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To paint a picture of the hedge fund space today is to show a world of tightening margins, an industry where fee-structures have shifted away from the historic 2 and 20 compensation structures and a business model restrained by regulatory changes. At the same time, as margins tighten, the modern investor continues to have a high expectation of operational and cost efficiencies, pushing fund managers to do more with less. Managers are adapting quickly and aspiring to create systematic efficiencies by lowering operational costs. Depending on the fund’s size, strategies may vary, but the desire for highly-flexible, scalable solutions, fed
By James Williams – Getting the right technology solutions in place for today’s hedge fund manager is a pressing concern. Tighter trade margins and growing regulatory/compliance costs are hardly conducive to ramping up a hedge fund’s annual IT budget. Where possible, they need cost-efficient solutions for their technology infrastructure, yet at the same ensuring the highest standards are being upheld.
One significant push in recent times has been a concerted focus on developing truly integrated front-to-back platform solutions for the buy-side. From portfolio construction and analytics, pre-trade risk assessment, through to order and execution management, reconciliation and reporting, getting a
BCS Prime Brokerage (BCS), an independent Russian financial institution, has launched an international brokerage business after being granted UK regulatory authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to deal and advise on investments and hold client assets.
BCS Financial Group (BCS FG) has nearly 20 years’ of experience in banking and brokerage, and occupies a leading position in the Russian financial markets across equity, futures and options, fixed income, repo and currency trading. BCS FG ranks first in terms of equity and derivatives and second for FX volumes traded on the Moscow Exchange. It is now building out its
UK-based Liquidity Finance is expanding its activities across the Atlantic with a new office opening in Stamford, Connecticut in the US.
Headed by ex-Knight Capital Group and UBS Dan Mullineaux, working alongside ex-head of emerging markets trading at Goldman Sachs Robert McDonald, the expansion of Liquidity Finance to the US mirrors developments in the market, as clients are moving increasingly towards alternative sources of liquidity.
With its unique electronic order matching platform, developed in-house, Liquidity Finance has received good traction and market shares in Europe, and will now be expanding its focus to the US and Latin American
One of the most important relationships for any new hedge fund manager is with their chosen prime broker. This is who the manager relies upon for financing positions through margining, providing leverage, lending securities for shorting selling activity, clearing and settling trades. For prime brokerages within universal banks, such as UBS, JP Morgan, Citigroup, the level of support might also extend to fund administration and custodial services.
In essence, any prime brokerage relationship will be multifaceted and unique to each individual manager. In addition to “core” or commoditised services – such as those outlined above – prime brokers are increasingly
Single stock futures of some well-known German underlyings will be made available for trading on the derivatives market of Moscow Exchange as of September 2013.
The agreement to list five futures contracts – Deutsche Bank, Siemens, BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler – was signed in Moscow by Alexander Afanasiev, chief executive officer of Moscow Exchange, and Andreas Preuss, deputy CEO of Deutsche Börse and CEO of Eurex.
“This is an important step in our strategic partnership with Deutsche Börse. Our relationship, which began with a letter of cooperation in 2012, is developing and already brining tangible results to our customers.
Alter Domus, a provider of Corporate and Fund Services to private equity houses, real estate firms, multinationals and private clients, has moved to a new Corporate Governance structure that is more in line with its operating model and future challenges.
The Alter Domus Group Management Responsibilities have now been divided between a Board of Directors and a Group Executive Committee and also two further sub-committees, the Audit & Risk Committee and the HR Committee.
There will now be a clear segregation between the setting out of the strategic direction, which will be at the Board level and the implementation of
China’s growth may have declined in recent years. but the country still has much to offer investors, says Jean Médecin, a member of Carmignac Gestion’s investment committee…
Since the credit and infrastructure spending fuelled recovery of 2009/2010, China’s growth has gradually declined.
China suffers from an unbalanced economy with too high investment and too little consumption. But China still has much to offer for investors. While investment contribution to the economic growth has declined over the past three years, consumption contribution has been usefully resilient. This consumption will be helped in the years ahead by increasing urbanization of the
Eurex Clearing has extended the product and service scope of its Lending CCP, Europe’s first central counterparty (CCP) service for the bilateral securities lending market.
Since early June, equities from three additional European countries are accepted and a solution for voluntary corporate actions has been introduced.
Blue chip equities from Belgium, France and the Netherlands are now eligible for the Lending CCP service that already covers equities from Germany and Switzerland and a wide range of international fixed income instruments and exchange-traded funds. A full range of voluntary corporate actions is now included in the service, based on
Managed futures lost 1.31 per cent in May, according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index remains up 0.61 per cent year to date.
“May’s trend reversal in global interest rates coupled with a 12 per cent mid-month decline in the Nikkei fuelled losses for roughly two-thirds of the CTAs in the BarclayHedge database,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.
Six of Barclay’s eight CTA indices had losses in May. The Diversified Traders Index was down 1.43 per cent, Systematic Traders lost 1.21 per cent, and Financial & Metal Traders gave up
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