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Alternative asset manager Investcorp has appointed David Bruce as a managing director and co-head of North America institutional sales for its hedge fund business.
Alternative asset manager Investcorp has appointed David Bruce as a managing director and co-head of North America institutional sales for its hedge fund business.
At the corporate level, Bruce will report to Deepak Gurnani, Investcorp’s head of hedge funds and chief investment officer, and will be responsible for marketing and client service across institutional channels together with co-head Lofton Holder.
Bruce joins Investcorp after 12 years with Barclays Global Investor where he was a managing director
Skandia Investment Group has moved swiftly following the news that Roger Guy is to retire from Gartmore, and has terminated a EUR38m mandate managed by Guy.
James Millard (pictured), CIO, Skandia Investment Group says: “As a result of the developments at Gartmore, we have today terminated our 10-stock EUR38m mandate run by Roger Guy within our EUR325m Skandia European Best Ideas Fund. The subsequent eight remaining world-class European managers will continue to run the fund. The European Best Ideas Fund remains well diversified and well positioned to continue its strong performance, which puts it in the first quartile of the Morningstar Europe
Gartmore has appointed Goldman Sachs to conduct an “assessment and evaluation of the strategic options for the Company”, which may include the possibility of a sale or merger, in tandem with the announcement that Roger Guy (pictured), head of the European Large Cap fund management team, is to retire from day-to-day fund management.
Also leaving Gartmore are Dominic Rossi, Chief Investment Officer, who is taking up a role with another asset manager, and Darrell O’Dea, senior portfolio manager.
Jeffrey Meyer, Chief Executive of Gartmore Group Limited, says: “2010 has been a difficult year for the Company. The Executive Management
Offshore hedge fund jurisdiction Cayman Islands expects to register 1,200 new open-ended funds in 2010.
This is the same figure as in 2009, bringing the total the number of Cayman hedge funds back to the pre-crash level of 9,589.
While there have been speculations in the international mainstream press that Cayman is going to fail because the EU is going to rise, members of a recent Opalesque Cayman Roundtable claim Europe’s success does not have to mean Cayman’s failure, as the products and regulations are seen as complimentary.
If hedge fund managers explore or set up European offerings, it is
Offshore jurisdictions should join forces to lobby larger nations and international organisations on matters affecting them, according to members of the offshore financial services industry.
While there are obvious ways in which Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands are competitors, there are also issues of common interest, such as the European Union’s Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers and potential business synergies, according to speakers at a recent debate organised in Guernsey by international law firm Appleby that considered the relative strengths of the three jurisdictions as fund domiciles and service centres as well as possible avenues for co-operation.
A&L Goodbody remains the leading Irish legal adviser to the Irish funds industry, representing domiciled and non-domiciled funds with a combined asset value in excess of USD238bn, according to the Lipper Ireland Fund Encyclopaedia 2010/2011.
The Lipper report shows that the total combined size of the Irish funds industry at the end of June 2010 was in excess of USD1.1trn US dollars with 3,816 separate domiciled and non-domiciled funds being serviced in Ireland.
Brian McDermott, head of investment funds at A&L Goodbody, expects the industry to continue growing on the basis that Ireland remains a very attractive location for international
Maitland, a fund administrator, has reached USD100bn of assets under administration.
This follows a contract with South Africa’s largest multimanager, Investment Solutions, to administer its underlying investment manager portfolios.
Maitland operates internationally with South Africa as an offshore fund servicing location. The company has more than doubled assets under administration over the past three years and international fund managers now account for nearly half of its client base.
Chief operating officer Veit Schuhen believes that sustained market volatility together with an increasingly demanding regulatory environment will continue to favour third party administrators.
“The demand for transparency and demonstrably effective risk
Cantab Capital Partners, a UK-based alternative investment company, is preparing to launch the Cantab Quantitative Ucits Fund.
Cantab launched the offshore CCP Quantitative Fund in March 2007.
The CCP Quantitative Fund has had an annualised return of 13.3 per cent from inception to date and has shown very low correlation to both equities and the broad hedge fund universe.
Chief executive officer Ewan Kirk says: “Cantab’s alpha generation comes from a basket of sophisticated and robust statistical models which are risk managed using a state of the art framework implemented in an unparalleled technology infrastructure. We have a highly diversified
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed an enforcement action charging Phillip Milton of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Gregory Center of McLean, Virginia, William Center of Richmond, Virginia, and their company Trade, based in Palm Spring Gardens, Florida, with operating a Ponzi scheme involving approximately USD28m in connection with the Trade commodity pool.
On 22 June 2010, the same day the CFTC complaint was filed under seal in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the court entered an order, also under seal, freezing defendants’ assets and preserving books and records. Both documents were unsealed by
Fund of hedge funds manager International Asset Management says it continues to favour the opportunity set for long/short equity managers focused on the Asian and emerging markets.
Morten Spenner, chief executive at International Asset Management, says there is a high likelihood of slow economic growth in the major developed countries.
This level of recovery is not sufficiently strong to bring forward monetary tightening but nor is it so weak that it will prevent reasonable earnings growth. Furthermore, loose monetary policy is allowing companies to borrow cheaply.
Faster growth is anticipated in emerging markets. Equity market valuations are reasonable, inefficiency is
