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China’s central bank surprised markets by unexpectedly cutting interest rates for the second time in two months. Benchmark lending rates have been lowered by 31 basis points to 6 per cent, whilst deposit rates will be cut by 25 basis points to 3 per cent, says Liz Evans (pictured), Senior Investment Director and Manager of the Cavendish Asia Pacific Fund…
Whilst a second rate cut was widely expected later this year, few imagined it would come so early. The surprise timing may well be an attempt to deflect attention from the Q2 GDP figure, which is expected to disappoint and
Fitch Ratings says the recent wave of consolidation in the hedge funds industry leaves just a handful of candidates for large scale acquisitions.
In their quest for size, alternative multi-managers now focus on organic growth.
The same number of deals has taken place in the year to date in the European fund of hedge fund industry as in the whole of 2011.
The most notable include Man Group/FRM, Gottex/Penjing AM Kenmar/Olympia and UBP/Nexar. In all cases, the rationale for acquisition has been primarily mutualisation of costs, economies of scale but also diversification of revenues and investor base.
Few medium to
In a continuing sign that Asian hedge funds are ramping up their operational infrastructures, Dymon Asia Capital (Singapore) Pte, Asia’s best performing hedge fund in 2011, has hired David Chan as CEO reported Bloomberg this week.
Chan, a former head of macro trading at Goldman Sachs in Asia, has also been made a partner of the firm founded by Danny Yong. The appointment will help strengthen its interest rate trading. Chan will manage the investment team according to Yong, who has moved to firm up the management team in order to allow him to focus more on trading having seen
The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands last week handed down judgment in the closely followed case of Medley Opportunity Fund Ltd v Fintan Master Fund Ltd and Nautical Nominees Limited, says Peter Cockhill and Rachael Reynolds of Ogier.
Medley Opportunity Fund Ltd is a Cayman hedge fund, which, along with numerous other hedge funds in 2008 and 2009, restructured its affairs in response to the liquidity squeeze caused by the global economic crisis and a tide of redemption requests.
The shareholders agreed to a restructuring arrangement under which redemption rights were limited to quarterly pro rata payments during the
Azad Zangana (pictured), European Economist at Schroders, on the ECB’s decision to cut interest rates to a record low…
The European Central Bank has cut its main policy rate for the first time since December 2011, taking the refinancing rate down from 1.00% to a record low of 0.75%. In addition, the ECB has cut its marginal lending rate to 1.5%, and its deposit rate to zero. While the cut in the main refinancing rate was expected, the cut to the deposit rate comes as a surprise as the bank has in the past emphasised the need to have a
Xenfin is to close its FX fund after three and a half years of trading and return all funds to investors.
Since inception the fund has returned 28.76 per cent and 57.52 per cent on its managed growth and aggressive FX strategies respectively.
June’s performance was +2.80 per cent, taking the fund’s 2012 YTD performance to +1.88 per cent.
“We are extremely grateful to all of our clients for their trust and support over the last few years, and thank you to everyone who has supported us in setting up and running this strategy,” says Nick Hocart of Xenfin
Standard Life Investments’ distribution partnership with Länsförsäkringar has secured over EUR30m sales in the first five months.
Länsförsäkringar, Sweden’s only customer owned and locally based banking and insurance group, started offering the Standard Life Investments Global Absolute Returns Strategies Fund (GARS) to customers in January this year.
The fund is now in excess of EUR30m, well ahead of initial sales targets, and held by Länsförsäkringar clients across Sweden.
Gunilla Forsmark Karlsson, chief executive for Länsförsäkringar’s unit linked business, says: “I’m very happy with our co-operation with Standard Life Investments so far. GARS is an excellent addition to our fund offering,
The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained a court order to freeze the assets of a Georgia-based investment adviser who has apparently gone into hiding after orchestrating a USD40m investment fraud.
The SEC alleges that Aubrey Lee Price raised money from more than 100 investors living primarily in Georgia and Florida by selling shares in an unregistered investment fund (PFG) that he managed.
Price purported to invest fund assets in traditional marketable securities, but he also made illiquid investments in South America real estate and a troubled South Georgia bank. In order to conceal mounting losses of investor funds, Price
Masashi Oda, Chief Investment Officer, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group on the latest activity in Japanese equity markets…
Despite downward revisions to consensus forecasts, the Japanese equity market still offers an attractive forward PER of 12.1x: a historic low. The market is also at a historical low relative to the US: the estimated PER gap between TOPIX and the S&P500 is now in negative territory, reflecting the relative outperformance of U.S. equities
Following May’s corporate earnings releases, our analysts have reviewed their FY2012 forecasts. While our initial view was that guidance from some companies was overly conservative, further analysis has led
Singapore Exchange says derivatives, commodities and clearing activities grew in June from a year earlier while securities turnover was lower.
In June, securities turnover fell 25 per cent year-on-year and 18 per cent month-on-month to SGD21.2bn; securities daily average value declined 21 per cent year-on-year and 14 per cent month-on-month to SGD1.0bn.
June ETF turnover was 56 per cent lower year-on-year at SGD350m while GlobalQuote activity was down 17 per cent to SGD97m.
For the financial year to end-June (FY2012), SDAV was SGD1.3bn, down 19 per cent from a year earlier.
In FY2012, ETF turnover fell 23 per cent to
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