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Hedge Funds Care Midwest will be supporting 17 groups working to address the effects of child abuse during the 2012-2013 grants period.
The nine continuing grants and eight new grants total USD620,000, donated by hedge fund industry participants.
Hedge Funds Care grants are awarded to charitable organisations in the following areas that address child abuse: education, prevention, intervention, research, advocacy, and training.
Current Midwest beneficiaries are Brighton Park Neighbuorhood Council, Casa Central Social Service, Chicago Child Care Society, Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center, Children’s Advocacy Center of North and Northwest Cook County, Children’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois, Community Counseling
Petri Jylhä’s DSc doctoral dissertation "Essays on the Economics of Hedge Funds" at the Aalto University School of Business has been awarded the first prize in the OP-Pohjola Group Research Foundation Doctoral Thesis competition.
The award is worth EUR10,000.
The doctoral dissertation consists of four essays that examine hedge funds from various perspectives. Hedge funds refer to funds which often involve high risks and seek to increase their returns in all market conditions.
The first essay investigates hedge fund operations in international financial markets. Based on the results, funds generally engage in traditional interest rate differential trading, which involves borrowing
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former executive at New York-based broker-dealer Jefferies & Co with defrauding investors while selling mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the wake of the financial crisis so he could generate additional revenue for his firm.
According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Connecticut, Jesse Litvak arranged trades for customers as part of his job as a managing director on the MBS desk at Jefferies. Litvak would buy a MBS from one customer and sell it to another customer, but on many occasions he lied about the price at which his firm
Overall alternative Ucits strategies delivered solid performances in 2012, but managed futures struggled to keep up, according to the Q4 Alceda Quarterly Ucits review from Alceda Fund Management.
The top performer of 2012 was the Equity Long Short Index which delivered 6.19 per cent growth over the year.
Tracking the Absolute Hedge Global Ucits Index, the Alceda Ucits review revealed the sector had another positive quarter, with the Index advancing 0.8 per cent to bring total yearly gains to 3.02 per cent. As at December 2012, assets under management in alternative Ucits funds stood at EUR86.0bn, following a 1.5
Offshore law firms Carey Olsen and Hempel and Boyd are entering into an association to provide their clients with British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Jersey legal services.
Carey Olsen is an offshore law firm with offices in the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey and London.
Hempel and Boyd provides BVI legal services from its offices in the BVI and Cape Town, South Africa.
The announcement of the association between the two firms follows Carey Olsen’s entry into the Cayman Islands legal market in 2012 and its launch of BVI services through its Guernsey office in 2012.
According to
US prime money market fund (MMF) exposure to eurozone banks decreased slightly during December 2012, with the notable exception of French banks, according to a new Fitch Ratings report.
This represents the first time since end-June 2012 that MMF eurozone holdings decreased.
Overall, MMF allocations to Eurozone banks have increased by more than 70 per cent since falling to a historical low in end-June 2012 and now represent 12.9 per cent of MMF assets. However, Fitch notes that MMF allocations to Eurozone banks remain more than 60 per cent below end-May 2011.
The one exception to the December trends was
The UK’s fund management industry has been given an extra year to comply with the EU’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), says Bovill, the financial services regulatory consultancy.
In its consultation on how to implement the European rules, HM Treasury gave a boost to UK private equity and hedge funds by proposing that UK managers will not have to comply with the new rules until 22 July 2014. This means existing firms will have full use of a one year transitional period provided by the Directive, which actually takes effect on 22 July this year.
In a sign that
Insparo Asset Management has appointed commodity specialist Lucas Wurfbain to oversee a new global food fund, expected to be launched later this year.
Wurfbain brings with him a wealth of experience in the commodity space, having worked at Fortress Investment Group, Rubicon Fund Management and Global Asset Management (GAM). Wurfbain has worked both in London and in Asia and has travelled extensively throughout his career.
Wurfbain joins Insparo’s six-strong investment team, led by CIO Mohammed Hanif, which manages the firm’s frontier market products.
The firm’s existing funds, the Insparo Africa Equity Fund (IAEF) and the flagship Insparo Africa and
Dion Global Solutions, a technology partner to the financial services industry, has launched the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) TRAC Indicia Check Service to assist financial firms in making an initial assessment of the impact of the FATCA regulations on their business.
The announcement follows the publication of the long-awaited final regulations for the implementation of FATCA by the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service. Aimed at combating offshore tax evasion, FATCA has far-reaching implications for financial institutions around the world. Firms globally now need to put compliance programmes in place to ensure required timeframes are met.
Financial data integration specialist Volante Technologies has opened an office in Dubai to serve the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions.
Mick Fennell, general manager MEA, has been appointed to run the Dubai operation, reporting to Fiona Hamilton, vice president EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Fennell joins Volante after more than 20 years at Misys where he was latterly head of transaction banking MEA with responsibility for front-to-back processing of payments, trade finance and cash management, based in Dubai.
Prior to this role, Fennell held numerous positions within the Misys organisation largely in the payments and financial messaging fields
