Latest News
The Managed Funds Association has formed an alliance with the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable, a membership community of over 1,000 hedge fund professionals, investors and professional service firms.
“Our affiliation with the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable allows us to exchange information and ideas with professionals located at one of the most important hubs within our industry,” says Richard H. Baker (pictured), MFA president and chief executive. “We look forward to participating in collaborative, educational discussions on industry best practices, regulatory policy, and a wide range of other issues.”
The affiliation furthers MFA’s efforts to align members of the
Peak Ridge Capital, an alternative asset management company, has appointed Gary King, former chief executive of the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, as senior strategic adviser.
He will assist in the firm’s continuing expansion of its alternative investments platform and its introduction to the Mena region.
Peak Ridge Capital’s asset management platform includes the Peak Ridge AgTech Fund, a private equity fund focusing on financing innovation in agriculture, clean technologies and biofuels; and the Peak Ridge Energy Fund, a hedge fund seeking investment growth opportunities through the trading of a diversified energy portfolio.
Laxey Partners (UK) is planning to launch the Laxey Albion Absolute Return Fund, a Ucits III compliant fund.
The fund will be the first sub-fund of the Laxey Albion Fund, an Irish umbrella investment company.
The launch date, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be March 2010.
Laxey, an activist investor in the closed end fund space, is launching this new fund in response to investor demand for onshore absolute return vehicles. With cash yielding virtually zero and considerable downside risk in the equity and fixed income markets there are few attractive alternatives currently on offer.
The Laxey Albion
The assets on which PVE Capital now advises, including the Matrix PVE Global Credit Fund, have increased to over USD300m.
The Matrix PVE Global Credit Fund, a joint venture between PVE Capital and Matrix, was launched on 19 October 2009 and seeks to take advantage of opportunities in global credit markets by trading in a broad range of liquid credit instruments, both long and short.
The team at PVE Capital, investment adviser to the fund, has also grown to six investment professionals with the appointments of Elena Ciampichetti as head of credit research and Judith Newman as research analyst.
EuroCCP and Turquoise have expanded their respective clearing and trading services into two additional markets, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The move makes Turquoise the first multilateral trading facility to offer trading and EuroCCP the first pan-European CCP to offer clearing services in the 25 components of the main Hungarian and Czech indices—the BUX and PX indices, respectively.
EuroCCP’s clearing services for Hungary and Czech Republic securities are open to any trading venue to which it is linked that offers trading in these securities.
Turquoise will offer trading in the Hungarian and Czech securities cleared through EuroCCP from 26 February.
Netage Solutions, a provider of CRM software and online reporting systems for the alternative assets industry, has opened a New York office led by Dimitri Kiriazov who has been appointed head of hedge fund sales.
Kiriazov has worked in the financial software industry for nearly a decade.
Previously, he held various sales and business development roles with a New York-based provider of software and analytical products for private equity firms and investment banks.
He has a strong background in deal sourcing, transaction management, and contract negotiation.
“Dimitri is a seasoned sales professional with a proven track record in the financial
Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund (Offshore) has written a letter to fellow shareholders of Sapporo Holdings seeking their support for the election of its director nominees at the company’s general meeting of shareholders in March 2010.
“Our goal is to help Sapporo reverse its long-term decline in business and corporate value,” says Warren Lichtenstein of Steel Partners.
“Electing the shareholder nominees, who are among the most respected and experienced businessmen in Japan, together with the independent directors currently on the board, will maintain continuity while also bringing about the leadership change necessary to revitalise Sapporo.”
In the letter, Steel Partners
Standard & Poor’s has expanded its family of risk control indices with a series of launches based upon the S&P Asia Infrastructure Index and the S&P Global Natural Resources Index.
The S&P Asia Infrastructure and S&P Global Natural Resources Daily Risk Control Indices integrate a volatility control within the index rules and are designed to offer investors a way to gain exposure to infrastructure and natural resource investments while controlling the level of risk.
“We are seeing strong demand, particularly during this period of economic recovery, for indices that provide exposure to companies operating across the natural resources and infrastructure
A study by Hennessee Group has confirmed that hedge funds generally lag their traditional counterparts when the equity markets experience strong advances and winners greatly outnumber losers as witnessed in 2009.
Conversely, when the markets experience a more balanced move or a meaningful move to the downside, hedge funds generate significant alpha on a relative basis.
“Hennessee Group research indicates that in market advances where winners outnumber losers by more than three to one (breadth ratio of 3.0), hedge funds generally struggle to differentiate themselves as performance is strongly driven by momentum (beta) as opposed to strong stock selection (alpha),”
Euroclear UK and Ireland has announced that it will remove the gross charge for the netting of trades on a major UK bourse.
