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The Exchange Council of Eurex Deutschland has elected a new chairperson and a vice chairman for a period of three years.
Carola Gräfin von Schmettow (pictured), member of the management board at HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt, was appointed as chairperson, and Johannes Pieterse, managing director at Optiver VOF, was elected as vice chairman.
Professor Lutz Johanning, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, and David Alan Martin, JP Morgan Securities, have been elected to serve as investor representatives on the council.
The current Exchange Council consists of 16 members and was elected on 2 December 2013. Eurex Exchange’s
The Exchange Council of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse – FWB) has re-elected Dr Lutz R Raettig of Morgan Stanley as its chairman.
His vice chairman is once again Dr Werner Brandt of SAP AG.
Dr Christine Bortenlänger (Deutsches Aktieninstitut) and Prof Peter Gomber (Goethe University of Frankfurt/Main) were elected as investor representatives.
The council consists of 18 members elected for a period of three years. The Exchange Council is the highest controlling and supervisory body of a stock exchange. Primary duties include appointing and monitoring the exchange management as well as issuing the exchange regulations, the
Laur Capital Management is offering investment opportunities in Laur Capital Partners to accredited investors, family offices and fund of funds.
Laur Capital Partners is an opportunistic long/short equity hedge fund.
Its investment philosophy highly weights behavioural finance in the decision-making process taking a contrarian investment approach to exploit short term pricing dislocations. The fund seeks to achieve annual returns, uncorrelated to any market index, by investing only in large cap securities.
Portfolio manager David Laurent has deployed a similar investment approach throughout his career and has over 20 years of experience investing and building financial technology solutions.
By Claire Mascarenhas, Kinetic Partners – Further to HM Revenue & Custom’s consultation of 20 May 2013 on Partnerships: a review of two aspects of the tax rules, draft legislation was released on 10 December 2013 which will see major changes in the tax treatment of partnerships.
Partnerships, including limited liability partnerships (“LLPs”) have to date been the vehicle of choice for managers setting up in the UK affording flexibility around allocation of profits and equity in a tax efficient manner. The changes focus on four distinct areas which we outline below.
Partnerships: Salaried Members
The draft Finance Bill proposes
BTC.sx, the world’s first bitcoin derivative trading platform, has brokered over USD35m in trades since its foundation and is preparing for more growth as its user base passes 3,300 active users.
BTC.sx provides an intuitive FX style trading platform enabling users to profit from rising or falling Bitcoin prices.
BTC.sx interfaces entirely in Bitcoin with no need for a USD / fiat balance to enter both long or short positions, allowing users to hedge bitcoin positions. The service is the first of its kind, and since launch has seen rapid growth in global demand for the service from traders
Capital invested in the global hedge fund industry surged to a record in the fourth quarter, finishing a strong year of capital growth as hedge funds posted the best performance in three years.
Total capital increased in 4Q by USD120 billion on USD10.5 billion of net inflows to USD2.63 trillion, the sixth consecutive quarterly record, led by a surge in investor interest in Event Driven strategies, including Special Situations and Distressed/Restructuring funds, according to the latest HFR Global Hedge Fund Industry Report.
For the full year, total hedge fund capital increased by USD376 billion on USD63.7 billion of net inflows,
Mariner Investment Group has closed on two new client mandates, launching Mariner Infrastructure Investment Management (MIIM), Mariner's bank deleveraging and regulatory capital management investment business.
MIIM serves as portfolio manager for two investment vehicles: the International Infrastructure Finance Company Fund (IIFC), a USD350m comingled fund, and Mariner Breakwater, a USD100m fund-of-one.
MIIM aims to take leveraged exposure to loans, bonds, and other debt instruments associated with global infrastructure, energy, and transportation assets. Target investments are designed to enable banks to manage their balance sheet in light of new financial regulations, providing them with risk-transfer tools that optimise and enhance
Renegade Petroleum has issued an open letter advising shareholders to reject an attempted takeover of the firm’s board by FrontFour Capital Group, a dissident group headed by US hedge fund manager Zachary George.
The letter was mailed to shareholders of record as of 9 December 2013 and a copy of the letter is available under Renegade's profile on SEDAR and on Renegade's website.
Renegade is a light oil focused development and production company with assets located in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and North Dakota. Renegade's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol RPL.
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
