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Aros Capital Partners, an Anglo Danish investment manager, is launching a UK-managed global altruistic opportunities fund in the second quarter of 2010.
The fund, called Aros Altru, aims to challenge the notion that social benefits are a trade off with commercial returns by offering equity-like returns to its investors.
It will be a closed-end private equity vehicle and the businesses in which it invests will not just be social enterprises but those that have the potential to make a sustained social impact in their communities.
It will target those companies that fall under the radar due to either
Long/short equity and global macro hedge funds posted positive returns in February, based on Credit Suisse’s LAB Liquid Indices.
The LAB Long/Short Liquid Index was up 1.01 per cent with gains coming primarily from long positions in the industrial and consumer sectors.
Despite February gains, long/short equity funds are down 0.46 per cent year-to-date as a result of increased global equity market volatility.
The Credit Suisse Global Macro Liquid Index finished the month up 1.14 per cent as many managers benefited from long commodity positions in February. The global macro sector is estimated to be up 2.33 per cent year-to-date.
Hedge fund consulting and third party marketing firm Agecroft Partners has hired Tim Savage as its sixth managing director.
Savage’s responsibilities will include assisting with due diligence on potential hedge funds the firm may represent, and introducing the firm’s hedge fund clients to large institutional investors located within the US, Asia and the Middle East.
Prior to Agecroft, Savage founded third party marketing firm Oculus Capital.
Before this he was a vice president of equity sales at Credit Suisse First Boston. He started his investment career in the OTC equity trading department of Alex Brown.
Savage’s addition to Agecroft will
Scott J. Nance, an institutional investment executive with more than 20 years’ industry experience, has joined Compass Securities as an independent affiliate through his practice, West-NW Capital.
Prior to joining Compass as a registered representative, Nance was a managing director at Equinox Fund Management, sponsor of The Frontier Fund.
Before joining Equinox in 2005, Nance was a principal and institutional salesperson at Robeco Investment Management, whose US-based asset management subsidiaries include Weiss, Peck & Greer Investments and Boston Partners.
He also previously served as an institutional director of business development at Banc of America Capital Management, the asset management arm
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained a preliminary injunction against Jay C. Nolan of Wilmette, Illinois and his company Lodge Capital Group of Northfield, Illinois for committing commodity pool fraud.
The CFTC charged the defendants in January 2010 with misappropriation and fraud in operating a commodity pool that solicited approximately USD3.9m from at least five individuals.
The preliminary injunction order, entered by US District Court Judge Charles R. Norgle of the Northern District of Illinois, maintains the asset freeze entered against the defendants by the court on 26 January 2010, and prohibits them from further violations of the
US corporate credit default swap markets, while trading in a broader range, were little changed over the course of February 2010, according to a report by GFI Group.
While rising concerns of potential default in certain European sovereign contracts initially weighed on credit sentiment across the globe, risk appetite returned as expectations of sovereign default – or certainly concerns over the impact of contagion from a sovereign credit event – receded.
While, at a sector level, only the materials group was worthy of mention over the course of the month, greater attention was paid to corporate-specific events, such as
Asset manager BlueMountain Capital Management has expanded its investor relations and marketing team with the hire of Jennifer Strickland as managing director.
In addition, Josh Drazen has been promoted to managing director of investor relations and strategy.
Prior to joining BlueMountain, Strickland was director of investor relations at HBK Capital Management for nine years. There she developed close relationships with institutional investors including pensions, endowments and consultants.
Before HBK, Strickland was a vice president at Citibank, where she led product development for high net worth clients in the Asia Pacific region. She spent the first six years of her career
PerTrac Financial Solutions has launched a Microsoft Excel add-in that allows users to interact with major PerTrac applications from within Excel.
PerTrac PowerLink opens new reporting and analysis possibilities for PerTrac clients, while allowing them to easily incorporate PerTrac applications into their existing Excel-centric workflows.
“PerTrac PowerLink bridges the gap between two of the most important software platforms for investment professionals, the PerTrac Suite and Microsoft Excel,” says Gerry Mintz, PerTrac president and chief executive officer. “Users can conveniently pull PerTrac Suite data and statistics into Excel, where they can build custom reports or do whatever calculations they wish,
Mudrick Capital Management, an alternative investment firm that focuses on distressed investing, has appointed Philipp Levy as head of marketing and investor relations, a newly created position.
Levy (pictured) will be responsible for all aspects of marketing, sales and investor relations, continuing the work he has done as a consultant since the firm’s inception.
He reports to Mudrick Capital chief executive Jason Mudrick.
“Philipp has been an integral part of our business from the start and we are pleased that he has formally joined the Mudrick Capital team,” says Mudrick. “He will be a valuable asset as we continue
Ticonderoga Securities, an institutional broker dealer, has launched a risk arbitrage desk focusing on mergers and acquisitions, which will be led by industry veteran Andrew Lefberg, formerly of Pali Capital.
Joining Lefberg will be Jeremy Stovall, also formerly of Pali.
The risk arbitrage desk will be fully integrated with Ticonderoga’s existing product offerings.
“With the addition of a risk arbitrage desk, our aim is to build a business that will become a significant part of Ticonderoga’s revenue stream while adding to our growing range of product offerings,” says Shawn McLoughlin (pictured), chief executive and co-founder of Ticonderoga.
The firm has
