The market rally in 2013 hasn’t necessarily translated into significant trade volumes among hedge fund managers. This is primarily due to the fact that the market’s one-directional, low volatility performance is less fundamentally driven and more fuelled by central bank action; something that hedge fund managers, especially fundamental equity shops, really do not enjoy. For clients of Concept Capital, one of North America’s leading introducing brokers, things are no different. As one of the principals of Concept Capital, Jack Seibald, explains: “The overwhelming topic of conversation continues to be whether the Fed and other central banks will continue to buy

Since it opened its doors in 2006, Opus has become one of the industry’s leading independent and privately owned full service fund administrators, providing a solid technology framework to deliver automated, middle and back office support to asset managers across the globe. This is nicely summed up in the firm’s strap line: One Platform. One Process. One Price. One Solution. Earlier this year, the firm, which already has offices in Bermuda, Chicago, Naperville and San Francisco, announced the opening of a New York office to focus, primarily, on business development. Heading up the office is Jorge Hendrickson (pictured), Director of

It’s been a great year for independently owned Meridian Fund Services. The announcement of being voted Best Offshore Hedge Fund Administrator in this year’s Hedgeweek US Awards, which took place in New York on Thursday 6 June 2013, comes on the back of also winning the European award back in March this year. At present, Meridian administrates approximately USD14billion in assets. It services 85 clients across 216 funds, which collectively have more than 5,650 separate investors. And while Meridian’s CEO, Tom Davis (pictured), says that the pipeline for new fund establishment in Bermuda and Cayman is looking good, he confirms

The consolidation of Admiral Administration into the Maitland Group last October has proven to be a winning formula according to Canover Watson, Managing Director at Admiral (which has retained its name). Following the industry collapse of 2008, it was important for Admiral to have more ballast in the market to appeal more readily to established managers and their institutional investors. “Being able to show that we’re part of a group with USD165billion in total assets is a clear benefit. “It has also been of benefit to Maitland, who are leaders in the long-only space of fund administration. That they now

Numen Capital LLP was founded in May 2008 by Filippo Lanza and Kushal Kumar. The firm’s flagship mandate is the Numen Credit Opportunities Fund, an event-driven credit special situations strategy.  The fund looks at opportunities in the liquid credit space related to issuers spanning sovereigns, financial institutions and corporates. The analytical approach used is a proprietary adaptation of the traditional corporate credit tool kit to analyse ex-risk free assets i.e. sovereigns, as though they are traditional corporate borrowers. “We apply this approach across the board from AAA-rated borrowers all the way down to stressed and distressed banks and corporates. Our

Swiss Seagull AG runs the Crossfire Fund, which follows what it refers to as a trend breakout strategy. Rather than take a trend following or countertrend trading approach, Swiss Seagull uses a multi-directional hybrid trading strategy. As such, it is composed of one core strategy and two sub-strategies, which provide more of discretionary element to how the fund is managed. “Our trading strategy is more tactical as opposed to necessarily being based on fundamental data or using indicators. Rather we look at market levels: which levels are broken, by how much? What is the volume in the market? That’s our

By Marianne Scordel – Summer in London brings with it a whole new wave of would be hedge fund managers, who have either left their employers as part of a pre-bonus cost-cutting exercise, or are planning to do so once they have been paid the sums they will then use as the required investments to start up their new ventures. Those currently involved in drawing up business plans, as well as incumbents taking a look at where they are within the industry in order to monitor levels of profitability, all have an interest in reviewing the competitive landscape. While the

The Hedgeweek USA Awards 2013 presented earlier this month in New York City brought together the leading names in the US hedge funds industry to celebrate the achievements of the best performing managers and service providers in 2012. Delivering the opening remarks at the Awards, Jim Munsell, Partner, Sidley Austin, LLP, highlighted a number of significant business and regulatory developments for alternative investment funds and their managers. He concluded, “Most of the recent developments have served to increase barriers to entry, increase costs, and compress operating margins. Nevertheless, this remains a great business to be in, with tremendous opportunities for