Latest News
Stenham Asset Management has appointed Pablo Balan as Head of Risk Management and Quantitative Research.
Balan, who joined the firm in the last quarter of 2011 is based in Stenham’s London office. He is a member of the firm’s Investment Advisory Committee and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of risk across the full range of Stenham’s funds and portfolios. His assessment of risk encompasses the fundamental and quantitative inputs to the Stenham investment process. He is also responsible for generating quantitative research on underlying funds and portfolio analytics to assist the fund selection, monitoring and portfolio construction processes.
Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking has appointed Inès de Dinechin as Chief Executive Officer of Lyxor Asset Management. She replaces Laurent Seyer who will leave Societe Generale group to pursue other opportunities. This appointment will be effective as of the end of March 2012.
Inès de Dinechin has spent the vast majority of her career in markets activities, holding several management positions in financial markets (engineering and derivatives product sales) before being appointed Global Head of Fixed Income Structured Products (Rates, Forex, Credit). Her experience constitutes a real asset to consolidate the leadership of Lyxor Asset Management in its
Legg Mason Global Asset Management has launched Permal Hedge Strategies Fund, a fixed income focused multi-manager, multi strategy fund of hedge funds.
The Fund invests in a broad range of fixed income strategies, employing flexible asset allocation and moving capital between credit and non credit strategies. Investments include developed as well as emerging market fixed income and long/short fixed income. There are also smaller allocations to event-driven strategies, such as risk arbitrage, distressed debt, special situations and activists, as well as global macro strategies, including both systematic and discretionary managers, which are intended to mitigate market volatility.
"Given market volatility
Forward Management has launched the Forward Endurance Fund (FENIX), an equity mutual fund that seeks growth and positive absolute returns by investing both long and short in companies affected by disruptive technologies.
The fund invests with a strategy similar to that employed by the Forward Endurance limited partnership launched in March of 2011. The fund focuses on transformative, global growth opportunities, identifying what Foward believes to be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ across a variety of industry sectors. Currently, these sectors include: technologies across mobile, Internet and cloud computing; energy and related areas such as clean tech and energy efficiency; and international emerging
Alter Domus has appointed two new Directors, Davinia Smith and Spencer Wells, to its Jersey office.
“Alter Domus has undergone significant global expansion over the past year in the effort to offer our clients fully integrated services across multiple jurisdictions,” says Dominique Robyns, President and Chairman of Alter Domus. “Our recent growth in Jersey and Guernsey is an important milestone in delivering exceptional services to our clients."
Smith and Wells both bring a wealth of financial services experience to their new positions with Alter Domus.
Smith has over 17 years experience in the financial services sector and is a STEP
SMBC Nikko Securities is quickly emerging as a powerhouse in Japanese fixed-income trading, according to the results of Greenwich Associates 2011 Japanese Fixed-Income Investors Study.
From 2010 to 2011 SMBC Nikko Securities increased its market share in Japanese government bond trading to 7.8% from just 3.0% and its share in secondary yen investment-grade credit bond trading to 16.6% from 10.1%. With these increases, SMBC Nikko Securities lifted its overall market position in Japanese government bond trading to one just behind that of market leaders Nomura Securities, Mizuho Securities, Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities in Japanese government bond
NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Borse have both agreed to a mutual termination of the business combination agreement originally signed by the companies on 15 February, 2011.
The move comes following the recently announced decision by the European Commission to block the proposed merger of the two firms.
International law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is to add two partners to its London funds practice. Tim Pearce and Ian Meade will join the firm from Simmons & Simmons.
Their arrival at Akin Gump will significantly expand the firm’s London practice which advises leading funds and fund managers on a broad range of issues, investment products and asset classes, including fund formation and financial services regulation and compliance, as well as their business activities more generally.
Tim and Ian will also work closely with the firm’s market-leading international funds teams and clients in New York,
The global mining giant Xstrata plc has confirmed that it has received an approach from and is in discussions with commodities giant Glencore International plc regarding an all share merger of equals “which may or may not lead to an offer being made by Glencore for Xstrata.” A combined group could be valued at about USD82 billion.
In accordance with Rule 2.6(a) of the (UK) City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Code”), Glencore (which already owns 34.4% of Xstrata) is now required, by no later than 5:00 p.m. on 1 March 2012, to either announce a firm intention to
ML Capital will be launching two new UCITs funds this quarter on the MontLake Platform. As well as the the launch of the Goldwinds Global Macro UCITS Fund on 13 February – as previously reported in a Hedgeweek exclusive on 29 January – ML Capital is also due to launch the RP Systematic Emerging Market UCITS Fund on 1 March.
The two launches will bring the MontLake UCITS platform AUM to over USD100 million.
The RP Systematic Emerging Market UCITS Fund will be managed by RP Capital UK Ltd, with Apostolos Avlonitis and Constantinos Giachalis responsible for managing the day
