Nassim Nicholas Taleb (pictured), principal of Universa Investments and famed author of “The Black Swan”, delivered a keynote speech on some useful properties of barbells at Gaim International 2012. Noting that the opposite of fragile is “antifragile”, Taleb explained that barbells – a type of investment strategy that sits on both ends of the yield curve for example in bonds – possess this antifragile characteristic, enabling them to benefit from crises. Barbells, then, have the capacity to turn something that’s robust into something antifragile. If you have a lot of upside and a lot of downside in a portfolio (left

Manager skill continues to take centre stage in these volatile times according to GAIM conference director Victoria Chatterton (pictured). With that in mind, this year’s event focuses on four big picture themes: Evolving investor opinions on manager selection and asset allocation Making money in volatile times Business strategies for a low return & high regulation era Hedge fund regulation & the way forward for hedge fund distribution “Risk management is now so much more integral to the hedge fund and the investment process. As a result we have extended our thinking on this and have included two new panels –

Lyxor Asset Management and Koris International are teaming up to design investment solutions for distribution across Europe based on funds available on the Lyxor Managed Account Platform (MAP). The partnership combines Lyxor’s MAP, which applies liquidity and systematic risk control to alternative strategies, with Koris International’s quantitative asset allocation technologies, and will last for at least two years.   The investment solutions resulting from the partnership will be tailored to small institutions, family offices and private banks seeking asymmetry in the risk-return profiles of their investments, as well as access to the wide range of alternative investment strategies available on

The legislative proposal Level 2 draft of the EU-wide AIFM Directive was released at the end of May, and it looks increasingly likely that hedge funders are going to bear the financial brunt of appointing a depositary bank. Under the Directive, each AIFM will need to hold all of an AIF’s financial instruments in custody, with no exceptions made such as assets used for collateral arrangements. Speaking to Hedgeweek at Gaim International 2012, Jeff Campbell (pictured), sales and relationship manager in the institutional investor segment at BNP Paribas Securities Services, said: “Managers should definitely be concerned as both the liabilities

In the opening panel discussion at Gaim International 2012, GLG Partners’ chief investment strategist Jamil Baz (pictured) started off by outlining the general macroeconomic consensus. He noted that governments had thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, that Ben Bernanke deserves a big fat cigar and that at 2 per cent, GDP growth in the US isn’t actually that bad. There’s no reason why this crisis should be any different to all other historical crises, including 2008: it is, said, Baz, “just another crisis”. He then outlined his reasons for disagreeing with everything he’d just said in his opening address

In a robust critique of a recent paper by the public interest group Finance Watch (Investing Not Betting: Making Financial Markets Serve Society,” April 2012), EDHEC-Risk Institute has taken issue with a number of positions that this paper deems to be self-evident, e.g. that speculators must have a minority role in futures markets; that excessive speculation undermines the commodity price formation mechanism; and that there should be a linear relationship between a commodity’s supply-and-demand data and its price. Drawing on the theoretical and empirical evidence in the academic literature, the EDHEC-Risk Institute position paper, entitled: “Who Sank the Boat?” (in