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European investors have continued as active participants in US-listed equity options markets with directional and volatility strategies seeing significant growth in 2013.
According to research from TABB Group – “European Trading of US Listed Options 2014: Shifting Demand in a Changing Market Landscape,” – European investors are using US options for a diverse set of strategies including overwriting programmes on underlying US equity assets, hedging of international equity portfolios and as part of directional strategies around corporate events.
“A broad range of European investors are actively trading in US options markets as deep liquidity and transparency coupled with ease
Vistra, a provider of corporate, trust and fund administration services, has launched Vistra Trust (BVI) Limited to meet the growing demand for British Virgin Islands trust services.
Simon Filmer will lead the BVI operation as managing director. He has over 14 years’ experience in the fiduciary services industry, with a focus on corporate business, trusts and investment business.
Vistra BVI services include the establishment of a broad range of BVI trust and corporate structures; trustee, protector and full administration services, as well as the provision of corporate director and nominee shareholder services.
Filmer says: “Being granted a Class II
Asia-focused hedge funds added USD20 billion in assets in 2013, American funds dominate global AUM, according to a survey from tracker AsiaHedge.
The industry still remains about USD33 billion below its peak asset level hit in 2007, but the twice-a-year survey shows that investors are starting to return, reports Reuters.
"This dispels the notion that Asian hedge funds have fallen off the radar for global allocators," said Aradhna Dayal, head of Asia for HedgeFund Intelligence, which runs AsiaHedge.
"We have seen assets in some of the large, home-grown managers swell considerably last year," she added.
A 13.6 per cent median return
As part of an initiative to support the dematerialisation of securities of all types, LuxCSD is cutting fees for equities by 60 per cent from 1 April 2014.
This fee reduction results in an alignment of the equity and bond custody fees.
The aim is to encourage corporations to dematerialise existing physical securities and to newly issue securities in dematerialised form. Custody of equities in dematerialised form significantly reduces inefficiencies, risks and costs for the industry and increase the level of transparency regarding the chain of holders of a Luxembourg security.
In March 2014, LuxCSD handled its first
Deutsche Börse Market Data + Services has launched Eurex Order by Order, a new information product that makes available the entire Eurex order book for benchmark futures for the first time.
“Eurex Order by Order provides customers the most granular trade and order data possible for Eurex’s benchmark contracts. This complete transparency benefits institutional investors who rely on enhanced market information to execute trades,” says Georg Gross, head of content, front office data + services, Deutsche Börse. 


Data is available for 150 instruments across the equity index, interest rate, agriculture, property and volatility derivatives segments. Examples include futures on
Derivatives collateral management cloud technology provider CloudMargin has connected with TriOptima’s triResolve reconciliation service to facilitate OTC portfolio reconciliations.
CloudMargin collates, normalises, enhances and enriches data from a variety of sources and a variety of formats to submit data to triResolve in a timely fashion at minimal cost for clients.
“Clients are increasingly looking for state of the art collateral management systems that can simultaneously help them to comply with their obligations under Dodd-Frank or EMIR, whether that’s reconciling their portfolios, transmitting trade data to repositories, or connecting to clearing brokers,” says Stuart McHardy, managing director of product development and COO
Corporate credit specialist fund manager Muzinich & Co has continued to grow its UK presence with the appointment of a new sales manager, James Tomlinson.
Tomlinson, who joins from Schroders, will be responsible for managing relationships with existing Muzinich clients and for new business development.
Joshua Hughes, Muzinich director of institutional sales, says: “James comes to us with an extremely strong record of developing and maintaining relationships with investors seeking high quality investment solutions. We have been growing our UK sales and marketing efforts over the past few years and James’s appointment is part of that continuing process.”
Context Asset Management has launched the Context Alternative Strategies Fund (CALTX), a multi-manager, multi-strategy fund that seeks to deliver capital appreciation by emphasising absolute returns and low correlation to the broader US equity and bond markets.
The Context Alternative Strategies Fund pursues its objective by using various investment strategies and allocating its assets among multiple sub-advisors who employ a variety of investment strategies in pursuit of attractive returns consistent with capital appreciation.
Context selects and oversees the sub-advisors who each manage separate segments of the fund’s portfolio using distinct investment styles.
The investment strategies allow Context and the
Many investment managers are still coming to grips with the related operational, staffing, and budgetary requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), according to a paper by SEI.
The initial Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) registration deadline is just one month away.
The paper, “As FATCA Deadlines Loom, What Managers Need to Know,” is based on a survey of C-level executives of investment management firms.
According to the results, many investment managers are unaware of critical deadlines and the associated costs to meet them.
More than a third of respondents say they have either not yet
Wilshire Funds Management has chosen InfraHedge to provide an operational and risk solution for the Wilshire managed account platform.
Wilshire has been advising clients on absolute return strategies since the early 1990s and was an early adopter of separately managed accounts for hedge fund investments.
As the managed account market has evolved, Wilshire has refined its platform and selected InfraHedge to provide the next generation of operational and risk infrastructure including daily position-level risk reporting.
“Our managed account platform is an important differentiator as we continue to expand our presence as a premier provider of hedge fund advisory
