Latest News
Orso Capital Management plans to launch the Quadrant Plus Partners Strategy, an equity hedge fund that seeks long-term growth.
Andrew Lydon, who founded the fund in March 2013 and is chief executive officer and chief investment officer, has 11 years of portfolio management expertise and has successfully launched two other hedge funds.
“The Quadrant Plus Partners strategy is driven by technical analysis and a proprietary mathematical formula that first identifies the current market environment,” says Lydon. “The strategy then seeks to create alpha by adjusting the portfolio’s exposure to take advantage of opportunities within those environments. The portfolio’s beta is
Gravitas has launched Gravitas Atmosphere, a secure, private, cloud-based online file sharing, sync and storage service, for the alternative investment industry.
Gravitas Atmosphere was designed for asset management professionals to access, share and synchronise corporate data or files from any authorised computer or mobile device anytime, anywhere, within a private, secure environment.
Gravitas has partnered with EMC Syncplicity and EMC Atmos to deliver Gravitas Atmosphere within the Gravitas Private Cloud, which is powered by VCE’s Vblock technology.
“The collaborative, dynamic ways in which we work have changed things dramatically and the alternative asset management industry is no exception,” says Patrick
Sovereign wealth funds globally have added more than USD750bn to their total assets since last year, according to research firm Preqin.
The growth, from USD4.62 trillion assets under management in 2012 to USD5.38 trillion in 2013, is largely down a number of new funds formed over the last few years, according to the firm, as well as capital injected into existing sovereign wealth funds.
Preqin says Asia-based sovereign wealth funds have shown some of the largest growth in assets under management, with the assets of these sovereign wealth funds growing, on average, by 19 per cent since 2012. This is
Sky Road, a managed services provider of customisable trading and risk solutions, has opened a New York City office to better service both domestic and international institutions.
The expansion comes on the heels of recent new client successes and strong headcount growth, including the addition of Richard Itri who will serve as principal and lead the office.
The staff additions associated with the New York office opening increase Sky Road’s headcount by 32 per cent and add resources to the client services and engineering teams supporting both new and existing clients.
Dr John E Borse, founder and
Teng Yue Partners, a New York based hedge fund that specialises in equity investments in China, has signed a lease at 650 Fifth Avenue, the class A office building located on 52nd Street near Rockefeller Center.
The hedge fund signed a five-year lease for 4,496 square-feet of office space on the 33rd floor of the building.
The announcement was made by 650 Fifth Avenue Company, the building's ownership.
CBRE Group vice chairman Robert Stillman, senior vice presidents Paul Haskin and Zachary Freeman, along with financial analyst Lee Cross, represented 650 Fifth Avenue in the transaction. CBRE serves
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) CICI Utility, the interim global legal entity identifier (LEI) solution developed in collaboration with SWIFT, has been endorsed by the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) as a pre-Local Operating Unit (LOU).
This action marks an important milestone in establishing full operational deployment of a Global Legal Entity Identifier System (GLEIS) aimed at giving regulators and firms stronger systemic risk monitoring capabilities so they can analyse positions and transactions they oversee on a global basis.
In addition to the CICI Utility, the ROC endorsed two other pre-LOUs, WM Datenservice in Germany and INSEE
Amundi’s acquisition of Smith Breeden Associates has been finalised following completion of the customary conditions of informing regulatory authorities and gaining approval from certain clients and shareholders.
Smith Breeden Associates is now Amundi Smith Breeden.
Paris, France-based Amundi is a European asset management firm with close to EUR750bn in assets. Amundi Smith Breeden is the North American investment headquarters for Amundi. 


The creation of Amundi Smith Breeden, a fully-owned and controlled subsidiary within Amundi’s fixed income organisation, is a significant step toward Amundi’s goal of creating a global fixed income platform with established regional expertise.
There
Athena International Management, an independent directorship services provider in the Cayman Islands, has expanded its team and its geographic reach to include New York.
Daniel Strachman, a financial services expert with more than 17 years of Wall Street experience, has joined Athena to provide corporate governance services to the alternative investment fund industry.
Throughout his extensive career in financial services, Strachman has worked with both traditional and alternative investment funds in product development, marketing, institutional brokerage and investment management at firms including Cantor Fitzgerald & Company, Morgan Stanley & Company and The Orbitex Group of Funds.
“Athena
Hedge funds rose an average of 1.7 per cent in September, ending the third quarter up 2.4 per cent, and have returned an average of 5.7 per cent through the first nine months of 2013, according to eVestment’s September hedge fund performance report.
On an annualised basis the industry is on pace to return 7.7 per cent in 2013, slightly ahead of 2012’s 7.2 per cent increase.
Long/short equity is on pace for their best year since 2009 and second best since 2006. In both those prior years the universe beat the S&P 500.
Performance in September
Ignis Asset Management has launched its latest absolute return strategy – the Ignis Global Macro Government Bond Fund.
The fund, which has been seeded with GBP25m, has been registered in Luxembourg as a Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) and is suitable for eligible institutional investors only.
The Ignis Global Macro Government Bond Fund is a non-UCITS version of the GBP1.5bn UCITS compliant Ignis Absolute Return Government Bond Fund. The Ignis Absolute Return Government Bond Fund has delivered a total return of 18.5 per cent and an annualized return of seven per cent since launch. Most importantly, the fund has
