Latest News
Armstrong Investment Management yesterday (28 Sep) hosted a breakfast seminar at Brunswick Group’s London office entitled: “How to preserve and grow your wealth in an inflationary/stagflationary environment?”
In the opinion of the firm’s eponymous founders, Dr Ana Armstrong and Patrick Armstrong, cautious investors drawn to government bonds – which have seen yields tumble this year – are merely destroying the real value of their wealth. Mr Armstrong thinks inflation will be the most important issue for investors to deal with over the next decade.
“We’re negative on the USD, euro and sterling because we think the only way to tackle
Quintillion Limited has launched a web based approval method for their clients’ net asset values via their reporting portal.
While Quintillion already facilitated publishing of NAV reporting directly to the web portal for client review, the NAV sign-off application now allows a client to approve the per share class values at the click of a button.
The NAV sign-off application has been configured such that it integrates with the Quintillion operations dashboard to notify the Investor Services group once a NAV has been client approved and thereby automatically commencing the Investor Services monthly reporting process.
Joan Kehoe, CEO of Quintillion,
Castle Hall Alternatives, the hedge fund industry’s leading specialist provider of operational due diligence, and Orchard Harbour, an expert provider of due diligence in Australasia and Asia, today announced that they had formed a strategic partnership.
Castle Hall will utilise Orchard Harbour’s local market presence and knowledge of the Pan-Asian hedge fund industry to conduct due diligence on funds in the region. Orchard Harbour, in turn, will provide Australian and Asian investors with access to Castle Hall’s due diligence expertise when evaluating managers in the Americas and Europe.
Orchard Harbour, based in Sydney, Australia, is headed by Alex Wise, an
Last week Hedgeweek attended an update on the AIFMD hosted by Bovill, the financial services regulatory consultants, following ESMA’s second consultation into the implementation of the Directive. ESMA’s first consultation paper closed 13 September. Its final advice on the back of these two consultations will be delivered to the European Commission on 16 November 2011.
The AIFMD still has areas of opacity which ESMA hasn’t necessarily resolved in these consultations, particularly with respect to the third country issue. It will affect any AIF that does not require authorisation by the UCITS Directive, and according to Caroline Gibbs (pictured), Principal of
ConvergEx Group’s prime services business NorthPoint has launched a new division dedicated to the formation, performance and management of alternative mutual funds.
The new Alternative Mutual Fund Services division will work with traditional mutual funds and hedge funds that are interested in launching alternative mutual funds. The offering will combine award winning service with ConvergEx’s powerful investment technologies and advanced investment services to enable customers to raise assets, optimize performance and manage funds in compliance with 1940 act regulations.
Jay Jacobs has been hired to lead this new division. An industry veteran with almost 30 years of experience, Jacobs was
Woodbine Associates has just completed a study for the Institute for Financial Markets that evaluates the impact of Dodd-Frank and Basel III on OTC derivative transactions and proposes cost minimising strategies for end users.
In the wake of new regulation of the over-the-counter derivative markets in both the US and Europe, traders face new capital requirements and transaction costs relative to the size and the particulars of their transactions.
Woodbine Associates has produced a focused study on the potential impact of margin, capital, execution and market structure under the new regulatory framework on End User derivative transactions to
The Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) has set out its ambition for the Luxembourg Fund Centre to be a global centre of excellence for the asset management industry, thereby creating opportunities for investors, fund professionals and the global community as a whole.
Marc Saluzzi (pictured), Chairman of ALFI, says: “The world we live in is experiencing rapid and radical shifts at political, social and economic levels; ALFI fully understands that this has significantly influenced investor demands for performance and safety, efficiency and innovation. ALFI has therefore developed its Ambition Paper which identifies five key objectives which we
Despite falling equity prices across Europe, there has been a sharp rise in the purchase of European blue chip American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) – securities issued by European companies and traded on US exchanges, says Chris Hanley, Regional Manager UK and Ireland, BNY Mellon…
Issuance of European ADRs has hit record levels in 2011 with 34.4 billion depositary receipts (DRs) being traded globally compared to 31.5 billion for 2010 – a 9% year on year increase. However, for August the figures show a dramatic 117% increase from 2.9 billion ADRs traded in August 2010 rising to 6.3 billion ADRs in
Ashurst and Blake Dawson have announced plans to combine their businesses in Asia and merge their operations globally, creating a new and powerful legal presence in the international market under the Ashurst name.
This follows a positive vote of both partnerships, which took place on 23 September 2011.
Ashurst and Blake Dawson have a shared vision to build a premier global law firm. At the outset, the firms will combine their practices in Asia to offer scale, depth and reach in the fastest growing region of the world. The combination will provide significant opportunities and competitive advantages, building on
The Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management Report 2011 published earlier this year found that HNWIs, at the end of 2010, were allocating 33 per cent of their portfolios into equities. The S&P 500 Index gained around 11 per cent, whilst the likes of commodity futures such as corn doubled in value.
2011 however has been a different story. According to Andreas Feller (pictured), Head of Investment Advisory, Zurich, for Swiss private bank, Julius Baer, there’s been a huge shift over the last six weeks into cash. He estimates that clients’ portfolio allocation into equities has probably dropped to 25
