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New regulatory requirements are improving the quality of the European market for asset-backed securities, according to Swiss & Global.
Current new issues are being structured more conservatively, for example, issuers must now hold a minimum percentage of their securitised assets on their own balance sheet for the entire term, and they must ensure greater transparency.
Since the financial crisis investors also have become more sophisticated, analysing transactions more rigorously rather than relying on ratings agencies only. This has led to a reduced number of debt-financed market participants, such as banks, in the ABS market.


Demand among institutional
Altin, the USD230m multi-strategy fund of hedge funds listed on the London and Swiss stock exchanges, has disclosed its entire hedge fund portfolio holdings as part of its policy of transparency to investors.
The portfolio, featuring more than 40 underlying hedge funds and representing over 10 investment strategies, is well diversified and has a NAV performance of +191.36 per cent since its inception in December 1996.
A number of hedge funds were added to the Altin portfolio in the last quarter of 2013 as follows.
In the global macro strategy there were three additions: ABD Managers plc – Tactical
James Oussedik has joined Sidley Austin’s London office as counsel.
He will be a senior member of the firm’s investment funds practice, which is dedicated to structuring and advising investment funds and advisers.
Oussedik’s appointment follows that of Stephen Ross, who joined Sidley’s investment funds practice as partner earlier this year and heads Sidley’s London investment funds group.
Oussedik has significant experience in advising fund sponsors on the establishment and maintenance of investment funds and managed accounts, as well as in advising institutional investors in relation to proposed investments. He has represented a broad range of investment fund
UBS Fund Services has signed agreements with SunGard and HazelTree to offer UBS Frontier Platform – a front and middle office solution.
Developed in conjunction with SunGard’s Hedge 360 and HazelTree, UBS Frontier Platform will be offered in the Americas, APAC and Europe to enhance UBS Fund Services’ product suite.
This provides extended portfolio management, real-time P&L, desk level risk, treasury cash and collateral management solutions, trade administration, data management, pricing and reporting either as a software solution or as a managed service.
Michael Rucci, head of UBS Fund Services, Americas, says: “Working with SunGard and HazelTree will
As the initial problems of ‘Obamacare’ are ironed out, Simon Laing, Head of US Equities at Invesco Perpetual, looks at the effect this may have on the US healthcare sector in 2014…
Obamacare is the informal name that has been given to the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act that was signed into law in 2010. Its major initiative of providing affordable health insurance to all US citizens started rolling out in 2013. But it’s been an inauspicious start with its well-publicised website enrolment problems, preventing most people from taking out coverage.
President Obama has had to enact several
By James Williams – Irish law firm Matheson has provided an update from its London office on the introduction of a new corporate vehicle for Irish funds – the Irish Collective Asset Management Vehicle (ICAV).
The ICAV is set to give managers another option in addition to the public limited company (plc) that has, to date, been the most popular vehicle for Irish collective investment funds.
The General Scheme of the ICAV Bill was approved for legal drafting by the Irish Government on 17 December 2013. Matheson notes that it is “anticipated that the ICAV will become the vehicle
Fewer than 20 per cent of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMSs) have submitted an application to their local regulator for Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) authorisation.
That’s the finding of new research from BNY Mellon, which comes just six months before full implementation of the directive.
Given that securing authorisation typically takes a number of months, bottlenecks and delays are now likely to develop, putting even greater pressure on AIFMs, depositaries and services providers as they seek to implement the necessary changes in time for July’s deadline.
In a similar survey conducted by BNY Mellon in July
KNEIP has been appointed by Oppenheim Asset Management Services (OPAM) to carry out transparency reporting under the Alternative Investment Fund Management Directive (AIFMD).
OPAM will be making use of KNEIP’s Fund Reporting service for aggregating and submitting information to regulators.
OPAM has one alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) and 64 alternative investment funds (AIFs) for which KNEIP will be creating an AIFMD report.
OPAM has been an officially authorised AIFM since 12 September 2013 and is now one out of only a handful of AIFMD-compliant companies in Luxembourg.
Bob Kneip, chief executive of KNEIP, says: “AIFMD represents
More than 120 buy-side firms signed with EurexOTC Clear, Eurex Clearing’s central counterparty service for Interest Rate Swap (IRS), by the end of 2013.
In addition, a total of 32 clearing members including all major global sell-side banks are connected.
Further clearing members are in the admission process, ensuring broad market support among sell- and buy-side firms for EurexOTC Clear.
“We are very pleased about the strong market interest to join our service well ahead of the clearing mandate in Europe. This proves Eurex Clearing’s appealing proposition to our customers, especially to buy-side firms across Europe. By joining
Oaktree Capital Group and its subsidiaries have priced Oaktree CLO 2014-1 Ltd, a USD516.5m collateralized loan obligation (CLO).
Oaktree CLO 2014-1 Ltd will invest in corporate leveraged loans.
Oaktree’s CLO activities are part of its global senior loan strategies, which manage USD6.0bn of loans on a levered and unlevered basis in the US and in Europe as of 30 September 2013.
The US senior loan strategy is headed by managing directors Armen Panossian and Desmund Shirazi, who serve as co-portfolio managers and oversee the day-to-day management of all of Oaktree’s US senior loan portfolios.
