Latest News
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed and settled charges against public accounting firms McGladrey & Pullen and Altschuler, Melvoin & Glasser and partner G. Victor Johnson II for failing to audit properly Sentinel Management Group.
Sentinel was an Illinois-based futures commission merchant that declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2007. M&P acquired assets relating to AMG’s audit practice in 2006.
The CFTC charges arise from audits of Sentinel conducted in 2004 through 2006.
The CFTC order requires M&P and AMG to pay civil monetary penalties of USD150,000 and USD350,000, respectively. The order also requires M&P to
FRSGlobal has joined Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a regulatory compliance and risk management business.
The combination of these two businesses will enable FRSGlobal to offer compliance and risk solutions that cover operational risk, regulatory compliance and financial risk and reporting.
Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, which is part of a USD4.8bn information services company, is solely focused on the compliance and risk management challenges of financial services organisations.
There will not be any changes to FRSGlobal’s current processes, systems or communication.
GoldenTree Asset Management, an investment firm that manages alternative and traditional asset strategies for sophisticated institutional and high net-worth investors, has hired Bob Sherman as a partner.
Sherman will work closely with partners Frank Jordan and Tom Humphrey in the continued expansion of GoldenTree’s institutional franchise.
“Bob Sherman’s track record of building successful asset management businesses, and his experience in fixed income credit markets, presented a great opportunity for GoldenTree to further develop the quality of our franchise,” says Humphrey. “Bob’s credibility with consultants and institutional investors strengthens our ability to provide credit investment solutions for our clients. Frank and
Jefferies has hired Josh Gold as a managing director and head of the firm’s new hedge fund relationship group.
Gold will be responsible for efforts to manage the firm’s overall relationships with US-based hedge funds, including representing Jefferies’ broad product offering across equities and fixed income.
"The establishment of a hedge fund relationship group is further evidence of Jefferies’ commitment to strengthening our equity and fixed income sales and trading platform, and to providing quality, best-in-class service to our global institutional clients," says Richard B. Handler, chairman and chief executive officer of Jefferies. "Given his strong background, Josh Gold is
Commodity hedge fund manager Global Advisors has appointed Paul Russell as chief operating officer.
Russell’s responsibilities will include all of the business aspects of Global Advisors including infrastructure, finance, legal, resources management and third-party outsourcing arrangements.
Daniel Masters, co-principal says: “We are delighted to have Paul on board. He brings a breadth of skills and nine years of experience in running the business aspects of a commodity investment firm. Russell and I will now be freed to further our research process.”
Prior to joining Global Advisors, Russell was the chief financial officer and a partner at Clive Capital,
Returns for the Credit Suisse Liquid Alternative Beta Indices suggest that hedge funds produced their best monthly returns year-to-date amid September’s market rally.
The Credit Suisse Liquid Alternative Beta Index was up 3.58 per cent last month, making September the best month of performance for hedge funds this year.
The greatest positive contributor in September was the Credit Suisse Long/Short Liquid Index which posted record returns of 5.41 per cent.
The LAB Event Driven Liquid Index was up 4.65 per cent, making it the best performing sector year-to-date with gains of 8.89 per cent.
The LAB Merger Arbitrage Liquid Index
A working paper on Ucits regulation has found no conclusive evidence that less regulated hedge funds outperform alternative Ucits funds on a risk adjusted basis, even though they find some cross-sectional evidence.
The paper was published by Nils S. Tuchsmid and Erik Wallerstein from the Haute Ecole de Gestion in Geneva, and Louis Zanolin from NARA Capital.
The working paper is one of the first to evaluate and compare the performance of hedge fund-like strategies wrapped under the Ucits regulation with less regulated hedge funds.
The authors found a significant difference in level of risk between hedge funds and alternative
Morgan Stanley has selected GlobeOp Financial Services to provide independent middle and back office services and daily data and reporting for its managed account platform Alphas.
"Managed accounts require significant infrastructure to meet fund manager and investor demands for operational transparency and independently reconciled data," says Ron Tannenbaum, managing director, GlobeOp. "We welcome the opportunity to support Morgan Stanley with an established platform that currently serves more than 100 fund and investor clients with robust processing and a suite of web-based, customised reports."
GlobeOp’s managed account platform services – GoMAP – offer independent middle and back office services, risk services
Javelin Capital, the recently authorised investment management firm, has launched its first fund, the Javelin Capital Global Equity Strategies Fund, with seed capital of USD31m.
The fund will take long and short positions in equities globally, including emerging markets.
The fund, managed by an investment team of portfolio managers formerly at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and headed up by Javelin’s chief investment officer Victor Pina, will have a range of long-short equity strategies which include fundamental, systematic and tactical approaches.
Using proprietary models that have been developed, the team will analyse and judge which strategy is most appropriate for
Amundi has hired five investment professionals for its UK branch based in London.
Christopher Morris has joined the company as senior global fixed income manager, Anne Beaudu will join shortly in the same capacity and James Kwok has joined as head of currency management.
Fabio Castaldi and Alexandre Burgues have joined the company as absolute return managers, responsible for managing volatility overlays.
Headed by Laurent Crosnier, chief investment officer, and Markus Krygier, deputy chief investment officer, Amundi London Branch’s investment business covers global fixed income, absolute return, currency, emerging debt and global equities.
Pascal Blanqué, chief executive of
