Latest News
By Thomas Zdon – A year or two on from the financial crisis Hedge Fund firms were still reeling from the impact of the market on the absolute return model of the industry. Confronted with fears around risk and exposures founded by well publicized counterparty collapses, firms sought to regain investor confidence while shoring up best practices around risk management.
Core to the new paradigm was a multi-counterparty model designed to take advantage of the lower custodial trading fees and to reduce counterparty risk while expanding product offerings (SMA, UCITS) to bolster a somewhat eroding bottom line.
A direct impact
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Peter Madoff, the brother of Bernie Madoff, with committing fraud, making false statements to regulators, and falsifying books and records in order to create the false appearance of a functioning compliance programme over Madoff’s fraudulent investment advisory operations.
The SEC alleges that Peter Madoff, who served as chief compliance officer and senior managing director at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS) from 1969 to December 2008, created stacks of compliance documents setting out supposedly robust policies and procedures over BMIS’s investment advisory operations.
However, Peter Madoff created these compliance manuals, written supervisory procedures,
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved for public comment proposed interpretive guidance regarding the cross-border application of the swaps provisions of Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Commission’s regulations.
The proposed guidance interprets Section 2(i) of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), which states that the swaps provisions of the CEA shall not apply to activities outside the US unless those activities have a direct and significant connection with activities in, or effect on, commerce of the US.
The vote was conducted via seriatim, which was approved by all five commissioners. The
Monsoon Capital has listed its Monsoon Asia-Pacific Systematic Fund as a Transparent Fund on AlphaMetrix.
The Monsoon Asia-Pacific Systematic Fund is now visible to the AlphaMetrix network.
It will retain its existing structure and service providers while offering investors risk monitoring, reporting, customized transparency and a thorough background investigation via AlphaMetrix.
“We are excited to list our Asia CTA fund on AlphaMetrix,” says Gautam Prakash, founder of Monsoon Capital. “We have long been impressed with AlphaMetrix and believe that listing our systematic trading managed futures fund on the Marketplace is an important step to increasing the transparency and risk reporting
The European Securities and Markets Authority has published a consultation paper on proposed guidelines on remuneration of alternative investment fund managers.
ESMA’s future guidelines will apply to managers managing alternative investment funds including hedge funds, private equity funds and real estate funds.
These funds will be asked to introduce sound and prudent remuneration policies and structures with the aim of increasing investor protection and avoiding conflicts of interest that may lead to excessive risk taking.
The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) establishes a set of rules that AIFMs have to comply with when establishing and applying a remuneration
Krusen Capital Management, a hedge fund and private equity advisory firm, has partnered with Atrato Advisors to provide independent research and due diligence for its LionHedge Platform.
Krusen Capital provides advice on alternative investments and access to top managers, targeting independent wealth managers, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and select institutional investors.
Atrato will oversee qualitative, quantitative, and operational due diligence on the existing menu of managers, as well as new additions to the platform.
Krusen and Atrato will provide complete transparency to LionHedge investors, making its research content available to all clients through Krusen Capital’s proprietary website portal.
Krusen Capital,
With an important vote looming in the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on MiFID II on July 9, TABB Group believes that current proposals to reform pricing practices in the fixed-income market will seriously undermine trading firms’ ability to provide liquidity, increase trading costs for investors and make it more difficult and expensive for governments and companies to raise capital.
In the face of Europe’s already stressed debt markets and in conjunction with the intended Basel III regulations on capital requirements, the pricing proposals may have a material negative impact on Europe’s real economy, says Rebecca Healey (pictured),
The European Structured Investment Products Association (EUSIPA) has published a new version of the EUSIPA Derivative Map, the Brussels-based trade association’s key educational and transparency tool for investors and issuers of listed structured products in Europe.
The EUSIPA Derivative Map categorises products according to their pay-off characteristics, outlining what types of instruments are available in particular jurisdictions. It demonstrates the pay-off features of key product categories in graphical form by showing profit and loss movement over time versus the movement of the underlying market the derivative references. With many thousands of structured notes listed on various European exchanges, the EUSIPA
Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) announced at this week’s Fund Forum International the launch of a turnkey solution to enable asset management companies and independent managers to create, manage and promote Ucits funds. SSGS said that the solution was aimed at global managers who don’t want to create a Ucits-registered asset management firm, instead providing them with a Luxembourg legal structure that fulfills EU regulations. The turnkey solution allows managers to create and distribute Ucits funds across all 27 members of the EU as well as offer distribution advantages in non-EU jurisdictions.
Olivier Renault, deputy chief executive and Luxembourg country
With a flood of new regulations set to emerge over the next few months, US hedge funds and service providers need to pay close attention to compliance and regulatory issues even as they battle to stay abreast of their performance forecasts.
Delivering the keynote address at the Hedgeweek USA Awards 2012 held this week in New York, Jeffrey Rosenthal (pictured), Partner and head of the financial services practice at Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP, noted that with the growing institutionalisation of the hedge funds market, managers need to build and maintain strong record keeping procedures in areas ranging from compensation
Special Reports
FeatureD
- Insight
