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Union Bancaire Privée has appointed Philippe Broadhead as head of sales – UK in its asset management division.
Broadhead brings with him vast experience of the UK investment market, having spent over 20 years working with a wide variety of clients.
Prior to joining UBP he held a number of high-profile positions over the course of eight years at Legal & General Investment Management, including head of UK institutional distribution, head of hedge fund distribution and head of multi-manager investments.
Before working for Legal & General he held business development roles at Friends Ivory & Sime and Friends Provident.
Collateral secured certificates from Switzerland are now tradable on Scoach, the Frankfurt exchange for structured products.
The collateral deposited for these collateral secured instruments (COSI) minimises counterparty risk for structured products.
COSI enables investors to protect themselves against the possibility of issuer insolvency.
The issuer EFG Financial Products is offering COSI for the first time in Germany, exclusively on the Scoach trading platform. A total of 17 COSIs are currently tradable on Scoach in Frankfurt; the volume invested thus far amounts to EUR61.5m.
For COSI, the issuer deposits collateral in the form of securities or cash at Swiss custodian SIX
Financial Risk Management, a hedge fund investment firm with offices in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, has hired George Yepes as managing director, head of North American business development.
Yepes will work with FRM’s New York and global investment and client teams in managing and developing relationships with consultants, institutional clients, financial institutions and high net worth investors in the US and Canada.
Previously, Yepes was managing director and head of US Distribution and client relationship management at Man Investments, and until 2009 he was head of North American sales for Gottex Fund Management.
Clive Peggram, deputy group
Lyxor Asset Management has hired Nicole Sivel to expand its operational due diligence capabilities.
Sivel will assume a senior role within the operational due diligence team, focusing on the review and evaluation of all operational aspects related to potential and existing hedge fund investments.
Prior to joining Lyxor, Sivel was co-head of operational due diligence for Neuberger Berman Alternative Investment Management.
From 2007 to 2009, she was an associate on the operational due diligence team for Lehman Brothers Alternative Investment Management.
Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Sivel held various risk management and infrastructure roles at investment consulting firm Veritable from
UMB Fund Services, a subsidiary of UMB Financial, has been selected to provide registered hedge fund services to Gottex Fund Management.
UMB Fund Services has developed and enhanced its service offering for registered hedge funds over the past several years.
The offering combines UMB Fund Services’ capabilities in the registered fund space with the unregistered hedge fund expertise of its alternative investments division, JD Clark.
Gottex is introducing a new line of registered alternative investment products that will be offered to the general public on US retail distribution platforms beginning in December.
UMB Fund Services has been selected to provide
Hedge funds gained 0.56 per cent in November, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index is up 7.75 per cent year-to-date.
“Hedge funds appear to be on their way to another profitable year,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. "The Barclay Hedge Fund Index has had consistent gains in 13 of the past 14 years. The single losing year was a 23.53 per cent loss in 2008 when global stock markets collapsed."
Fourteen of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices were up in November. The Barclay Pacific Rim Index gained 1.80 per cent, equity
The Futures and Options Association has appointed Kathleen Traynor as director of regulation, effective January 2011.
Traynor joins the FOA from London Stock Exchange Group, where she was head of regulatory strategy.
Prior to that role, she was senior associate, equity markets, at the UK’s Financial Services Authority.
She also spent six years at TSX Group (now TMX Group, operator of Canada’s stock and derivatives exchanges) as senior legal counsel.
Traynor replaces Jane Green, who left in September to join Association of Financial Markets Europe.
FOA chief executive Anthony Belchambers says: “Kathleen is a key appointment for the FOA at
Doric Nimrod Air One, a newly incorporated Guernsey domiciled company which aims to obtain income returns and a capital return for its shareholders by acquiring, leasing and then selling a single aircraft, has joined the Specialist Fund Market of the London Stock Exchange.
The company raised GBP39.6m via a placing.
Nimrod Capital acted as placing agent and Herbert Smith acted as solicitors to the placing.
Marc Gordon at Nimrod Capital says: "We at Nimrod Capital are always interested in offering differentiated and innovative investments – this concept and the admission to the SFM fitted the bill perfectly."
Doric Nimrod Air
Research by ITG suggests that paying more in commissions can lead to worse execution performance and create far higher overall costs, particularly on smaller orders.
This suggests fund managers need to more carefully measure the total costs of trading and monitor commission costs and performance costs in an unbundled way to protect fund value for investors.
With the advent of electronic trading in Asia Pacific, buyside firms now have a choice between high touch (sales trading desks) and low touch (electronic algorithm/ DMA) trading strategies which usually come with correspondingly higher or lower commission rates from brokers.
ITG has analysed
Derivatives exchange Eurex will introduce a new pricing model on 1 February 2011.
The overarching goal is to further increase the attractiveness of the Eurex marketplace by offering incentives for market quality and volume contribution as well as fee reductions in a number of key products.
“The new pricing model is designed to further encourage volumes, enhance order book quality and attract new customers. Our new model will help fuel growth in trading volumes across key product segments,” says Andreas Preuss, chief executive of Eurex.
The enhancement of order book trading shall support market transparency and price discovery. To achieve
