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HighWater, a boutique corporate governance services firm based in the Cayman Islands, has expanded with a New York-based principal.
Matt Auriemma, who will be based in New York, joins as a principal of HighWater, providing independent director services to investment funds, mostly hedge funds and other alternative investment vehicles.
“HighWater has an impeccable reputation for corporate governance in the industry and an impressive client portfolio including many of the world’s top alternative investment managers” says Auriemma. “My experience complements that of the team and I am looking forward to contributing to the future growth of this impressive firm.”
Auriemma was
Sapient Global Markets has completed a new industry standard for cleared OTC derivatives related activity reporting for asset managers, futures commission merchants (FCMs) and custodians.
The Clearing Connectivity Standard (CCS) is a standardised connectivity format that can be used by the FCM community to transmit OTC clearing related information on behalf of their asset manager clients to custodians.
As industry regulatory reform emerges, both the volume of cleared derivative trades and the number of relationships between market participants is growing. The absence of a formal standard for formatting or transmitting data between entities can create delayed onboarding and increased
It is quite a consensus call to have an overweight position on developed market credit but, says Williams Sels (pictured), UK Head of Investment Strategy at HSBC Private Bank, this still makes a lot of sense…
We would rather be lending to non-financial corporates than to most governments. And with global economic growth probably below a normal pace and very difficult to estimate, we think it is still too courageous to upgrade equities or commodities. High corporate bond issuance activity should thus continue to be matched by strong investor demand, in our view.
1. Fundamentals: positive but unexciting global
A federal court in California has entered a consent order that requires defendants Douglas Elsworth Wilson of Poway, California, and three companies he controls and manages, Elsworth Berg Capital Management (EBCM), Elsworth Berg Inc, and Elsworth Berg FX jointly and severally to pay USD3,965,670.71 in restitution to customers as well as a USD1.5m civil monetary penalty.
The order also imposes permanent trading and registration bans and permanent injunctions against further violations of federal commodities law, as alleged.
The order follows a US Commodity Futures Trading Commission civil complaint filed on 27 July 2011 in the US District Court for the
Real Estate Credit Investments (RECI) made a profit of GBP0.7m in the quarter ended 30 June 2012, compared with GBP4.5m in the previous quarter, according to the company’s latest interim management statement.
RECI’s NAV per share of 119p as at 31 July (15 July: 112p), represents a 6.3% increase over the second half of the month and an increase of 8.2% since the start of the company’s financial year (1 April, 2012).
The company recorded a net gain in the bond portfolio of GBP1.4m for the June quarter (being GBP0.8m interest income received and GBP0.6m in mark to market gains)
Hedge funds continued to make gains in July with the SS&C GlobeOp Performance Index up 1.42 per cent for the month.
Year-to-date performance stands at 5.74 per cent.
The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Index data is based on the same reconciled fund data that SS&C GlobeOp uses to produce fund net asset values.
SS&C GlobeOp’s total assets under administration on the GlobeOp platform, at USD187bn, represent approximately 10 per cent of the estimated assets currently invested in the hedge fund sector.
Performance over the last 12 months stands at 4.30 per cent while live to date performance is 67.83 per
InfraHedge, a managed account infrastructure platform and a subsidiary of State Street, has been chosen by Milltrust International Group for the launch of its Emerging Markets Managed Accounts (EMMA plc) platform, a dedicated emerging markets fund management platform housed within a single custodian relationship.
EMMA selects best of breed investment managers in high-growth emerging markets and has been promoted by Milltrust International as a Dublin-based Ucits umbrella fund.
The fund has launched with three sub funds managed by Bank Itau, BTG Pactual and Value Partners, focusing on Brazil, Latin America and Greater China respectively.
“Milltrust wanted the freedom to work
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a civil anti-fraud enforcement action against Michael Bruce Gale, individually and doing business as Capital Management Group (CMG).
The CFTC complaint charges Gale with defrauding investors in connection with operating a commodity pool to trade commodity futures contracts, making false statements to pool participants, misappropriating pool funds, commingling investor funds with pool funds, and failing to register as a commodity pool operator with the CFTC.
The complaint alleges that from at least the summer of 2007 through the present, Gale, individually and doing business as CMG, fraudulently solicited and accepted at least
By James Williams – One thing above all else is guaranteed when discussing developments in the alternative UCITS space: it polarises opinion. Much like the wider financial markets, where people argue their case with equal validity as to the likelihood of a sustained recovery or further descent into the abyss, the regulated alternatives market is much the same.
On the one hand people will point to sustained AUM growth over the last few years, which according to Alix Capital has seen assets increase from around EUR80billion to EUR129billion, as a clear sign that momentum is building. Furthermore, alternative investments research
Interview with Andrea Cattaneo (pictured) and Margaret Harwood-Jones at BNP Paribas Securities Services – A recent survey released this April by BNP Paribas Securities Services in conjunction with consultancy group Knadel found that the three key Asian markets – Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan – met or exceeded the expectations of 75 per cent of European asset managers currently distributing UCITS funds there.
Despite this, some commentators have suggested that these markets, in particular Hong Kong, are becoming more difficult to gain access into.
Speaking with Hedgeweek, Andrea Cattaneo, head of asset manager solutions at BNP Paribas, confirms this
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