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By Jose Santos, Partner, and Karen Gilbert, Senior Associate, Forbes Hare – BVI companies are listed on most of the major public exchanges of the world, including NYSE, AIM, LSE, TSX, NASDAQ, HKSE, and are attractive as listing vehicles in a variety of geographical markets and business sectors such as mining, pharmaceuticals, real estate, oil and gas.
In particular, over the last decade, BVI companies have been frequently incorporated as special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) focused on acquiring targets in emerging markets, the use of which is now on the rise again following an extended period of limited activity.
What
Nearly half of financial services professionals (49 per cent) globally do not believe that any regulator has managed to strike the right balance between protecting investors and underpinning growth, according to a survey by Kinetic Partners.
The firms surveyed for Kinetic Partners’ 2014 Global Regulatory Outlook report urged global regulators to coordinate their regulatory efforts.
Overall, fewer than one in five highlighted any single national regulator as having found the right balance between stabilising the financial system, protecting investors, reacting to public opinion and creating a framework for growth.
Only 12 per cent globally believed that the SEC
Hermes CEO Saker Nusseibeh looks forward to 2014…
Looking forward to 2014, we seem to have two reasonably solid foundations on which to build a forecast for the year. The first is that growth in the Anglo Saxon economies, especially the US has come through stronger and more solidly than anticipated by many, as evidenced by the stronger employment numbers in the US and the revision to economic data in the UK. The US economy seems to be well on its way to grow at around 2.75% while the UK economy looks like growing in the twos. In both economies,
Leveraged finance borrowers are using favourable funding conditions to refinance their capital structures, extend their debt maturities and reduce their cost of capital, says Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.
According to “European Leveraged Issuance Is On The Up, But Recaps Are Pushing Credit Quality Lower”, issuance in the European leveraged finance market is booming for both high-yield bonds and loans, driven in part by a renaissance of the collateralised loan obligation (CLO) market.
So far in 2013, 20 European CLOs have been priced, bringing total CLO issuance for the year to just under EUR7.5bn. This is in sharp contrast
CBOE Holdings’ board of directors has declared a special cash dividend of USD0.50 per share of common stock, which will be paid on 17 January 2014 to stockholders of record at the close of business on 3 January.
The company’s board of directors also authorised the company to repurchase an additional USD100m of its outstanding common stock, to be used in addition to any unused amount remaining under prior authorisations.
The new authorisation brings the total amount available for stock repurchases to approximately USD167m at 9 December 2013.
The company had approximately 87 million shares of common stock
Robert Mirsky, Global Head of Hedge Funds and a Partner at KPMG’s UK Financial Services Practice and Jon Mills, UK Head of Financial Services Audit and Global Head of Audit for KPMG’s Investment Management and Funds Practice – share their views with Hedgeweek on some of the macro trends evolving in the hedge fund industry
Fixed income investing firm Brownstone Investment Group has further expanded its trading platform with the addition of emerging markets (EM) debt.
Brownstone will focus initially on Latin American corporate bonds and quasi-sovereign credits domiciled in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru, as well as on providing liquidity in select Asian and European Union issuers.
Brownstone’s EM desk already maintains over 200 live and executable markets to service the needs of its growing list of Latin American and European clients.
“Brownstone is constantly evolving to meet our clients’ changing needs. What always remains constant is our delivery of high-quality offerings
Eze Castle Integration has published its 2013 Global Hedge Fund Technology Benchmark Study, which provides insight into front, middle and back office technology choices at buy-side firms.
Based on data collected from 538 firms located in the US, UK and Asia, respondents revealed their preferred technology solutions in a range of categories including market data, portfolio accounting, order management, archiving, mobile technology and more.
Eze Castle Integration asked survey participants to detail their use of front, middle and back office technologies.
Key data points include:
· Portfolio accounting: Fifty-four per cent of respondents are using an Advent Software
Coeli Asset Management and IMQubator have launched the Coeli Macro strategy on dbSelect, Deutsche Bank’s platform for accessing liquid hedge fund strategies.
This new Coeli Macro strategy offers investors a chance to gain exposure to emerging markets via dbSelect.
The manager will aim to produce superior returns by exploiting overall market volatility and direction using foreign exchange and other exchange traded instruments.
Birgitte Jespersen, portfolio manager of the Coeli Macro strategy has more than 30 years´ experience in emerging markets, managing proprietary portfolios and hedge funds within institutions such as HSBC, MAN Investments and Morgan Stanley.
Managed
Baronsmead Partners, the financial risk insurance broker, has appointed Man Group’s Andrew Ducat as partner and head of client service.
Baronsmead has also promoted David Heathfield to partner.
The moves come in anticipation of significant activity for Baronsmead in the year ahead. The introduction of a number of new professional indemnity regulations under AIFMD will increase demand for the firm’s services. Alternative investment managers will need to be up to code with the new requirements by July next year.
Ducat joins Baronsmead from Man Group Plc, where he was head of group insurance. He will work closely with
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