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MKP Capital Management, a diversified alternative asset manager, has opened a European office at 3 St James’s Square in London. The London location will enhance the firm’s ability to pursue investment opportunities globally and to service clients in Europe and the Middle East. The firm has also made four new executive hires in New York.
“The opening of our London office and additions to the New York team reflect our commitment to building upon the values that have helped us deliver industry-leading risk-adjusted returns for over 15 years,” says Patrick McMahon, MKP’s Founder and CEO. “With these developments, we are
The Lyxor Global Hedge Fund index, an investable index based on Lyxor’s hedge fund platform which tracks the overall hedge fund universe, was up 1.4% in April, lifting year to date gains to 2.1%.
Macroeconomic data were reasonably supportive in April, but the key positive driver for stock prices was probably earnings season. Markets were relatively quiet during the first part of the month, with prices fairly stable. There was a slight hiccup mid-month, as the US’s credit outlook was revised to negative and investors once again worried about European sovereign debt issues. Solid trends asserted themselves, however, when investors
NewAlpha Asset Management, the Paris‐based global hedge fund incubation specialist, has made a strategic investment in in the BRIM Asian Credit Fund managed by Singapore‐based Blue Rice Investment Management (BRIM).
Launched in December 2009, BRIM Asian Credit Fund implements an actively managed, absolute return, Asian credit focused strategy, covering both high grade and high yield securities. The fund invests primarily in USD denominated Asian debt securities issued by sovereign, financial and corporate issuers. It avoids local currencies, single name equities and defaulted securities.
The BRIM Asian Credit Fund is managed out of Singapore by a team of 6 investment
HFR (Hedge Fund Research, Inc) has launched the industry’s first daily hedge fund performance database, allowing investors to access data on a rapidly growing universe of hedge funds which provide investors with daily performance figures.
The launch of HFR Daily Hedge Fund Database is another milestone in the evolution of the hedge fund industry, as the increased ability of fund managers to provide investors with more frequent updates of performance has made the daily database not only possible, but an integral component of making allocations to hedge funds in 2011. Investor preference for more liquid strategies, in general, and
By Charles Dumas – An undervalued country within a fixed-currency will tend to inflation, an overvalued country to deflation. Within the dollar fixed-currency zone, “Chimerica”, China is undervalued, America overvalued.
America controls the currency issuance, though the Chinese have been no slouches themselves: nominal GDP is up 33% in nine quarters from its pre-crash peak, but broad money is up 61%. America was drifting into deflation before QE2. The 12-month “core” CPI gain, only 0.6%, is the lowest in 50 years. It has declined at one percentage-point a year for two years. US QE2 was designed to avert deflation –
Orinda Asset Management LLC, an independent, privately-held asset management firm, is to launch the Orinda Multi-Manager Hedged Equity Fund (Ticker: OHEIX, OHEAX, OHECX), which seeks long-term capital appreciation with an emphasis on risk-adjusted returns and reduced volatility compared to traditional broad-based equity market indices.
The fund allocates its assets among a carefully chosen group of skilled hedged equity managers who employ various long/short equity investment strategies. To assist in manager selection, portfolio construction and risk management, Orinda Asset Management has selected SkyView Investment Advisors, an experienced, institutional multi-manager hedge fund advisory firm, to act as the lead sub-adviser to the
As Asian assets managed by Matrix have more than doubled so far in 2011 to more than USD90 million, the Asian team has been bolstered with two key sector specialist appointments. Ian Smith and David Naughtin, who both previously worked for Nevsky Capital LLP, join as analysts.
Smith worked as a specialist analyst at Nevsky Capital, covering Asia & Latam Financials. He previously worked at Deutsche Bank in the Industrials Corporate Finance division. He began his career focusing on corporate restructuring at Ernst & Young, where he gained an ACA qualification.
Naughtin joined Nevsky in 2007 as an Investment
MarketAxess Holdings has launched electronic trading for preferred stocks and consumer-based asset-backed securities (ABS) on its award-winning e-trading platform.
MarketAxess is the first electronic fixed-income marketplace to offer trading of preferred stocks for institutional investors, with liquidity provided by 13 market-making dealers through the MarketAxess corporate bond platform.
ABS trading on MarketAxess began in February and now has 14 market-making dealers providing liquidity to the platform, with 100 institutional investor customers signed up to trade. Product coverage includes credit cards, equipment leases, floor-plans, student loans, timeshares and autos.
Electronic trading of both ABS and preferred stocks takes place using
International Financial Centre law firm Walkers has made a series of senior management changes within the firm’s global group.
With the forthcoming retirement of Global Chairman Wayne Panton, who has been an attorney with Walkers since 1988 and a partner with the firm since 1997, this key strategic role is to be taken on by current Global Managing Partner Grant Stein (pictured), with effect from 1 July 2011. The move into the role of Global Chairman dovetails neatly with Stein’s recent involvement in international regulatory matters, particularly his work in the formation of the International Financial Centres Forum (www.ifcforum.org),
According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the notional amount of outstanding OTC contracts, as of June 2010, was USD582trillion, representing a gross market value of USD25trillion. The OTC market has historically been largely opaque, but things are changing. Investors and regulators alike want greater transparency.
In response to this, Citigroup last month rolled out a comprehensive OTC derivative service through its Global Transaction Services division to consolidate and simplify the post-trade execution process. But as Peter Salvage (pictured), Managing Director of Hedge Fund Services at Citi tells Hedgeweek, this was far from being a kneejerk reaction to the
