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H.E. Abdul Qadir Fitrat, governor of the Central Bank Afghanistan, says the regulation of Islamic banking in Afghanistan should be implemented in the country within next two months.
Speaking at the International Conference on Prospects of Islamic Banking and Finance in Afghanistan, he said that currently seven banks are offering Islamic banking services through window operations and some banks have submitted their applications for the conversion of their conventional systems into Islamic operative systems.
The Central Bank of Afghanistan is in the process of analysing the Islamic banking laws of Pakistan, UAE, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Muhammad Zubair Mughal, chief executive
Institutional investment in hedge funds has been intensifying since the end of 2009, with institutions now providing 72 per cent of the industry’s capital, according to Preqin estimates.
With investors monitoring up to 100 funds at any one time, it is essential that hedge fund marketers consider how best to promote their fund in order to access this source of capital.
Preqin’s latest survey of institutional investors, based on responses from 50 institutional investors carried out in May, provides an insight into how fund managers should market their fund to investors.
The median number of fund proposals received each month
Akira Yaku and Kentaro Ishizaki, former proprietary traders at Mizuho Securities Co., have announced plans to start a Japan-focused hedge fund. Due to launch on 1 July, the Alithion Japan Fund, backed with USD22 million (2 billion yen) from Marubeni Corp., will primarily take long and short positions in 50-100 of Japan’s top 500 companies. The Singapore-based fund will be using Deutsche Bank AG as its prime broker.
Davide Erro, ex-Ghandara CIO, has launched his new Turiya Fund with an initial investment of USD300 million. Erro intends to make it the first global hedge fund based solely in Asia. The
LCH.Clearnet, which operates the interest rate swap clearing service SwapClear, is to begin using the overnight index swap rate curves to discount its USD218trn IRS portfolio.
Previously, in line with market practice, the portfolio was discounted using Libor.
However, an increasing proportion of trades are now priced using OIS discounting.
After consultation with market participants, LCH.Clearnet has decided to move to OIS to ensure the most accurate valuation of its portfolio for risk management purposes. LCH.Clearnet already uses OIS rates to price the rate of return on cash collateral.
From 29 June 2010, USD, Euro and GBP trades in SwapClear
EFX Prime Services, a division of First New York Securities, has hired two prime brokerage executives to help lead EFX Prime’s sales efforts.
Both will be based at EFX Prime’s New York Headquarters at 90 Park Avenue.
Jonathan Shapiro joins EFX Prime from Goldman Sachs where he was a senior relationship manager. With a strong operational background based on ten years of prime services experience, Shapiro will assist EFX Prime clients address operational and infrastructure challenges.
Gary Mednick, a 29 year brokerage veteran, joins EFX Prime from Grace Financial where he built out a client base of hedge fund managers
The International Securities Lending Association is to partner with FinTuition to provide an introduction to securities lending course.
The introductory course is a one-day module designed to give attendees a broad overview of the securities lending industry.
Isla expects to make further announcements about other training modules shortly.
Kevin McNulty, chief executive of Isla, says: “We are very excited to announce the first element of Isla’s education programme. FinTuition’s experience of providing training courses for securities lending and the product knowledge make them an ideal partner for us.”
Isla decided to develop a formal education framework in 2009, to help
Derivatives exchange Eurex will be introducing six additional commodity index futures on 28 June.
The new futures are based on the Dow Jones UBS commodity index family’s sub-indices: softs, grain, precious metal, ex-energy, petroleum and livestock.
They complement the futures listed since March 2009 based on the Dow Jones UBS composite index and the three sub-indices agriculture, energy and metal.
The entire range of sub-indices of the Dow Jones UBS family will be covered by futures as from the start of trading.
“We are expanding our commodity index derivatives in response to our customers’ increased interest in exchange-traded index products
NYSE Arca Europe, NYSE Euronext’s European multilateral trading facility, has expanded into trading blue chip securities listed on the Prague Stock Exchange and the Budapest Stock Exchange.
From today, NYSE Arca Europe will expand its product range to include constituents of the BUX Index (Budapest Stock Exchange) and the PX Index (Prague Stock Exchange).
Trades in these securities will be cleared by EuroCCP.
The announcement follows the recent expansion of NYSE Arca Europe’s securities coverage to include access to the 100 most liquid US equities featuring 86 NYSE listed companies and 14 other listings.
Virginie Saade, head
Hedge funds lost 3.09 per cent in May, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
“Fear was in the driver’s seat in May as investor worries about a liquidity crisis in Europe and a ‘double-dip’ recession in the US drove global equity prices lower,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.
The Barclay Emerging Markets Index dropped 5.19 per cent, equity long bias lost 4.75 per cent, European rquities fell 3.71 per cent, Pacific Rim rquities were down 3.59 per cent, and the Equity Long/Short Index lost 3.09 per cent.
“All of the MSCI Developed Market
Merchant Capital, a provider of a Ucits III umbrella for hedge fund managers, has launched its Ucits strategy assessment/feasibility evaluation service, which helps managers to ascertain whether their strategies will translate efficiently into a Ucits structure.
Merchant Capital is supported by Carne Global Financial Services and Kinetic Partners in the execution of the system.
Merchant Capital and Carne Global undertake the role of assessing a fund’s invested underlying instruments, exposure and positioning, while Kinetic Partners carries out the appropriate value-at-risk analysis.
George Cadbury, director of funds at Merchant Capital, says: "With many alternative investment managers from around the world
