By Simon Gray – Hedge fund managers may have long been reluctant to provide access to their services through managed accounts, but they are grateful to them now. With total assets in single-manager funds growing steadily past USD2trn, according to HFR, in the process leaving behind the previous high water mark from the second quarter of 2008, managed accounts represent a growing proportion of capital invested in the industry, even if assessing the precise level is a somewhat inexact science. A much-quoted survey of the US hedge fund industry by capital markets research and consulting firm Tabb Group, published in

By Gabriel Bousbib – We all know by now the key benefits and drawbacks of separate managed accounts. Properly set up and operated separate managed accounts – not to be confused with a ‘fund of one’ – provide independent asset verification and valuation, a stable financing environment, the ability by both investor and the manager to control inflows and outflows, and superior governance. The drawbacks of managed accounts are also well documented, including possible negative selection bias (since some top managers decline to offer separate accounts, even for very large investors), additional operating costs and tracking error compared with the

By Stefan Keller – The hedge fund industry has just set a new record with more than USD2trn in assets under management, a recovery from the turbulence of 2008-09 that has been accompanied by a shift toward investment through managed accounts. Although this sector has become more competitive over the past couple of years with the entry of new providers into the market, Lyxor Asset Management continues to build on its strength of a platform provider, with 13 years of experience, more than 100 managed accounts and assets under management exceeding USD11bn as of April, including inflows of some USD1bn

By Tyler Kim – In recent months, institutional investors have shown increased interest in the alpha-generating strategies associated with hedge funds. Capital inflows from pension plans, endowments and foundations are redefining the industry as these sophisticated investors seek to improve the way it operates. One trend is a shift toward investment through bespoke managed accounts as opposed to commingled funds. The benefits of bespoke managed accounts programmes include better liquidity, control and position-level transparency. One often-cited barrier to launching such programmes is the operational complexity of administering them. In this article, we discuss some of these complexities and ways they

Stefan Keller, head of MAP research & external relations at Lyxor AM, looks at how emerging markets are showing emancipation in terms of both fiscal policy and economic growth… In recent months, we have registered structural and cyclical motivations to increase exposure to Emerging Markets. Assets under Management of Emerging Market related Hedge funds on the Lyxor Managed Account Platform (MAP) have risen by more than 60% over the last 15 months. The secular growth story of Emerging Markets has been known to investors for more than a decade given the rise in the labour force, capital accumulation and progress

By Robert C Pozen – When the world’s largest financial institutions had to be rescued from insolvency in 2008 by massive injections of governmental assistance, many blamed corporate boards for a lack of oversight. This was a problem we had supposedly solved nearly a decade ago, when blatant failures of corporate governance (remember Enron?) prompted Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The new rules had seemed promising. The majority of a board’s directors had to be independent, which would, in theory, better protect shareholders. Senior executives were required to conduct annual assessments of their internal controls for review by external