from fair value across sectors and regions. The FundLogic Alternatives Platform currently has more than USD2.4bn in assets under management, as of 31 December 2014, and this latest addition expands Morgan Stanley’s offering of Long/Short Equity strategies.
“We are delighted to announce the launch of
After a strong start to the year, hedge funds paused for breath in early February, with the Lyxor Hedge Fund index falling 0.4% for the week. Trend reversals in oil prices (up 15% during the period) and in the USD (dollar index down 0.5%) were the principal causes. Almost all strategies ended the week in negative territory. But while many CTA and commodity managers were still short energy and subsequently witnessed losses, some Global Macro managers and shorter-term CTAs were on the long side of the spectrum (see page 3).
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