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Instinet, a provider of electronic trading and agency-only brokerage services, has established Instinet Australia, a full Australian Securities Exchange member.
With the membership, which is effective immediately, Instinet is now able to service its domestic Australian clients through a new onshore sales and trading desk, located at 88 Phillip Street in Sydney.
Previously, Instinet was able to trade for domestic Australian institutions through its Hong Kong-based Instinet Pacific subsidiary by virtue of its remote ASX membership. Instinet was the first firm to be granted such a membership when it obtained the license in 2007.
Additionally, Instinet has been a member
The Life and Longevity Markets Association has been formed to promote the development of a liquid traded market in longevity and mortality-related risk, of the type that exists for insurance linked securities and other large trend risks.
The association will support the development of consistent standards, methodologies and benchmarks to help build a liquid trading market, necessary to support the future demand for longevity protection sought by insurers and pension funds.
The LLMA has been established by Axa, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Legal & General, Pension Corporation, Prudential, RBS and Swiss Re.
John Fitzpatrick, a director of the
RWC Partners is launching the RWC Advance Absolute Alpha Fund on 16 February, to be managed by Priya Kodeeswaran.
Kodeeswaran joined RWC Partners in November 2009 from Cheyne Capital where he was responsible for a similar strategy.
The RWC Advance Absolute Alpha Fund is a Ucits III global long short equity absolute return fund. The fund will focus on companies and industries that are undergoing rapid change or stand to benefit, or lose, from innovation.
RWC Partners recently launched the Ucits III RWC US Absolute Alpha Fund managed by Mike Corcell and has raised USD600m for the strategy
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained an emergency federal court order freezing the assets of defendants Jay C. Nolan of Wilmette, Ill. and his company Lodge Capital Group, an Illinois limited liability company based in Northfield, Ill.
The court’s order, entered by the Honorable Charles R. Norgle, Sr. of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, also prohibits the destruction of books and records.
The order sets a hearing on 9 February 2010 on the CFTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
The court’s order stems from a CFTC civil enforcement action filed on 25 January
Hewitt Associates, a consulting and outsourcing company, says that with hedge funds posting the strongest returns in over a decade its manager research team performed more than twice the number of hedge fund manager searches during 2009 than the previous year.
From late 2008 to early 2009, the hedge fund industry was hit by significant redemptions from investors, resulting in a number of fund closures.
However, after this difficult period broad based hedge fund indices were up by around 20 per cent during 2009.
Guy Saintfiet, senior hedge fund researcher at Hewitt Associates, says: "The industry now seems to have
Tetragon Financial Group has acquired Lyon Capital Management from Calyon New York branch and certain of its affiliates.
Under the transaction, Tetragon acquired both Lyon Capital Management, to be renamed LCM Asset Management, and certain collateralized loan obligation securities with an aggregate face amount of USD39m for a combined purchase price of USD10m.
The transaction also provided that all management fees earned by LCM, and cash flows received by Calyon from the CLOs, from 16 August 2009 through the closing of the transaction, less certain expenses of LCM, accrued for the benefit of Tetragon.
LCM was established by Calyon, the
Castle Hill Asset Management, a UK and US-based investment manager, has selected LaCrosse Global Fund Services to provide daily fund administration and outsourced middle- and back-office operations to its newest fund, the Castle Hill Total Return Fund.
Castle Hill is headed by Brian Bassett and Jaime Vieser.
Prior to founding Castle Hill, Bassett was the chief investment officer at Axial Investment Management and before that head of European leveraged finance at Deutsche Bank.
Vieser was head of fixed income at Axial Investment Management, and prior to that the head of high yield trading at Deutsche Bank.
The Castle Hill Total
Minnesota federal Chief Judge Michael J. Davis has incarcerated US Commodity Futures Trading Commission defendant Trevor G. Cook for violating the court’s asset freeze order against him by dissipating funds and failing to surrender more than USD35m in assets.
The court had ordered the asset freeze in connection with a CFTC civil anti-fraud action.
In a hearing that concluded on the same day, the court found Cook in civil contempt, and US Marshals escorted him from the courtroom to jail.
Chief Judge Davis ordered that Cook remain in jail until he has “purged the contempt” by, among other things, surrendering
Crystal Capital Partners, a provider of hedge fund services, has launched onshore and offshore investment vehicles.
The funds are designed to segregate the assets, liabilities, liquidity and investment terms of each customized hedge fund portfolio from other portfolios in the funds.
Crystal allows investors to build custom hedge fund portfolios based on their investment needs. Investors can create portfolios using institutional quality funds across all strategies and asset classes, and have control over their liquidity and investment terms.
Steven Brod, senior partner, says: “The financial crisis taught us that the traditional fund of funds structure does not address the needs
India’s MCX Stock Exchange is launching futures trading in Euro-Indian Rupee, Pound Sterling-Indian Rupee and Japanese Yen-Indian Rupee currency pairs with effect from 1 February 2010.
This was made possible based on the policy and approval of RBI and SEBI.
The exchange will currently offer 12 contracts and six spread contracts for each of the new currency pairs. All the contracts will have a tick size of 0.25 paise or INR 0.0025. These contracts will be cash settled in rupees.
Joseph Massey, managing director and chief executive of MCX Stock Exchange, says: “We are grateful to SEBI and RBI for
