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The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index gained 0.2 per cent in September (+2.2 per cent in 2012), with 11 Lyxor Strategy Indices out of 14 ending the month in positive territory.
The rise was led by the Lyxor Event Driven Special Situations Index (+2.2 per cent) and the Lyxor L/S Equity – Long Bias Index (+1.5 per cent).
The sharp move in the markets occurred early in the month as the ECB’s plan for unlimited bond purchases came into focus. For the remainder of the month, markets were relatively calm and exhibited low correlations among individual securities. Volatility was low, as
The trustees of the GBP1.5bn Willis Pension Scheme have chosen Towers Watson to manage a large portion of its hedge fund portfolio on a fiduciary basis, following a competitive tender.
The portfolio, which will have an initial value of around GBP100m, will be invested in a broad range of hedge fund strategies.
Chris Ford (pictured), EMEA head of investment at Towers Watson, says: “This is a significant development for our business and is part of a trend where more clients and prospects are choosing to delegate all or part of their investment decisions to Towers Watson. Our hedge fund
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Chicago-based GEI Financial Services and its owners, Norman Goldstein and Laurie Gatherum, for defrauding their advisory clients — including the GEI Health Care Fund 2001 — by taking at least USD147,000 in excessive fees and capital withdrawals from the fund since 2009.
According to the SEC’s complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Goldstein and Gatherum failed to disclose to investors in the Health Care Fund that their investment adviser removed performance hurdles — including a bench mark and high water marks — in order to draw
Recent improvements in the US economy could give Barack Obama the edge over Republican rival Mitt Romney, says Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital…
If President Obama looked on the ropes in Wednesday’s Presidential debate, the economy has just hit his opponent with a sucker punch.
For the first time in 44 months, the unemployment rate has dropped below 8%, a symbolic threshold over which the Republicans have repeatedly baited the President.
Job creation is powering ahead and unemployment is falling, even if there is continued weakness in America’s manufacturing sector.
House prices are rising and consumer confidence has
Interview with Toni Pinkerton (pictured) and Kim Waldman, Maples Fund Services – Increased regulatory and investor pressures are inexorably raising the barriers to entry in the hedge fund industry. Managers launching today face an uphill battle to raise assets yet must also use third-party administrators to reassure investors, creating tension between cost issues on one side, and pressure to generate alpha and increase assets on the other.
Maples Fund Services is aware of this and has enjoyed considerable success working with US start-ups, helping to lift the firm’s assets under administration by 30 per cent. “At the start of the year
By James Williams – If there’s one tangible benefit to the way regulation is reshaping the hedge fund industry, it’s that service providers have to work in even closer collaboration with each other than they did previously. This is good news for investment advisers and their investors.
“There are a lot more compliance and reporting requirements in the industry,” says Jun Li (pictured), a partner in Ernst & Young’s asset management tax practice. “That places greater emphasis on law firms, tax advisers and administrators to work more collaboratively together, because if something is miscommunicated, the cost to the manager of
Interview with Lonnie Macdonald, UMB Fund Services – “I get RFPs from clients all the time for complete middle-office services,” comments Lonnie Macdonald, president of JD Clark & Company, the hedge fund administration arm of UMB Fund Services. “We need to be there to deliver them.”
In recent times, there’s been a concerted effort by fund administrators to increase their value proposition by delivering a wider range of services, not just in traditional back-office areas but also in the middle-office space.
According to Macdonald, this is driven by investment advisers and their clients wanting better access to high-quality data – which
Interview with Jack Seibald, Concept Capital – Unless an introducing broker can demonstrate a wide array of services to support clients’ needs on one hand, and instil robust operational risk controls to satisfy the increased demands of clearing houses on the other, they won’t remain competitive in today’s world. Cognisant of this, Concept Capital has moved quickly in recent years to build a wide range of services for the investment management community.
Jack Seibald, one of the firm’s principals, admits the industry is being squeezed by increased regulatory requirements and client demands, but this is not something that took the firm
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed 102 enforcement cases in fiscal year 2012, the highest number of cases ever in a single year.
During the past two fiscal years, the Commission filed a total of 201 enforcement actions, representing a significant increase from past years.
The division of enforcement also opened more than 350 new investigations in FY 12, among the highest annual count of new investigations in program history.
In addition, the division obtained orders imposing more than USD585m in sanctions, including orders imposing more than USD416m in civil monetary penalties and directing the payment of more than USD169m
Interview with Daniel New (pictured), Jun Li and Danielle Ryea, Ernst & Young – As its twin regulatory pillars – Form PF and FATCA – begin to cement themselves into the bedrock of the alternatives industry, US hedge fund managers have to focus their attention on getting “mission-ready.”
Although firms with less than USD5bn in regulatory assets under management have until March and April 2013 to prepare their Form PF filing, Daniel New, executive director in the financial services office at Ernst & Young LLP, cautions that managers should not take a blasé approach.
“Over this summer, Form PF probably wasn’t
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