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In a further expansion of its leveraged finance practice, Milbank has appointed Laetitia Costa as special counsel based in the firm’s London office.
Costa joins Milbank from the Paris office of Clifford Chance, where, as counsel, she focused on and has been involved in major European leveraged finance and debt restructuring transactions, including the EUR1.3bn financing of the acquisition of Financière Spie from PAI, the EUR545m financing of the acquisition of Compagnie Européenne de Prévoyance (CEP) and the restructuring of EUR800m debt owned by Deutsch.
Her expertise expands also to syndicated lending, structured finance and real estate transactions. She
Schroders is to add another externally-managed fund to its Schroder GAIA platform, Schroder GAIA Avoca Credit – a fundamental credit long short strategy scheduled to launch in November 2013.
Schroder GAIA (Global Alternative Investor Access) is Schroders’ alternative UCITS platform designed to offer investors access to hedge fund strategies in the liquid, transparent and regulated UCITS format.
The fund will be managed by Simon Thorp and James Sclater from Avoca Capital Management, who have run this strategy for 13 years. Avoca’s existing UCITS fund, the Avoca Credit Absolute Return Fund, will merge into Schroder GAIA Avoca Credit upon
HedgeCo has selected Cognito to provide a range of marketing and communications services for hedge funds.
The HedgeCo-Cognito Premium Communications Program comes as the passage of the JOBS Act and relevant rules ease restrictions on marketing and communication between funds, current and prospective investors and the media. New rules remove a long-standing ban on general solicitation for hedge funds and other private investment firms, allowing funds to advertise and communicate with a broader audience.
HedgeCo operates the HedgeCo.net database, which has data on more than 7,500 funds representing a combined USD1trn in assets under management. The company also hosts
Hedgebay Trading has launched an electronic settlement service for the hedge fund secondary market.
The new electronic functionality will be available on Hedgebay’s website and will assist in the settlement process.
The service is expected to initially reduce overall trading time by up to an estimated 20 per cent. Currently, secondary market participants rely on a manual trading and settlement process. Typically, a transaction takes at least 90 days to close.
Hedgebay believes the new service should provide significant follow-on benefits to the overall secondary market and its participants. Chief among these, in Hedgebay’s view, are the
Gautam Batra, Chief Investment Officer, Signia Wealth, comments on the UK’s Q2 GDP figures…
The upward trajectory of growth for 2013 received further validation today as second quarter growth has settled at 0.7%, which clearly supports increasing confidence in the UK economy. Growth figures have benefitted from surprisingly positive Government spending in the quarter in conjunction with a higher contribution from net exports and resilient consumer spending.
But as we look ahead, investors should question whether this level of growth is sustainable. Whilst economic momentum has carried over into the third quarter, we expect to see a weaker contribution
Christopher Lovgren has been appointed global head of loan syndication at Natixis in London.
Lovgren will report to Alain Gallois, global head of the debt platform and fixed-income and treasury sales, and locally to Olivier Allard, head of capital markets in London.
Lovgren began his career in 1995 with Société Générale CIB (SG CIB) in Paris as deputy relationship manager before becoming associate, loan syndications for the EMEA region. In 2000, he was appointed director, loan syndications at UBS Warburg in London, and in 2004 he became director, leveraged loan distribution at SG CIB, London.
In 2005,
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has brought and settled charges against ICAP Europe Limited for manipulation and attempted manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) for Yen.
LIBOR is a critical benchmark interest rate used throughout the world as the basis for trillions of dollars of transactions. ICAP is a subsidiary of UK-based ICAP plc.
The CFTC’s order finds that for more than four years, from at least October 2006 through at least January 2011, ICAP brokers on its Yen derivatives and cash desks knowingly disseminated false and misleading information concerning Yen borrowing rates to market
New York Life Investments is to acquire full ownership of Dexia Asset Management – an international asset manager with approximately USD100bn in assets under management – for EUR380m.
With management centres in Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg and Sydney, Dexia offers global fixed income, global equities, alternatives and asset allocation products across retail and institutional channels in 11 locations covering 25 countries.
The transaction, which remains subject to the approval of regulatory authorities, is expected to close on or about 31 December 2013.
The addition of Dexia Asset Management is expected to bring New York Life Investments’ total assets under
Intertrust has expanded its fiduciary team with Rob Aspinall joining as director, fiduciary services in the Cayman Islands and Martin O’Regan joining as director, fiduciary services in Singapore.
Both individuals will be primarily focused on the provision of independent directors to hedge fund and other collective investment vehicles.
Aspinall (pictured) joins Intertrust from Deloitte in the Cayman Islands, where he has spent eight of the last eleven years specialising in advising the investment funds industry. After gaining experience in Deloitte’s audit and financial advisory departments, followed by a two year stint with Harmonic Fund Services, a boutique service
Models that aim to predict daily stock returns perform better when they combine text data and financial quantitative data, according to Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre (CMCRC).
A study by Zhendong (Tony) Zhao, Nataliya Sokolovska and Professor Mark Johnson looks at combining quantitative and text data rather than treating them separately reducing errors by almost three per cent compared to results when only quantitative data is examined.
Johnson says: “An almost three per cent improvement doesn’t seem large but it has a significant impact in finance because the new method’s prediction is closer to the real value. This
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