Latest News
Blackstone has reported record full year, revenue, assets under management and public company earnings.
Stephen A Schwarzman (pictured), chairman and chief executive officer, says: “The fourth quarter of 2012 capped a year of record financial performance for Blackstone, with full-year revenues of over USD4bn and economic net income of USD2bn, our best results since becoming a public company over five-and-a-half years ago.
“We’ve generated consistently strong investment performance for our limited partner investors across market cycles since our inception 28 years ago, and 2012 was no exception, with all of our businesses beating their respective benchmarks. Our favourable performance continues
Bandon Capital Management has appointed Whitney Dow to its management team.
As managing director, he will be responsible for spearheading the firm’s marketing and relationship management efforts.
Dow brings to Bandon over 15 years of extensive investment management experience in marketing, business development, and relationship management. Most significantly, he spent nearly six years as a director with Russell Investments, responsible for the expansion of its distribution footprint in the US by building strategic relationships with national, regional, and independent broker-dealers and other intermediaries. Prior to Russell, Dow served for five years in consulting and analytical roles with Financial Research
Citi is launching a new product quoting UK natural gas contracts denominated in euros rather than British pounds.
The product, aimed at European counterparties active in the UK and continental gas and power markets, is designed to reduce the cost and administrative burden for traders, treasury departments and CFOs who are required to manage volatility in cash-flows arising from cross-border risks.
While such contracts have been offered previously on a bilateral, over-the-counter basis, Citi is the first party to offer broker market liquidity in this manner. The bank will show live bid and offer data via Tullett Prebon and will
Hedge fund Elliot Associates is planning to nominate five executives to the board of Hess Corp as it looks to force a break up of the US oil and gas company.
Activist investor Elliott, which currently own about four per cent of Hess, believes that breaking up Hess will boost returns for shareholders.
"We are convinced that tremendous value is trapped inside the company as a result of poor oversight by a board of directors lacking both the experience and independence to set a clear, shareholder-focused, value-creating strategy," Elliott wrote in a letter to Hess.
Hess has revealed that it
TPG is to acquire Eze Castle Software, a provider of global order management and related investment technologies, and RealTick, a multi-broker, cross-asset electronic execution platform, from ConvergEx Group.
This all cash transaction is expected to close in Q1 or Q2 of 2013. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
The newly formed company will be called Eze Software Group. Following the close of the transaction, Eze Software Group will acquire Tradar, a supplier of portfolio management and accounting solutions.
Eze Software Group will bring together the product offerings and global market expertise of Eze Castle Software, RealTick, and Tradar into a
FRM Capital Advisors or “FCA”, the seeding division of FRM (Man Group plc‘s fund of hedge fund division) has entered into a strategic relationship with a Japan focused hedge fund.
FCA will make a significant investment in a fund launched by Arena Capital Management Limited, a Hong Kong based investment advisor Arena, which was established in May 2012 by Toby Bartlett (CIO). The fund manages a Japanese Long-Short Equity strategy focusing on domestic demand sectors.
Patric de Gentile Williams, Head of Seeding at FRM said: “This deal reinforces the global nature of FCA as a seeding business and is the
Manager of the RWC Europe Absolute Alpha Fund, Ajay Gambhir (pictured) believes that European Equities offer his equity long/short strategy some of the greatest investment opportunities in the last ten years.
Gambhir has highlighted two reasons for optimism for the asset class. Firstly, the dislocations in European equities have been so severe that the opportunity for long/short investing between sectors and stocks is greater than it’s been for almost ten years. Secondly, the almost unprecedented gap in value between European equities and European corporate credit opens up the opportunity for money to rotate into European stocks, with the greatest benefit
Return hungry investors are likely to continue parking their cash in high yield bonds allowing over indebted European companies to refinance their debt and new ones to access markets, according to Debtwire Europe’s 2013 Distressed Debt Outlook.
“To judge by the headlines, the intensity of the European crisis has abated since the summer of 2012," says James Roome (pictured), co-leader of Bingham’s global financial restructuring practice group. "Although it remains to be seen whether the world is as disconnected as this trend tends to indicate, European leaders certainly seem to have quelled the fears of Eurozone break-up for the moment.”
More than half the inflows into Ucits hedge funds (EUR13.2bn) were allocated to fixed income strategies during 2012, followed by macro strategies (EUR5.8bn), according to data released by Alix Capital.
The latest quarterly research by the Geneva-based provider of the Ucits Alternatives Index also found that Ucits hedge funds assets under management (AUM) increased by 20 per cent in 2012 reaching a new high of EUR140bn.
The three largest single strategy managers all witnessed significant increases in Ucits hedge fund AUM in 2012: Standard Life Investments’ AUM increased 59.8 per cent to EUR17.437bn; GAM was up 41.2 per cent to
The State Street Global Investor Confidence Index (ICI) rose for a second consecutive month in January, increasing by 5.4 points from December’s revised reading of 81.4 to finish at 86.8.
The increase was driven by North American institutions, whose confidence rose 7.8 points from December’s revised level of 78.5 to reach 86.3.
Institutional investors in Asia also felt more optimistic, and this pushed the Asian ICI up from 87.1 in December to 91.0 in January, an increase of 3.9 points. In contrast, risk appetite among European institutional investors extended its decline, falling 4.5 points from a revised reading of 94.1
Special Reports
FeatureD
- Insight
