Latest News
Investor interest in hedge funds was strong again in August, with support from fixed income and commodity strategies, according to research by HFN.
The HFN Hedge Fund Aggregate Index was up 0.41 per cent in August and is up 2.16 per cent in the first eight months of 2010.
The S&P 500 Total Return Index was down 4.51 per cent in August and is down 4.63 per cent year-to-date.
Hedge fund assets increased an estimated 0.86 per cent in August to USD2.268trn. Investor flows accounted for an estimated net increase of USD6.92bn, the third highest monthly net investor inflow in
ML Capital Asset Management has launched the Montlake Ucits Platform, domiciled in Ireland and regulated by the Irish Financial Regulator.
The platform provides investment managers with a turnkey solution for launching a Ucits fund under its umbrella structure, with time to market typically taking six to eight weeks.
The platform also offers immediate access to a wide range of investors through ML Capital’s distribution network.
Funds placed on the platform by ML Capital will benefit from top tier service providers including Citi for custody, administration and trustee services and KPMG for audit.
The Montlake Ucits platform will be marketed
Royal Bank of Scotland has launched 2,000 Turbos on NYSE Euronext in Paris, bringing the market total to 4,300.
These Turbos are already listed on NYSE Euronext in Amsterdam.
The Turbos introduced by RBS offer investors an increase in the choice of available strategies through exposure to a broad range of underlying assets: 31 French equities, 105 foreign equities, 44 indices, 24 commodities, ten currencies and seven bonds.
“RBS is proud to offer this comprehensive range of over 2,000 Turbos to French investors through NYSE Euronext, rounding out the French market with new scope for leveraged investment,” says
Alberto Larson has been named Westcore Capital’s risk management department chairman.
Larson is responsible on overseeing client’s strategy, hedge funds, managed futures funds, client relations and sales.
Larson has served several executive positions such as client relation manager for a securities firm.
He was a former investment executive in the private client group where he focused on client relations, especially in investment evaluation choices in the private equity market.
Larson was also a foreign exchange expert with another brokerage firm where he facilitated investors with charting and technical analysis as well as currency hedging.
Westcore is a multi-service commodity brokerage
Orc Software, a provider of technology and services for advanced trading in financial instruments, has introduced market access to the Singapore Mercantile Exchange.
SMX, the first pan-Asian multi-product commodity and currency derivatives exchange, went live for trading on 31 August 2010.
Its electronic platform offers multi-currency and multi-asset clearing, trading and pricing for contracts with guaranteed settlement and delivery.
The first phase of product launches include two crude oil benchmarks, Brent crude priced in Euros and West Texas intermediate crude oil, its maiden currency pair, Euro-US dollar currency futures, and the first gold futures contract in Singapore to be settled
Fidessa group, a provider of trading systems, market data and connectivity to both buy-sides and sell-sides, has launched global market coverage for its fragmentation analysis tools, the Fidessa Fragmentation Index and Fragulator.
These free to use web-based services were first launched in Europe to provide an unbiased view of the true state of fragmentation following the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.
They now provide global content with specific regional analysis on the US, Canada, Japan and Asia as well as Europe.
The tools allow the trading community to analyse the fragmentation of liquidity in stocks and indices
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has determined not to issue grandfather relief at this time to parties that petition the commission to continue to operate in reliance upon the Commodity Exchange Act’s exempt commodity exemption for bilateral swaps after the deletion of that provision from the CEA by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Effective 15 July 2011, the Dodd-Frank Act will delete various provisions from the CEA that were first established by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 to permit the trading of derivative instruments off of regulated markets.
Among other such provisions, the Dodd-Frank
Citi has appointed Paul Harvey as prime finance head of sales and capital introduction in EMEA.
Harvey brings over 20 years of experience on both the buyside and sellside.
His goal will be to help widen and grow Citi’s hedge fund relationships in Europe.
In previous roles Harvey has worked as European head of prime brokerage sales at Morgan Stanley and most recently was chief executive of GLG’s fund of hedge funds group.
Harvey will report to Mark Harrison, Billy Macaluso & Andres Recoder.
Private equity firm Doughty Hanson is to acquire Equity Trust, a provider business administration and fiduciary services, for a total consideration of EUR350m from Candover and other institutional shareholders.
The existing senior management team will invest alongside Doughty Hanson.
Equity Trust provides administrative services to organisations worldwide, including secretarial and legal administration services; structured finance solutions; fund administration; complex private client administration; and book keeping and accounting.
The business employs more than 1,200 people in more than 40 offices around the world, and services more than 14,000 client entities.
Mark Corbidge, co‐head of private equity at Doughty Hanson, says: “The
Citigroup has launched Ivaldi Capital, a managed account platform which aims to accommodate the increasing demand for alpha-generating investments by pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds.
Ivaldi offers end-to-end service for institutional investors seeking access to active alpha or absolute return strategies via external managers.
Among the services it provides are risk management, portfolio construction and manager selection assistance. The platform also provides a full suite of middle-office services, administration and custody solutions.
Citi is acting as a prime broker, administrator and custodian to Ivaldi.
“This is the only platform providing a comprehensive solution for institutional investors
