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Maples Fund Services has opened an office in Boston, expanding its North American presence.
Boston will be a full-service office that will cater to both US domestic and offshore funds looking to be serviced by a Maples Fund Services team physically present in the US.
The office will give the firm access to a tight-knit community of hedge fund, fund of hedge fund, and private equity managers, located in Boston, and it also improves its ability to be closer and more accessible to clients and their investors across the US market.
“On the back of our recent strategic
The hedge fund industry redeemed USD40 million in July, the first monthly outflow of the year, after taking in USD5.1 billion (0.2 per cent of assets) in June, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research.
“While hedge fund flows were essentially flat in July, inflows in the first seven months of the year totalled USD80.1 billion, the highest inflows from January through July since 2007,” says Sol Waksman, president and founder of BarclayHedge.
The industry took in USD35.0 billion in the same period in 2013.
Industry assets rose to a six-year high of USD2.33 trillion in July, according
BGC Partners intends to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of GFI Group for USD5.25 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately USD675 million.
BGC currently owns approximately 13.5 per cent of GFI Group's common stock.
BGC'S offer of USD5.25 per share in cash represents more than a 15 per cent premium to the USD4.55 per share all-stock transaction announced by CME Group and GFI Group on 30 July 2014 and more than a 68 per cent premium to the price of GFI Group shares on 29 July, the last day
The US CFTC’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) has issued a no-action letter for commodity pool operators (CPOs) that are non-registered investment companies that use wholly-owned trading subsidiaries to trade commodity interests.
In the letter, DSIO does not recommend that the Commission take an enforcement action against a CPO for failure to provide the following:
A separate annual report for a parent pool’s trading subsidiary to the National Futures Association (NFA) pursuant to Commission regulation 4.7(b) or 4.22(c), as applicable; and

A separate CPO-PQR report for a parent pool’s trading subsidiary to NFA pursuant to Commission
Fixed income asset administrative and middle-office services and data provider Virtus Partners is teaming up with VPM, SunGard’s asset management business, to offer an integrated bank debt service.
Scott Alintoff, chief operating officer of VPM, says: “An end-to-end loan administration, accounting and reporting solution for bank debt management is key to overcoming the bank debt complexity hurdle.”
The new offering is designed to increase operational efficiency by reducing manual input and streamline operationally onerous bank loan processing.
Virtus’s global load data feed will fully integrate with VPM.
Edward Metz, chief strategy officer, Virtus Partners, says: “At Virtus,
Overall agriculture producer confidence has fallen considerably since March following significant drops in commodity prices and in anticipation of record corn and soybean harvests this fall.
That is according to the latest DTN/The Progressive Farmer (DTN/PF) Agriculture and Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI).
Producers’ overall confidence dropped from 106.9 in March to 99.8, marking the first time that overall confidence value has fallen below 100 since DTNPF began the ACI survey in April 2010. The value of 100 is considered neutral. Values above 100 indicate optimism, whereas values below signify pessimism.
The confidence index, which surveyed 500 producers 13-22
The percentage of participating investors allocating liquid alternative investments rose from 28 per cent to 51 per cent year-on-year, according to a study by Deutsche Bank.
The study – From Alternatives to Mainstream (Part Two) – saw almost three quarters of alternative UCITS investors and nearly two thirds of investors into alternative ‘40 Act mutual funds planning to increase their allocations.
Liquid alternative investments are now the fastest growing part of the asset management industry. Alternative UCITS assets have grown over 40 per cent annually since 2008, whilst the hedge fund industry has grown 13 per cent and the
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged a Minneapolis-based hedge fund manager, his investment advisory firm and an accomplice with bilking investors in two hedge funds out of more than USD1m.
The SEC alleges that as the management fees earned by Archer Advisors LLC were shrinking due to the funds’ worsening performance, the firm’s owner Steven R Markusen and an employee Jay C Cope implemented a scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of investors in the funds.
Markusen routinely caused the funds to reimburse Archer for fake research expenses, and he eventually routed much of that money
With increasing investor appetite for private real estate resulting in improved fundraising, Preqin compares fund managers’ and investors’ views on current market conditions.
Investor Appetite
Recent years have seen institutional investor appetite for private real estate investment fluctuate, with many remaining cautious of placing new capital in the asset class due to an uncertain market. However, the last 12 months have seen considerable improvements in private real estate fundraising, with a total of $43bn raised from funds reaching a final close in H1 2014, a 30% increase from the $33bn raised by funds closed in H1 2013. This improvement has
Hedge fund advisory firm Gallatin Advisers has changed its name to PivotalPath (Americas) LLC and appointed Jonathan Caplis as its chief operating officer.
The firm says the PivotalPath brand better reflects the growth and institutionalism of its business.
Caplis will spearhead the further development of innovative solutions, providing clients the decision advantage they need to confidently navigate the often opaque hedge fund arena.
“We are extremely pleased to appoint Jon as COO to deliver on our mission to provide independent, informative, and cost-effective hedge fund research to our expanding client base,” says Viktor Ula, CEO of PivotalPath.
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