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Opus Fund Services, an independent full-service fund administrator, has expanded its US platform with the opening of a New York office.
The Park Avenue location will initially focus on business development and will be headed by the new director of sales and business development, Jorge Hendrickson.
Hendrickson previously worked at Concept Capital Markets in its prime services group as vice president of sales and business development. Prior to Concept he worked for five years on the buy side, most recently at Trading Cross Connects, specialising in allocating capital and infrastructure services to emerging managers. He was previously at Intrepid Capital
Hedge fund Jana Partners has released a statement in response to the announcement by Agrium that it will appoint new directors to its board.
The statement reads: “For over six years Agrium rejected the need for industry experience on the board and its CEO was quoted just days ago saying that there were ‘no shortcomings’ related to its retail business on the board and that industry experience was not a prerequisite for board service. Then in response to growing shareholder pressure, Agrium acknowledged the need for such experience and said it would look for such directors, but also set forth
Dynasty Financial Partners has appointed Michael Moriarty as director of investment platforms.
Moriarty will be based in New York City and has been appointed to the Dynasty Financial Partners investment committee. He will report to Todd Thomson, chairman of Dynasty, in Thomson’s role as interim chief investment officer.
As head of investment platforms, Moriarty’s responsibilities include developing and expanding the firm’s investment management solutions, including the Dynasty Separately Managed Account (SMA) and unified Managed Account (UMA) capabilities delivered in partnership with Callan Associates, one of the largest institutional investment consulting firms in the US, and Envestnet, a provider of technology-enabled
It is much harder for countries to make the transition from emerging to developed economies than was previously commonly thought, according to Frances Hudson (pictured), Global Thematic Strategist, Standard Life Investments…
Evidence suggests that it is much harder for countries to make the transition from emerging to developed economies than is commonly thought. According to the World Bank, only 13 countries have moved from upper middle to high income – one of the measures of a developed economy – since 1960. Of those, five are the Asian tigers; others include Greece, Ireland, Spain and Israel.
In considering the investment potential
ModusLink Global Solutions has entered into an investment agreement with Steel Partners Holdings, which together with certain affiliates, including Handy & Harman, beneficially owns 14.9 per cent of ModusLink’s outstanding shares.
Under the terms of the agreement, Steel Holdings would purchase 7.5 million newly issued shares of common stock at a price of USD4.00 per share, representing a cash investment in the company, before fees and expenses, of USD30m.
The USD4.00 purchase price per share represents a 45 percent premium to the closing market price for ModusLink common stock on 8 February 2013.
In addition, at the closing of the
US fixed income fund managers continue to see value in the credit markets as a whole, although parts of it are deemed expensive, says S&P Capital IQ’s Fund Research in its latest sector trends paper.
“Most of the fund managers we interviewed were overweight spread product relative to their indices, but this is a structural feature of the US fixed income fund sector, particularly for funds managed against aggregate indices,” says Kate Hollis, S&P Capital IQ fund analyst and sector head of fixed income.
Many managers were overweight financials, which were still yielding more than industrials, and many (such
Eurex Exchange is to introduce a new interest rate future, the Mid-Term Euro-OAT Future, which is based on notional medium-term bonds issued by the Republic of France (Obligations Assimilables du Trésor – OAT), on 11 March 2013.
Together with the long-term Euro-OAT Futures which were introduced in April 2012, the contract complements the existing segment and offers market participants an efficient and cost-effective hedging instrument which enables the hedging of risks and basis trading in the mid-term maturities range of the French yield curve.
“The success, positive volume and open interest performance of the Euro-OAT Future introduced in April 2012
The IM Vinculum Global Equity Fund, which charges fees only when performance exceeds a recognised investment industry benchmark, has reported a successful year of trading with a total net return of 11.23 per cent.
The fund beat its benchmark in three out of four quarters.
Vinculum was founded in November 2011 by Nigel Legge, the ex-chief executive of Liontrust, Bjarne Jensen, previously a portfolio manager of Denmark’s largest pension fund, ATP, and Douglas Thursby-Pelham, a veteran of the advertising industry.
Vinculum’s investment process introduced a new approach to stock selection based purely on audited publicly available financial information untainted by
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published final guidelines on remuneration of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs).
The rules will apply to managers of alternative investment funds (AIFs) including hedge funds, private equity funds and real estate funds.
Non-EU AIFMs who market funds (using passport agreements) to EU investors will also be subject in full to the guidelines after a transitional period.
AIFMs will be asked to introduce sound and prudent remuneration policies and organisational structures which avoid conflicts of interest that may lead to excessive risk taking. Stronger governance of how fund managers are paid will ultimately
Hedge funds have started 2013 on a high note, with the Lyxor Hedge Fund Index up 1.6 per cent in January thanks to positive returns from 12 of the 14 Lyxor Strategy Indices.
Most of the best January performers of the Lyxor platform are to be found in the L/S equity space: the Lyxor L/S Equity Market Neutral Index rose by 5.1 per cent and the Lyxor L/S Equity Long Bias Index rose by 3.7 per cent.
Long biased managers maintained net exposures levels at about 60 per cent on average while variable bias funds’ managers kept increasing gross and
