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BTIG, a broker dealer specialising in institutional trading and related brokerage services, has expanded its prime brokerage platform with the addition of key hires in sales and relationship management.
Mike McCuin and Adrianne Schulte have joined BTIG to broaden its prime brokerage offering.
They join BTIG’s Boston office that already includes 12 professionals focused on equity and fixed income trading.
“We view Boston as an important strategic market. Having a local presence is vital to our success and demonstrates BTIG’s commitment to the Boston investment community,” says Justin Press, co-head of prime brokerage at BTIG.
McCuin joins BTIG’s Boston office
Okapi Partners, the proxy solicitation firm, has hired Geoff Sorbello as a managing director.
Sorbello joins Okapi Partners from ISS, a division of RiskMetrics Group which is now a subsidiary of MSCI.
While at ISS, Sorbello was responsible for providing governance services and advice, including M&A research, to the firm’s hedge fund clients. Sorbello worked closely with the firm’s proxy advisory services group, actively participating in dialogue regarding contentious mergers and acquisitions and proxy fights. Additionally, Sorbello managed relationships with many of the firm’s institutional investor clients.
Bruce H. Goldfarb (pictured), president and chief executive of Okapi Partners, says: "Geoff
Investment management firm M.D. Sass has appointed Jason Rapp as vice president and senior analyst on its equity team, which manages the firm’s flagship relative value equity strategy and Maximus long/short equity hedge fund.
Rapp’s background is as a senior analyst for value-oriented long equities and long/short equity funds.
He also has experience in mergers and acquisitions, financial restructurings and private equity.
"At M.D. Sass, our equity team is tasked with identifying mispriced equities where market perceptions lag reality and attractive opportunities that others fail to discern. We strive for investments with hidden strengths and take advantage of market inefficiencies,"
Merlin Securities, a prime brokerage services and technology provider for hedge funds, managed account platforms and family offices, has launched a new reporting functionality which helps funds to more precisely articulate their performance for institutional investors.
Merlin’s clients can drill down and calculate additional required performance measures and ratios across multiple custodians for specific components of their portfolio: sector, market cap, industry, strategy, geography and a range of customisable user-defined components.
Merlin’s new functionality allows hedge funds to calculate and analyse their performance net of fees and expenses.
“In today’s competitive marketing environment, hedge fund investors require greater transparency and
Gulf International Bank (UK) has launched an Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund with assets of more than USD100m.
The fund is a multi-strategy, absolute return product, investing across emerging markets.
The strategy focuses on fixed income credit while also providing equity and currency enhancement.
The fund takes both long and short positions and aims to generate consistent returns regardless of underlying market conditions. Returns are generated through identifying undervalued opportunities in emerging markets.
The fund will be denominated in US dollars but may take positions in emerging market currencies.
The fund will provide monthly liquidity with no initial lock up period.
Pardus Capital Management, a New York-based alternative investment manager, has appointed Ali Mostafavee as head of portfolio risk and a member of the firm’s investment committee.
Mostafavee will oversee the firm’s risk exposure and hedging activities across its global event driven investment portfolios as well as support research due diligence efforts.
Prior to joining Pardus, Mostafavee was director of prime brokerage risk at UBS and director of risk analysis at Tribeca Global Capital Management.
“We are pleased to welcome Ali to Pardus as we fill this important role and continue to add senior talent to the firm,” says president and
Black Diamond Capital Management, an alternative asset management firm, has appointed Philip Raygorodetsky as managing director.
Raygorodetsky is joining the firm immediately and will be based in Black Diamond’s Greenwich, Connecticut office.
Raygorodetsky joins Black Diamond’s controlled distressed/private equity team, where he will work alongside the current senior team, including Chris Boyle and Chris Parker, to oversee portfolio companies acquired on behalf of Black Diamond’s controlled distressed/private equity funds.
Raygorodetsky has over 13 years’ experience in the controlled distressed field. Most recently, he served as senior managing director in GSC Group’s equity and distressed debt group where he was responsible
GlobeOp Financial Services, a provider of business process outsourcing, financial technology services and analytics to hedge funds and other sectors of the financial services industry, saw its assets under administration increase by ten per cent in the first half of 2010 to USD120bn.
Assets under administration have increased by 43 per cent since 30 June 2009.
Revenues grew 13 per cent to USD89.4m versus USD79.2m in the first half of 2009.
GlobeOp’s adjusted operating profit rose by 60 per cent to USD25.4m at 30 June 2010.
The adjusted operating profit margin expanded to 28.4 per cent of revenues versus 20.0
In this article Elaine Gray (pictured), Partner in AO Hall – Legal Specialists, looks at a key opportunity offered by Guernsey’s new patent regime to international patent portfolios: the ditching of the domino effect and the potential ‘Bilski bonus’.
Across the world, countries offer different levels of legal protection for developments in technology. For example, software developers in the USA can often obtain patent protection for their new software, whereas such protection is unlikely to be available within the UK and Europe.
Guernsey is leading the way in developing a range of cutting-edge intellectual property (“IP”) legislation. Its latest offering will
Apex Fund Services, a fund administration business, has opened its Luxembourg office.
Apex will begin providing administration services from Europe’s largest fund domicile.
The Luxembourg office opens with ten Ucits and regulated SIF Sicav funds.
In addition to offering services for all types of public and private Luxembourg funds, the Luxembourg office has also been appointed as fund administrator for three fund platforms. These are:
1. Luxembourg Fund Partners Platform for the re-domiciliation of offshore funds, alternative investment fund manager activities and the set-up of non-Ucits vehicles;
2. Amiri Shariah Equities Platform, a plug and play solution for establishing a Luxembourg Shariah
