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Cantor Fitzgerald has strengthened its prime services business with the additions of Paul Mandile, David Sklar and Robert Marietta.
Mandile will serve as managing director of outsourced trading, Sklar will serve as senior vice president focused on electronic trading sales and Marietta will serve as director in the firm's client service team.
"The expansion of our prime services business has been a key focus for us. Hiring seasoned professionals like Paul, David and Robert, with deep market knowledge and extensive relationships, underscores our dedication to providing top notch client service and expanding our market franchise," says Shawn P
Gottex Fund Management is to concentrate on alternative solutions, multi-asset and Asian-focused asset management following the completion of its merger with EIM Group.
The merger, which is expected to complete soon, is subject to approval from the Swiss regulator FINMA.
The combined firm will have more than USD8.5 billion in fee earning assets.
The firm aims to grow its asset base to USD15 billion over the next three to five years.
The combined firm’s investment team to increase by 16 professionals to a total of 51 located across four continents.
The merged company to focus on
Schroders Multi-Asset Investments and Portfolio Solutions (MAPS), led by Nico Marais, is collaborating with Professor Tony Constantinides, director of the newly created Imperial College Financial Signal Processing Laboratory (FSP).
Schroders will spearhead an initial 12 month project, which is facilitated by Imperial’s consultancy company, Imperial Consultants.
FSP was created in 2014 with a vision of bringing professionals from academia and industry together to promote research in quantitative finance using engineering tools, with a special focus on signal processing and optimisation techniques.
Specifically working with MAPS, Professor Constantinides and his colleagues will advise on the current state of
A large number of businesses in the financial services sector are putting their IT systems and data at risk by failing to adopt good cloud computing practices, according to research from NCC Group.
NCC Group surveyed chief investment officers from financial services companies with over 1,000 employees, and found that less than half of those surveyed carry out third party audits of prospective cloud providers prior to engagement, and over 60 per cent do not have any contractual protection in place if their cloud provider fails.
Cloud adoption in the sector is gaining momentum, with a massive 80 per
British hedge fund manager Man Group is to acquire Numeric Holdings, a privately-owned, Boston-based quantitative equity manager with USD14.7 billion of funds under management as at 31 May 2014.
Man will pay USD219 million in cash to acquire Numeric, with up to USD275 million of further consideration payable to a broad group of the Numeric management team and employees following the fifth anniversary of completion under an option arrangement, dependent on the run rate profitability of the business.
The regulatory capital usage associated with the acquisition is expected to be approximately USD325 million.
Founded in 1989, Numeric has
For the past 20 years or more the growth of the UCITS brand has been an unrivalled success: total assets are now an eye popping EUR7.1tn. Alongside this growth Europe has seen the emergence of management companies to handle the critical functions that a regulated UCITS fund entails – risk management, reporting, governance and distribution.
With the introduction of AIFMD in Europe (the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive), a new management company has emerged: the Super Management Company (‘Super ManCo’).
“The Super Management Company allows investment managers to consolidate their operations into one entity for both UCITS funds and AIFMD-compliant
DMS Offshore Investment Services identified the need to create an AIFMD solution for its clients three years ago when it opened its Dublin office. It was one of the first firms to establish an authorised Alternative Investment Fund Management Company in both Ireland and Luxembourg.
DMS boasts a 21-person team focusing on AIFMD and as Derek Delaney (pictured), Managing Director of DMS Offshore Investment Services (Europe) Limited comments: “DMS were cognisant of the fact that its Cayman client funds were going to encounter significant fund governance challenges when dealing with AIFMD. As directors of these funds, we’ve been proactively engaging
“Our AIFMD solution will be an infrastructure platform with distribution support but it absolutely won’t be an active distribution model; that’s a key differentiator for us,” Gavin Byrnes (pictured), Head of Business Development UK, UBS Fund Services, states emphatically.
UBS Fund Services is looking to roll out its AIFMD fund platform towards the end of Q4 2014. It will be domiciled in Dublin and will act as the AIFM for non-EU managers (particularly U.S. managers) in a similar way to how UCITS platforms operate today. “UBS will act as the administrator and custodian to the AIF but it will be
Regardless of whether a hedge fund manager has an AIF, a UCITS fund, or one of each, the end objective is the same: to improve their capital raising opportunities in Europe.
This is all well and good, but for non-EU managers in particular, there are significant costs and operational challenges to launching additional fund products; indeed, it is one of the key reasons why some of the large banking platforms like Deutsche Bank’s db Platinum platform and Morgan Stanley’s FundLogic Alternatives platform for alternative UCITS funds have grown so fast in the last few years. These platforms take the burden
“The issue is one of insourcing versus outsourcing,” says Alan Picone (pictured), Managing Director at Kinetic Partners (Luxembourg), when discussing which operational model to pursue under AIFMD.
Making the plunge to become an independent AIFM is a big ask for most managers, both in terms of time and capital resources. It also depends on where the manager is located and how committed they are to capital raising in Europe.
According to Picone, there are a couple of key qualitative and quantitative considerations that hedge fund managers should bear in mind. On the qualitative side, Picone notes, “By appointing an
