Latest News
By James Williams – Alcentra is one of the world’s leading asset managers. With a focus on sub investment-grade corporate credit it has built a strong 11-year track record in secured loan investing. It has USD16billion in assets under management, including some USD9billion in European assets.
Whereas historically European asset managers would gain access to loans by raising capital and creating a CLO, in recent times the use of fund structures has become more common. Certainly, CLOs are still used – last November saw Alcentra close its USD406.5million Shackleton II CLO, bringing the total number of CLOs on its US
Some 64 per cent of new hedge fund funds covered by a recent study carried out by Seward & Kissel had equity or equity-related strategies, up 14 per cent from the 2011 study.
Driven by the firm’s commitment to understanding the dynamics of the hedge fund marketplace, Seward & Kissel conducts an annual hedge fund study of newly formed hedge funds sponsored by new US-based managers entering the market each year.
Of the 64 per cent of new funds involved in equity or equity-related strategies, Seward & Kissel found that about 55 per cent were focused on US
By James Williams – The CLO market enjoyed a resurgence of sorts in 2012 with approximately USD50billion in new issuance, overshadowing the paltry figure of around USD13billion in 2011. Much of this CLO activity remains in the US, where major players such as Dallas-based Highland Capital Management LP – the largest US CLO manager by AUM (approximately USD14billion) – and New York-based BlueMountain Capital Management continue to originate deals.
Currently, Highland manages 21 CLOs. Over the course of 2012, BlueMountain successfully issued two CLOs representing USD1billion of issuance according to Bryce Markus (pictured), Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager: “Both of
By James Williams – Prior to the global financial crisis the ability for European corporates to finance themselves via leveraged loans was dominated by a prevalence of collateralised loan obligations (CLOs): in 2007, at its peak, the CLO market bought up two thirds of the USD166billion of leveraged loans issued that year, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.
Banks would originate leveraged loans through a syndication process, whereby they and a number of other investors – including other banks and CLO managers – would each commit capital, and thereby diversify the risk. The CLO manager would repeat this process,
Hedge funds enjoyed a third consecutive month of positive performance for the year, with the HFRX Global Hedge Fund index up 0.7 per cent for March and up 3.1 per cent for the quarter.
Gains were led by equity-centric strategies, with the HFRX strategy indices for event-driven managers and equity hedge managers up 5.3 per cent and 5.1 per cent, respectively for the quarter.
Global macro and CTA strategies continued to deliver mixed results with some negative global macro results offsetting some strongly performing CTA managers to deliver a flat net result for the quarter for the HFRX
The IStar Systematic Fund, backed by seeding specialist IMQubator, reconfigured its trading strategy in April 2012 and turned a negative performance into a positive return for the year, ending up at +3.24 per cent at the end of December 2012.
The fund is now up 3.63 per cent for 2013 (to end February), versus a YTD average of 0.77 per cent for managed future funds as a whole, according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. In the last 12 months, IStar Systematic has returned 8.58 per cent with a Sharpe ratio of 1.1.
The IStar Systematic
The Hedge Fund Association (HFA) has appointed regional directors to head its newly established chapters in Australia (Adriana Kostov), Texas (Mark A Feanny) and Utah (Ronnie Hale).
These are all territories in which the HFA has not previously been represented.
“I am looking forward to the challenge of leading Hedge Fund Association activity in Australia at this exciting time in its history,” says Kostov (pictured), who has executive level experience in risk management, corporate development and compliance advisory in the financial services and family office sectors.
Kostov currently holds the role of director of compliance & general counsel
Deer Park Road Corp is to launch a new mortgage/asset-backed fund, Burgess Creek Fund, having closed its flagship fund, STS Partners Fund, with USD750m currently under management.
The new fund will be a little higher up in the capital structure, but will have the same unleveraged, buy and hold investment approach and philosophy as STS Partners Fund.
The focus will continue to be on bonds with steady monthly cash flow and high-yield characteristics, along with capital appreciation potential.
The new fund’s strategy will be similar to what Deer Park has been using for a separate account that
The Credit Suisse Liquid Alternative Beta Index was up 1.22 per cent in March, according to Dr Jordan Drachman, head of alternative beta strategies at Credit Suisse.
The merger arbitrage strategy was the strongest performer for the month, finishing up 2.34 per cent in March.
Nearly half (46 per cent) of hedge fund professionals believe their competitors engage in illegal activity, more than one third (35 per cent) have personally felt pressure to break the rules, and about one third (30 per cent) have witnessed misconduct in the workplace, according to a survey commissioned by law firm Labaton Sucharow and the Hedge Fund Association.
When asked if they would blow the whistle or report the misconduct, 87 per cent of respondents said they would report wrongdoing given the protections and incentives such as those offered by the SEC Whistleblower Program. This investor protection programme has
Special Reports
FeatureD
- Insight
