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Ascentia Capital Partners has chosen Armored Wolf to manage its global macro equities strategy in the Alternative Strategies Mutual Fund.
"We are delighted to have Armored Wolf and John Brynjolfsson as a part of the Alternative Strategies Mutual Fund. They bring a very experienced management team in a strategy that we believe will be a critical component of most asset allocation models for the foreseeable future. The addition of Armored Wolf represents an excellent complement to the other institutional alternative strategies we currently have in the Fund," says Steve McCarty, managing partner of Ascentia Capital Partners.
John Brynjolfsson (pictured), managing
First State Investments (UK) has launched an onshore version of its Global Agribusiness Fund.
Targeted at UK and European wholesale and institutional investors, the UK-domiciled First State Global Agribusiness Fund follows the earlier launch last month of an identical offshore fund.
The fund will be managed from Sydney by the global resources investment team, with Renzo Casarotto (pictured) as portfolio manager and Skye Macpherson as co-portfolio manager.
The fund aims to deliver strong long-term returns by investing in agribusiness companies. Agribusiness companies are involved in the production, processing, distribution and marketing of agricultural products. The fund will be formed of
Six investment banks have launched a voluntary initiative to improve post-trade transparency in the European over-the-counter equity markets.
The six banks – Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Cazenove, Morgan Stanley and UBS – will now report the volumes of cash equity trades crossed in their automated crossing systems via a service provided by Markit.
Reporting will begin today, 24 May, following live testing over the past two weeks.
At the end of each trading day Markit will collate the data from each participating bank, conduct validation checks on the information, and publish the aggregated trading volumes the following
GAM has appointed Paul Udall as investment director in its London office.
Udall will manage an equity mandate which will invest in environmental and sustainable investment themes.
The Ucits III fund, which is expected to launch later this year, will focus on investment opportunities that are being generated by the transformative change in how energy, resources and materials are developed, delivered and consumed.
Udall was previously at Climate Change Capital where he was managing director and portfolio manager of the global environmental opportunities long/short fund.
Prior to that he was a hedge fund manager for Tudor Investments in Greenwich, Connecticut,
Morten Spenner, CEO at International Asset Management Limited (IAM), one of the oldest specialist fund of hedge funds manager, discusses his outlook for a range of strategies for the second quarter of 2010.
Long/Short Equity:Strong earnings growth and further confirmation of the sustainability of the global recovery should help to drive equities higher, but concerns over central bank tightening and sovereign risks will continue to put pressure on markets.
Equity markets are increasingly being driven by fundamental factors than macro ones. This is evidenced by less sector divergence on a daily basis, increasingly mixed sector performance and less correlation
As part of its sponsorship of Team Moscow at the Mint Polo in the Park tournament in June, Otkritie Securities has chosen the Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy as the charity to support throughout the tournament.
The Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy works with horses to provide education and therapy for people.
Members of the charity joined Howard Snell, chairman of Otkritie, for a Discover Polo Day in Hurlingham Park where they learnt the rudiments of the game and played a mini tournament of their own.
Snell says: “We are delighted to be supporting the Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy
In the wake of historic market losses and epic scandals, a restless and empowered investor base is demanding greater transparency and liquidity from managers, while focusing on absolute returns and uncorrelated investment strategies.
This combination of factors is driving convergence of traditional and alternative investment products, with investors pouring more than USD110bn into alternative mutual funds in the US and Europe in 2009 alone, according to a white paper released by SEI in collaboration with Strategic Insight.
The paper, entitled Exotic to Mainstream: Growth of Alternative Mutual Funds in the US and Europe, evaluates the opportunities and challenges managers face
Former Dexion Capital veteran Andrew Gale and DBS veteran Lee Ka Shao have received an allocation from the pension fund management firm APG to seed the launch of a new Asian focused macro hedge fund.
APG manages the assets of the USD270bn Dutch pension fund giant, ABP, known as the second largest pension fund in the world.
Cavenagh Capital will relocate to Amsterdam from Singapore and will launch the Cavenagh Asia Fund as a Luxembourg-domiciled fund on 1 July with USD40m.
Cavenagh aims to make uncorrelated returns by constructing a portfolio of trades with an asymmetric pay-off in Asian interest
Emerging markets hedge funds gained 4.7 per cent year-to-date through April, suggesting that many managers have navigated through much of the still-unfolding EU-centric sovereign debt crisis, according to Hedge Fund Research.
In addition to the significant weakness in the sovereign credit market, funds also encountered volatility in currency, commodity and underlying equity markets, with this volatility accelerating through 2Q10.
Risk-conscious investors repositioned capital in 1Q10, paring investments in emerging Asia while adding to exposure in Latin America and multi-emerging markets as total capital invested in emerging markets hedge funds increased to USD98bn.
Strong first quarter performance resulted in a USD5.3bn
The Greenwich Composite Investable Index advanced by 0.20 per cent in April as equity markets moved higher in choppy trading.
Seven of nine Greenwich Investable Indices moved higher during the month and all remain positive for the year.
The investable event driven index was the largest gainer during the month, with a gain of 1.93 per cent.
Long short credit and futures strategies were the next best performing indices, posting gains of 0.96 per cent and 0.74 per cent, respectively.
Year-to-date, the event driven and long short credit indices still lead the group with gains of 7.64 per cent and
