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Infinity Capital Partners has partnered with Vivaldi Asset Management to offer a registered multi-strategy investment fund with a minimum investment of USD25,000 that invests in leading hedge funds.
Infinity Core Alternative Fund (ZVAMIX), a closed-end interval fund of funds, was launched on 1 April 2014 and has assets of USD25 million.
Vivaldi Asset Management, a SEC Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) providing alternative investment solutions to independent RIAs and financial intermediaries, is the investment advisor. Infinity Capital Advisors, a division of Infinity Capital Partners, an independent, privately-owned fund of hedge funds manager, is the sub-advisor.
The fund is available
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has approved the launch of stock options on the shares of two additional companies, Bezeq and Perrigo.
The trading of these new options will commence on 28 August 2014.
The launch of the new options follows requests made by market players, and enables investors to trade derivatives on telecom shares, an industry not currently represented in the stock option market. In the coming period TASE plans to undertake measures which will facilitate the launch of stock options on all TA-25 index constituents.
This year TASE celebrates the five-year anniversary of stock options
J Christopher Giancarlo has been officially sworn in as a commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Giancarlo joins the CFTC from the GFI Group, an interdealer broker based in New York, where he was executive vice president.
Giancarlo joined GFI in 2001 as part of the acquisition of FENICS, where he structured strategic alliances with major investment banks.
Prior to joining FENICS, he was a partner in the New York law firm Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner, where he practiced corporate and securities law.
Giancarlo is a retired board member and former chairman
BNY Mellon’s dedicated managed accounts provider, HedgeMark, has added three new senior executives.
Bill Santos is global head of business development, responsible for global business development, marketing, and relationship management.
Maxine Alexis, head of the legal consulting group, will oversee all legal matters relating to the structuring and operation of HedgeMark’s Dedicated Managed Account (DMA) solution.
Neil Novembre, head of fund accounting, will oversee fund accounting operations for DMA.


In February, BNY Mellon announced an agreement to acquire its remaining ownership interest in HedgeMark. The deal was completed in early May.


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The Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index finished up 1.13 per cent for the month of May with seven of the ten sub-strategies recording positive returns.
Managed futures led the way with a return of 3.09 per cent followed by emerging markets (1.35 per cent and global macro (1.08 per cent).
The month’s biggest loser was dedicated short bias, which finished the month down 1.10 per cent, while the other two sub-strategies to end May in negative territory were convertible arbitrage and equity market neutral with reruns of -0.52 per cent and -0.27 per cent respectively.
Hedge fund managers refusing to provide transparency is the single greatest reason for an investor veto, according to Deutsche Bank’s Global Prime Finance group’s third annual Operational Due Diligence Survey.
The survey, which polled investors globally representing over USD2.72trn of assets, shows the five most frequently cited red flags are an unwillingness to provide transparency, inadequate compliance policies, poor segregation of duties, lack of experience in critical roles and inappropriate valuation policies.
Investors and regulators require more robust operating infrastructure across all levels of a hedge fund’s business. Emerging managers in particular are more likely to provide greater transparency.
The Hedge Fund Association (HFA) has appointed Mark McGoldrick, managing director of Concept Capital Markets, and Greg de Spoelberch, director of marketing and operations at Opalesque, as the New York Chapter's regional co-directors.
McGoldrick and de Spoelberch will lead HFA in the region and help produce member educational programs and events. They will serve alongside McGladrey Partner Sal Shah, regional director for both the HFA’s Northeast Chapter and Connecticut Chapter.
McGoldrick has been a managing director at Concept Capital Markets since August 2011 following the firm's acquisition of Alaris Trading Partners, an introducing brokerage he founded in February 2006.
An EDHEC-Risk Institute study from the Lyxor research chair on “Risk Allocation Solutions” develops a conditional approach to risk parity, which contrasts with standard unconditional risk parity portfolios.
According to the paper, “Towards Conditional Risk Parity – Improving Risk Budgeting Techniques in Changing Economic Environments”, it has become increasingly apparent that a portfolio that seems to be well-balanced in terms of dollar contributions can be extremely concentrated in terms of risk contributions because of differences in volatility and pairwise correlation levels amongst the constituents.
Risk parity has become an increasingly popular risk management methodology within and across asset classes.
By Olivier Sciales, Chevalier & Sciales – The approval of the UCITS V directive by the European Parliament shortly before its dissolution for elections last month has ensured that the latest iteration of the European legislative framework for the cross-border marketing and distribution of retail investment funds will not be held hostage to second thoughts by the new membership of the assembly.
The directive approved by the parliament in plenary session on April 15 is relatively limited in scope, covering depositary functions, remuneration policies and sanctions. More fundamental changes may come in the future from what will become UCITS VI.
Companies such as Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank and Nigerian Breweries have put Nigeria at the forefront of frontier market opportunities, according to Baring Asset Management.
Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, recently rebased its GDP upwards to USD500 billion for 2013, ranking the country as the 26th largest economy in the world1, and the forthcoming general elections in 2015 could provide further opportunities for investors in a country undergoing significant reforms.
Nigeria represents 13.2 per cent of the Baring Frontier Markets Fund, the largest single country holding, followed by Saudi Arabia (9.7 per cent), Kuwait (9.6 per cent) and the
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