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Alan Whiting is to succeed Hugh Freedberg as the new non-executive Chairman of the NYSE Liffe’s global derivatives business. Whiting’s appointment will take effect from 1 May, 2012. Freedberg who previously served as CEO of NYSE Liffe from 1998 to 2009 is retiring from his role as Chairman, which he has held since 2009.
“I would like to thank Hugh Freedberg for his long and distinguished service to the company and industry as a whole. Amongst his many achievements, Hugh led the reinvention of the company, transforming the business from a mutual in the late nineties. He implemented the
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today issued an order pursuant to Section 5c(c)(5)(C)(ii) of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Regulation 40.11(a)(1), prohibiting the North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) from listing or making available for clearing or trading a set of self-certified political event derivatives contracts.
The contracts are binary option contracts that pay out based upon the results of various US federal elections to be held in 2012.
Nadex self-certified the contracts on 19 December, 2011, and on 3 January, 2012, the CFTC initiated a 90-day review period of the contracts pursuant to CFTC Regulation 40.11(c). As a
Spring Mountain Capital, LP (SMC), an investment management firm that focuses on alternative asset investing, has established a High Yield and Distressed Municipal Strategies Group.
The firm has also hired high yield and distressed municipal bonds specialists Garey M Fuqua, Thomas J Brophy and Sandra T Matthews to lead its investments in this asset class. Fuqua will lead the team and serve as Managing Director and Group Head of High Yield and Distressed Municipal Strategies.
Driven by an investment philosophy focused on a dynamic and opportunistic investment thesis and approach, the creation of the High Yield and Distressed Municipal
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a complaint in federal district court in New York charging the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian bank and financial services firm doing business in New York, with conducting a multi-hundred million dollar wash sale scheme in connection with exchange-traded stock futures contracts.
The CFTC’s complaint also alleges that RBC wilfully concealed, and made false statements concerning, material aspects of its wash sale scheme from OneChicago, LLC (OneChicago), an electronic futures exchange, and CME Group, Inc. (CME Group), the entity that exercised the regulatory compliance function for OneChicago.
From at
On Wednesday, March 28, 2012, United States District Judge Robert W Sweet of the Southern District of New York entered a final judgement in favour of the US Securities and Exchange Commission ordering total monetary relief of USD98.6 million from Pentagon Capital Management (PCM) and CEO Lewis Chester.
The final judgment enjoins PCM, a United Kingdom based hedge fund adviser, and its chief executive officer, Chester, from violating the anti-fraud provisions of the securities laws, Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. In addition, the final
Vistra has opened a new office in Mauritius to target the growing opportunities in the region and in particular in the African and Indian markets. Vistra (Mauritius) Limited opened on 02 April, following the granting of a licence to operate as a Mauritius management company by the local regulatory authority.
Vistra believes Mauritius offers an excellent gateway for clients seeking investment structuring solutions for African markets, given the continent’s vast natural resource wealth and rapidly growing economies. At the same time, Vistra believes having a Mauritius base will offer significant opportunities to target inbound and outbound investments in the Indian
Carey Olsen has advised Kreos Capital on the establishment of a new expert fund and an investment management company in Jersey. Regulatory consents and approvals were obtained in 2011 with initial drawdown of investor commitments expected early in 2012.
The fund, Kreos Capital IV (Expert Fund) Limited, has EUR120 million of committed capital from its initial closing and Kreos Capital has set up a regulated fund for the first time in Jersey. Kreos’s previous funds have been private placements.
Kreos Capital is a long-established growth debt provider for high-growth companies across Europe, with an emphasis on the UK, the Nordics,
All eyes will be on former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont (pictured) and Economics Editor and Broadcaster Stephanie Flanders as they debate the future of the financial markets at the Guernsey Funds Forum 2012.
The event, titled ‘Shaken not stirred’, will be held at the Grange St Paul’s Hotel in London on Wednesday 2 May. It will comprise three sessions, culminating in a keynote debate featuring Lord Lamont and Stephanie Flanders where the audience will have the opportunity to cross-examine the pair in a ‘Question Time’ format. The debate and the preceding panel sessions will all be moderated
The London Metal Exchange (LME) saw record volumes transacted in LME Cobalt in March 2012 with 1,310 lots traded, the equivalent of USD40 million.
“Our cobalt contract has seen a very healthy start to the year,” says Chris Evans, head of business development at the LME. “The strong volumes show growing recognition from the cobalt industry of the LME contract.”
Volumes were up 86% in Q1 2012 compared with the corresponding period in 2011. Over the quarter, 111 tonnes were delivered in and 63 tonnes delivered out.
LME Cobalt now has 19 brands listed from nine countries
MarketAxess Holdings Inc has introduced REXIQ: Reducing Execution Costs, a new proprietary approach to analysing trading costs in the fixed-income markets that has been developed by MarketAxess Research.
In highly liquid markets such as equities, a number of sophisticated approaches are widely accepted to measure the main components of trading costs – known as transaction cost analysis (TCA) – and thereby help support customers’ best execution requirements. REXIQ is the first formal methodology for measuring transaction costs in the less liquid corporate bond markets.
Separately, new independent academic research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that there are
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