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The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched enforcement actions against 23 firms for short selling violations.
The agency is increasing its focus on preventing firms from improperly participating in public stock offerings after selling short those same stocks. Such violations typically result in illicit profits for the firms.
The enforcement actions are being settled by 22 of the 23 firms charged, resulting in more than USD14.4 million in monetary sanctions.
The SEC’s Rule 105 of Regulation M prohibits the short sale of an equity security during a restricted period – generally five business days before a public offering – and the
Law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan has appointed Tram N Nguyen as a partner in the firm’s private funds practice group.
Nguyen is resident in Stroock’s DC office, where she joins Robert E Plaze who before founding that office as a partner was the deputy director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of investment management.
Nguyen joins Stroock from the Securities and Exchange Commission, where most recently she was chief of the private funds branch of the SEC’s division of investment management. While in that capacity, she led rulemaking and related initiatives affecting private fund advisers,
Towers Watson has produced a thematic-based secular outlook designed to set out its Global Investment Committee’s (GIC) long-run expectations for global economic growth.
The publication, entitled Secular Outlook 2013, expounds the merits of thematic investment relative to more traditional asset class-based investment frameworks and provides a new perspective on generating return and understanding risk. In addition, it encourages institutional investors to better exploit what should be one of their main competitive advantage: the length of their time horizon.
Robert Brown (pictured), chairman of the Global Investment Committee at Towers Watson, says: “We believe institutions with long time horizons
Omgeo and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) are to establish a user-governed global repository to store and communicate the “golden copy” of standing settlement instructions (SSIs).
This undertaking is part of an overall effort to standardise and centralise key client reference data functions and place them under user governance.
Omgeo ALERT, a web-based database for the maintenance and communication of SSIs, will serve as the foundation for this service. ALERT will be the industry-wide SSI repository and communication hub, coordinating and distributing SSIs between trade counterparties and supporting settlement across all markets and asset classes globally.
Harmonic Capital has appointed Robert B Fitzpatrick as managing director of North American distribution.
Harmonic Capital, based in Massachusetts, is a recently established US affiliate of Harmonic Capital Partners, a UK-based quantitative hedge fund manager providing global macro and currency products to institutional investors.
Fitzpatrick will be responsible for leading the development of Harmonic’s institutional business in the region, with a particular focus on public and corporate pension plans. Bringing more than 20 years’ financial services experience, Fitzpatrick joins from First Quadrant where he held the role of director, global consultant relations and business development. Over the course
BNP Paribas has made several key appointments to strengthen its Securities Services franchise in Asia Pacific as it continues its expansion in the region.
Mostapha Tahiri has been promoted to the head of BNP Paribas Securities Services Singapore, replacing Arnaud Claudon who has been promoted to the newly created role of global head of Depotbank and Fiduciary Services based in Paris.
Tahiri joined the Singapore office in 2009 as the head of asset and fund services for Asia and has been at the forefront of the bank’s drive to grow the business in the region. He will
GAIN Capital, a provider of online trading services, has appointed Jason Emerson as its chief financial officer effective 1 October 2013.
“Jason is an accomplished executive who brings the right mix of strategic insight, industry experience, and financial acumen to the CFO position,” says Glenn Stevens, chief executive of GAIN Capital. “I am confident Jason will be an excellent addition to GAIN’s leadership team.”
Emerson was most recently managing director and business manager of KCG’s global execution services division, responsible for all financial and operational aspects of the business. Previously, he served as KCG’s director of financial operations.
Hedge funds lost 0.54 per cent in August, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index has a positive return of 5.22 per cent year to date.
“Uncertainty over the Fed’s tapering timeline and possible US military intervention in Syria were primary drivers of an August global equities sell-off,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “The MSCI World Index was down 2.1 per cent at month-end.”
Returns for hedge fund strategies were mixed in August, with ten of Barclay’s hedge fund indices losing ground while eight had gains.
The Emerging
The Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index finished down 0.54 per cent for the month of August, with six of the 10 sub-strategies in negative territory.
Managed futures was the worst performer ending the month down 2.77 per cent, followed by equity market neutral (-1.72 per cent), and long/short equity (-1.11 per cent).
The four sub-strategies to record positive performance were convertible arbitrage (0.72 per cent), fixed income arbitrage (0.21 per cent), dedicated short bias (0.03 per cent), and multi strategy (0.08 per cent).
The following funds were dropped from the Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index in August:
Omgeo’s Central Trade Manager (Omgeo CTM) community has grown by more than 17 per cent during 2013, with the addition of 220 investment management and broker/dealer clients worldwide.
Omgeo CTM is the firm’s strategic platform for the central matching of cross-border and domestic equity, fixed income, exchange-traded derivative (futures and options) and contract-for-difference transactions. Over 1,500 firms worldwide now use Omgeo CTM, including 655 investment managers and 866 broker/dealers. In total, Omgeo has over 6,500 clients in 52 countries using its services.
The growth in the Omgeo CTM community has come from an expansion across geographies and asset
