Last month Francisco Arcilla (pictured) joined AXA Investment Managers as their new Global Head of AXA Funds of Hedge Funds, an exciting role that will see him drive forward AXA IM’s tailored solution-based approach to meeting clients’ investment needs. Arcilla is based in London and reports directly to Thibaud de Vitry, Global Head of AXA IM’s Investment Solutions business. Speaking to Hedgeweek about his new role, Arcilla enthused about the opportunity of developing AXA’s FoHFs business, which he admits is fairly classical in nature, into a new generation FoHFs model. “From AXA IM’s viewpoint it’s also about how we can

Prominent investors are using the recent market turmoil as an opportunity to pressure private equity firms into changing the way they organise their fee structures. Sovereign wealth funds have been particularly vociferous about changing the traditional model of management fees of up to two percent. Mark Spinner (pictured), partner at international law firm Eversheds, comments… The thorny issue of ‘excessive management fees’ has been around for a little while now and with some of the mega leveraged buy-out funds it is not hard to see why. A 2% annual management fee on a Fund of EUR6 billion amounts to a

Highland Funds Asset Management has launched the Highland Dividend Equity Fund (ticker:HDFAX). Brookmont Capital Management, LLC (Brookmont) will serve as the fund’s sub-advisor. The Highland Dividend Equity Fund will employ a strategy of individual common stocks that seeks to provide above-average dividend yields with the potential for long-term capital gains. The strategy will not be limited to a certain "style" or market capitalisation. Rather, it will invest in high-quality stocks that offer attractive valuations with below-market risk profiles, and will avoid making large sector bets or concentrations in individual names. The fund will choose stocks of companies from all 10

The Swiss banking group SYZ & CO announced today the launch of new classes in CHF for seven OYSTER funds, which are already available in Switzerland in other currencies. By offering investors the choice of the reference currency, SYZ & CO can better address the specific needs of the Swiss market, which is one of the key areas for development. This focus on Switzerland has also been underlined by a significant reinforcement of the OYSTER Funds commercial team.   The strategies selected for the launch of new classes in CHF are OYSTER US Value, OYSTER Global Convertibles, OYSTER European Opportunities,

Bedell Trust is strengthening its presence in Mauritius with the launch of Bedell Management Services (Mauritius) Limited, a full service management company, providing corporate, trust and fund administration services. Its range of expertise complements the legal advice provided by Bedell Cristin (Mauritius) Partnership, which opened in November 2010 and has swiftly established itself in the region for its expertise in handling complex cross-border transactions. Bedell Management Services (Mauritius) Limited will be led by Yuvraj Juwaheer (pictured), who has over 15 years’ experience in the global finance business sector. Juwaheer was a member of the Mauritian government steering committee set up

By James Williams – As the number of managed account platforms (MAPs) increases, seemingly in response to the growth in institutional investors entering the realm of hedge funds, one might assume that managed account AUM is following a steep upward trajectory. Platforms like AlphaMetrix have done well attracting assets, and a survey of the top ten platforms earlier this year by an industry publication showed that their combined AUM had risen from USD41.3billion in 2010 to USD52.8billion. However, the much-predicted post ’08 deluge in assets hasn’t materialised, giving way instead to steady growth in AuM. A JP Morgan 2011 Investor

By Stefan Keller, Head of Managed Account Platform Research & External Relations, Lyxor Asset Management – Recent market turmoil has understandably made people nervous. I believe we’re going through a once-in-a-generation period of uncertainty. The ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe has spilled over to the banks, pushing up credit and market risks and disrupting bank funding markets. Counterparty risk, then, is back on the table. Our Lyxor Managed Account Platform uses open architecture. This enables us to manage risk by working with 10 different prime brokers, 15 OTC counterparties and three administrators. This year we’ve been very active, launching

By Tyler Kim, CIO, Maples Fund Services – Institutional investors could be easily overwhelmed by the volume of data that originates out of their managed accounts programs. To avoid this, they require information systems that aggregate position data across multiple managers, consolidate information on a ubiquitous dashboard, and produce meaningful analytical reports. Data accessibility and robust reporting capabilities are key to extracting the informational benefits intended from managed accounts. The type of reporting done for managed accounts is setting a new standard for portfolio information synthesis. Applying the “managed accounts approach” to reporting across all assets is an emerging trend