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By Simon Gray – As though a mediocre investment climate and a difficult environment for fundraising weren’t enough to deal with, the alternative fund industry in Europe is now facing up to the home straight of implementation of the European Union’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, which is due to take effect as of July 22 next year. But while many professionals may see the legislation as a threat, or at best a distraction for urgent investment and operational issues, Malta and its fund service providers tend to see it more as an opportunity.
No-one can yet be absolutely sure
By Laragh Cassar (pictured), Partner, Camilleri Preziosi – Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) offer various benefits and enable participants to pool in their investments under the principle of risk spreading. Furthermore, CIS enable the individual investor to benefit from investment opportunities which are generally not viable or available to them, due to cost, regulatory and licensing restrictions.
The number of CIS licensed in Malta has grown significantly over the past decade and, due to various factors (including a favourable fiscal regime), is continuing to increase at a steady rate. CIS generally take the form of investment companies with variable share
By Kenneth Farrugia (pictured) – Malta’s fund industry is increasingly making the headlines in the financial media, which have highlighted the island’s attractiveness as a domicile. Journalists and finance analysts progressively see Malta as a complementary EU jurisdiction to traditional fund domiciles, where regulatory environment supports innovative strategies and solutions.
According to the country’s financial regulator, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), the number of Maltese-based funds has grown from around 130 in 2004 to more than 550 at the beginning of this year, with EUR8.3bn in assets under management. Much of this growth has taken place since the island
Vega-Chi US is to launch its US high-yield bond electronic trading platform for institutional investors on 24 October.
The Vega-Chi trading platform will be the first of its kind, offering institutional investors the ability to trade directly with each other in an exchange-like electronic setting without the need for intermediation by a broker-dealer and therefore enabling institutional investors to achieve better pricing for their trades.
Vega-Chi will launch with more than 45 institutional users and expects the number of participants to exceed 80 within the first three months of trading.
Demand from institutional investors for more efficient trading comes at
Bloomberg has announced access to its US equity pool as part of a new service called Bloomberg Pool, or BPool.
Developed in conjunction with BIDS Trading, BPool enables traders to interact with liquidity present on Bloomberg’s equities trading platforms and BIDS Trading’s alternative trading system (ATS), which acts as BPool’s order matching engine.
BPool shares the broker-sponsored access model implemented by BIDS Trading, which enables buy-side traders to fully allocate commission dollars to the broker of their choice and pay for brokerage services, such as research.
"BPool provides access to what the US equity markets have been looking for, a
Franklin Resources, which operates as Franklin Templeton Investments, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in K2 Advisors, an independent fund of hedge funds manager.
The acquisition will enhance Franklin Templeton’s alternative investments and multi-asset solutions platforms.
The proceeds of the acquisition will be used by K2 to purchase all of the equity currently held by TA Associates and to retire all of K2’s debt obligations. The current management of K2 will not sell any of its interests at this time and will receive no up-front consideration in the transaction.
Beginning in 2016, Franklin Templeton will acquire the remainder of
The Newedge Commodity Trading Index finished August up 0.92 per cent, completing a recent run of three consecutive positive months.
Over the same period, the CTA and CTA Trend-Sub Indices finished down 1.68 per cent and 1.87 per cent respectively.
Sector performance data from the Newedge Trend Indicator reveals commodity and currency sectors may have contributed to this difficult run for systematic strategies.
The Newedge CTA Index’s top performers for the month of August included: Armajaro Commodities Fund: est. +3.58 per cent; Quantitative Investment Mgmt. (Global): +0.52 per cent; and Graham Capital Mgmt. (Discretionary – 6V): est. +0.27 per cent.
Linedata has launched Linedata Global Hedge, a platform supporting the full investment lifecycle for hedge funds and alternative investment managers.
Linedata Global Hedge covers trading and order management, through portfolio, risk and compliance management and middle office to investor accounting and reporting.
It is available as single functional modules or multiple modules, is sufficiently scalable to handle the largest and most complex hedge fund requirements and is available as either deployed or as a hosted solution.
Linedata Global Hedge comprises the company’s alternative solutions, together with services from Linedata’s experienced hedge fund team plus established connectivity to a wide
European Commodity Clearing (ECC) has held the first meeting of its newly established risk committee.
The establishment of the committee represents a significant step towards putting clearing houses in the framework of the current clearing and financial market regulation (EMIR regulation, CPSS-IOSCO rules for financial infrastructures).
The new committee, which will meet four times a year in the future, has the task of advising the ECC management with regard to questions of risk management.
On 13 September 2012, the constituent meeting was held in Frankfurt. All members of the committee have comprehensive expertise and long-standing experience in the clearing and
CME Group is to launch deliverable interest rate swap futures contracts on 13 November 2012.
The new product complements CME Group’s interest rate futures and options business, and its cleared over-the-counter interest rate swap solution.
The contracts will be listed on, and subject to, the rules and regulations of CBOT and will be submitted to and reviewed by the CFTC.
Interest rate swap futures were created to meet strong demand from financial market participants including banks, hedge funds, asset managers and insurers. Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are among the firms who are planning to serve as
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