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SIG is increasing its weighting to equities against a background of almost universal investor pessimism, according to the firm’s latest monthly asset allocation report. In his monthly note, SIG CIO James Millard says, “investors remain very overweight cash” but “we are considerably more optimistic on the outlook for markets than consensus”…
Tensions in the global economy eased somewhat during December with the US growing above trend rate in the final quarter of 2011. In Europe, where many of the issues of 2011 remain unresolved, while the peripheral Euro countries will almost certainly stay in recession throughout 2012, the core countries may only
F-Squared Investments has brought in more than USD4 billion in net inflows during the 2011 calendar year, driving total assets under management or model manager agreements to nearly USD6 billion. The firm, which started 2011 at USD1.5 billion in assets, has experienced a growth rate of over 270 per cent for the year and a two-year growth rate of over 2,100 per cent.
F-Squared’s rapid rate of inflows underscores investors’ rising demand for strategies that meet the "Participate and Protect" definition: Ability to participate in rising equity markets yet still offer meaningful protection from significant market declines. The firm’s AlphaSector strategies
HedgeOp Compliance, LLC (HedgeOp), a provider of specialised compliance software and consulting services for investment advisers in the US, is merging with The IMS Group (IMS), a European governance, risk and compliance services group.
HedgeOp will operate as ‘HedgeOp Compliance – an IMS Group company’ from its offices in New York, Boston and San Francisco. Bill Mulligan, founder and Chief Executive of HedgeOp, will continue in his role and report to IMS Group Chief Executive, Michel van Leeuwen. The entire HedgeOp management team and staff will continue in their current roles.
The enlarged Group will have offices in London, New
Offshore law firm, Mourant Ozannes, has appointed Advocate Daniel Birtwistle as the Managing Partner of its Jersey office. His appointment will take effect from 1 February 2012.
Mourant Ozannes advises on the laws of the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Jersey from offices in each of those jurisdictions as well as Hong Kong and London.
Birtwistle has been at the firm since 1995. He qualified as a Jersey lawyer in 1998 and was admitted as a partner in 2004. He ran the firm’s London office between 2006 and 2007 and has been on Mourant Ozannes’ management committee since 2008. A member
Newedge has appointed Andrew Roper as Director on its foreign-exchange (FX) sales desk. In this role, he will be responsible for providing cross asset sales solutions, while supporting the existing client base and introducing related products to institutional clients.
Roper, who will work from Newedge’s London office, reporting directly to Michael Bailey, Head of FX, has over twenty years experience in markets, most recently holding the position of Director on the FX Sales Desk at UniCredit. Prior to this role, he held similar positions at State Street Global Markets London and ANZ London.
“Newedge’s focus has always been on
Former RJ O’Brien Fund Management business development SVP Timothy Phillips has joined Systematic Alpha Management as Marketing Director.
Phillips, an institutional marketing and relationship management specialist, began his career in 1991 at Citibank. He has raised over USD200 million of new assets for managed futures strategies in his career, from both high net worth individuals and institutional investors.
After leaving Citibank in 1993 Phillips joined Refco, a New York City-based commodities firm, holding a variety of positions over 12 years, including Managing Director of the Refco Alternative Investments Group, acting as Head of Product Management and Director of Investor Relations.
Global investors have started 2012 with a reawakened sense of optimism towards the global economy and greater appetite for risk, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers for January.
The global survey of 214 institutional investors shows far fewer predicting a global slowdown. Only a net 3 per cent believe the world economy will weaken in the coming 12 months down from a net 27 per cent in December – the biggest one-month improvement in the growth outlook since May 2009.
Many investors are showing more appetite to take risk. BofA Merrill Lynch’s Composite Risk and
Noam Gottesman, a founding partner and Principal of GLG Partners, Inc has stood down as co-CEO and taken on the role of non-executive Chairman of GLG’s business and interests in the US (GLG (US)). Manny Roman continues as sole CEO of GLG and Chief Operating Officer of Man Group plc.
Jon Aisbitt (pictured), Chairman of Man Group, says: “We thank Noam for his contribution in helping to integrate GLG into Man. He has outstanding entrepreneurial talents and market expertise which will continue to be available to Man in his new role as non-executive Chairman of GLG (US).”
Gottesman says:
In December, the stock market experienced a slight rebound, with the S&P 500 gaining 1.02% in a context of steadily decreasing implied volatility: the VIX reached a 23.4% level after three consecutive months of retreat from its September peak (43.0%).
Fixed-income markets improved significantly with high-grade bonds (+1.19%) erasing their previous month’s loss and credit spreads tightening moderately (+0.53% for the index). In contrast, convertible bonds (-0.45%) continued to fall back.
Commodities (-1.99%) proved unable to sustain upward momentum and dropped back to their October level, while the dollar (+1.34%) ended the year with a slight gain after rising for
Agio Technology, a provider of managed IT services for hedge funds, continued to demonstrate significant growth in 2011 as a result of a growing trend of hedge funds and other investment advisory firms outsourcing non-differentiating IT functions to third-party providers.
Marking its second full year of operation, Agio has rapidly established a strong presence in the hedge fund industry, opening and expanding new offices in the US, UK and Asia.
The firm’s growth was noted in February when it received the distinction of being one of MSPmentor’s top Managed Service Providers in the world. Agio ranked 43rd of 100 MSPs
