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TORA, a provider of trading technology and financial services, has appointed Brian Tafaro as managing director and co-head of TORA Liquidity Services.
He will be based in the US and focused on client coverage and sales in Japan and other Asian markets.
Tafaro will work as co-head with Khahlil Kirtman, who has been running TORA Liquidity Services since 2009. In his role, Tafaro will be responsible for servicing existing clients and expanding the company’s presence in Japan and Asia. This includes supporting sales of TORA’s product suite to the buy-side.
“TORA is dedicated to providing clients with
Franklin Resources, which operates as Franklin Templeton Investments, has acquired the remaining 80 per cent stake of alternative investments specialist Pelagos Capital Management, LLC, to become a 100 per cent equity stakeholder. Franklin Templeton acquired its initial 20 per cent equity stake in Pelagos in 2010.
William Yun, CFA, executive vice president, Franklin Templeton Alternative Strategies, says: “We’ve developed a strong relationship with Pelagos since our initial investment in 2010 and after seeing growing interest from investors in alternative investment strategies, we are pleased to announce the completion of this acquisition.”
Yun says: “The continued expansion of Franklin Templeton’s
Asian hedge funds have rediscovered their mojo this year. For the first quarter of 2013, Asian hedge funds were up 5.68 per cent, according to Eurekehedge. This, in turn, has translated into strong performance in the Asia Equity Alpha Fund managed by Hong Kong-based SAIL Advisors, one of Asia’s leading fund of hedge fund firms.
Of the 11 underlying managers in the portfolio, three are Japan-focused, while five are China-focused. The other three managers currently run pan-Asian mandates.
And it is precisely the Japanese market and continued opportunities in China equities that have been the driving force behind the fund’s
Ashburton (Jersey) Limited is to form the international arm of a new asset manager that will become the fourth financial services franchise of FirstRand Limited alongside existing brands FNB, RMB and WesBank.
The new business takes its name from Ashburton, which has a long established track record of providing traditional products in developed and emerging markets, and which will now form part of Ashburton Investments.
These traditional offerings – currently managed on behalf of both international and Southern African investors – will be supplemented by the integration of the investment management businesses of BJM, RMB Private Bank
North Carolina hedge fund manager James Alexander Shepherd has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he defrauded investors of approximately USD6m.
According to filed court documents and court proceedings, beginning in 2006 and through the spring of 2013, Shepherd defrauded over 100 investors in Union County and elsewhere of approximately USD6m.
Court documents indicate that Shepherd perpetrated the fraud by promising his victims returns on their investments in funds Shepherd owned and controlled, including The Shepherd Major Play Option Fund and the Shepherd’s Model Hedge Fund.
In addition, Shepherd had some individual investors that invested their
The Newedge Trend Index fell 3.65 per cent in May, relinquishing some of the gains from March and April.
The Newedge Short-Term Trading Index finished slightly positive, extending a run of performance not seen since 2008.
The Newedge Trend Index, which is equally weighted, calculates the daily rate of return for a pool of the largest 10 trend following based CTAs that are willing to provide daily returns and are open to new investment.
The Newedge Short-Term Traders Index is designed to track the daily performance of a portfolio of the largest ten short-term, diversified CTAs who
Hedge funds gained 1.06 per cent in May, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index is up 5.87 per cent year to date.
“While improving consumer confidence and higher prices for US homes stoked concerns of Fed tapering, equity markets rallied even as interest rates moved higher,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.
Overall, 16 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund strategies had positive returns in May. The Barclay Healthcare & Biotechnology Index jumped 3.11 per cent, Equity Long Bias gained 2.64 per cent, the Distressed Securities Index rose 2.42 per
Abacus Group has launched FlexDrive, a file-hosting service that allows hedge funds and private equity firms to securely share and transfer files with other users and other devices.
FlexDrive provides on-demand cloud storage and sharing as well as instant file synchronisation, giving users access to their files no matter what computer or device they are using.
Hedge fund and private equity fund managers can now easily exchange and collaborate on files via desktop computer, mobile device or tablet. The FlexDrive server is located in the Abacus Group private cloud, where users get all of the inherent benefits of
The international derivatives market Eurex Exchange will introduce the second tranche of derivatives on global MSCI indices on 1 July.
Futures and options based on the MSCI World, MSCI Europe, MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex-Japan and futures on the MSCI Frontier Markets have been available since 11 March. Around 20,000 contracts have been traded in these products since market launch.
Effective 1 July, futures and options will be offered based on the following regional indices: MSCI Emerging Markets, the leading index for this segment, and the regional sub-indices MSCI EM EMEA, MSCI EM Latin America and MSCI EM
Celoxica, a provider of ultra-low latency market data, order entry and pre-trade risk solutions, has hired Diane Saucier to head its business development in the US.
Saucier (pictured) has spent over 20 years in key roles including 10 years at Trading Technologies International helping to grow their business across futures, options and derivatives markets and building strategic relationships with the major exchanges.
She is a founding board member and vice president of WILD (Women in Listed Derivatives), an organisation which promotes the advancement of women in the derivatives industry, and also serves on the board of directors and
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