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Northern Rivers Capital Management has entered into a binding agreement, subject to regulatory approval, to be acquired by BluMont Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of Integrated Asset Management.
The transaction is expected to close in February 2010.
Established in 2001, Northern Rivers Capital Management is a private investment company located in Toronto, Ontario. Northern Rivers manages a family of six funds for high net worth and retail investors, including equity funds, alternative funds, and one private equity fund.
Founded in 1998, IAM is a Toronto based public company majority owned by management. IAM develops, distributes and manages alternative investments, including
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained more than USD6.75m in civil monetary penalties and equitable relief in a court order against American Derivatives, Brokerage Management, Layne D. Gerstel and Devereaux D. Booth, all of Atlanta, Georgia, and David N. Mittler of Aventura, Florida.
The consent order of permanent injunction, entered on 15 December 2009 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, resolves a CFTC enforcement action that charged defendants with fraudulently soliciting more than 274 customers to trade commodity options and failing to supervise employees committing such fraud.
Specifically, the order requires the defendants
The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up 1.05 per cent in November, bringing year-to-date performance to 5.49 per cent.
The top performing strategies over the month were CTAs long term (+3.55 per cent), special situations (+2.62 per cent) and L/S credit arbitrage (+2.07 per cent).
Strategies posting negative performances for the month included L/S equity short bias (-7.43 per cent), L/S equity statistical arbitrage (-0.56 per cent) and convertible bonds & volatility arbitrage (-0.33 per cent).
The Lyxor Hedge Indices are investable, asset-weighted hedge fund indices.
Spectrum Global Fund Administration, a provider of middle and back office solutions to hedge funds and managed accounts, obtained its third consecutive unqualified SAS 70 Type II Independent Service Auditor’s report in 2009.
David Young, Spectrum’s president, says: “This report is verification of independent review and rigorous testing of Spectrum’s internal control environment covering both its fund administration services and its proprietary technology platform, Virtual Back Office.”
Spectrum’s VBO platform has received industry-wide recognition for providing transparency to investors and streamlining reporting capabilities for fund managers.
“There is an increased demand, as there should be, for a SAS 70 Type
Total volume in equity derivatives futures and options registered through NYSE Liffe’s Bclear OTC wholesale service has just passed 250 million, setting a new record for the fourth consecutive year.
Bclear provides a cost-effective way to register and process wholesale derivatives trades through NYSE Liffe to clearing at NYSE Liffe Clearing.
This reduces the counterparty, credit, legal and operational risks often associated with OTC trades.
Volumes processed through Bclear in the year-to-date are 40 per cent higher than in the same period of 2008.
Having initially launched in October 2005 as an equity derivatives platform covering 300 underlyings from 16
Holland Park Risk Management, a risk management adviser to pension fund managers in the US and Canada, has signed a three-year contract for Algo Risk Service, Algorithmics’ outsourced risk management and portfolio construction service.
HPRM offers consulting services to improve its clients’ risk practices, as well as ongoing risk monitoring and reporting services.
HPRM will use Algo Risk Service as its third-party provider of risk analytics for its clients’ portfolios and will overlay its advisory services on top of the risk analytics and results generated by Algorithmics.
Valter Viola, president of Holland Park Risk Management, says: “Algorithmics’ Algo Risk
Mariner Holdings has acquired a controlling interest in Palmer Square Capital Management, an alternative investment management firm based in Kansas City that specialises in funds investing in hedge funds and private equity funds.
Mariner chief executive Marty Bicknell (pictured) says: “We are delighted to make this significant investment in Palmer Square and its principals. We continue to see very strong investor demand for alternative investment products across our client base. Through the Palmer Square team, we have further strengthened our expertise in alternatives and have broadened our asset management product offering with a range of institutional quality fund of funds
The Australian Fund Monitors’ Index rose by 1.54 per cent in November, bringing its year-to-date performance to 16.31 per cent.
Equity based funds returned 1.41 per cent in November (22.33 per cent YTD), while non equity based funds rose 1.75 per cent in November (8.88 per cent YTD).
Fund of funds rose 1.01 per cent in November and single funds rose 1.61 per cent.
The ASX 200 increased by 1.25 per cent in November, while the S&P 500 rose by 5.74 per cent.
Final performance for the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index has been confirmed up 2.11 per cent in November, bringing year-to-date performance to 17.53 per cent.
Managed futures and global macro led the performance among sectors, returning 4.94 per cent and 3.52 per cent respectively in November.
Gains were largely due to long equity and metal positions as well as due to bearish views on the US Dollar.
Other strong performers included event driven (2.16 per cent), long/short equity (1.92 per cent) and emerging markets (1.37 per cent).
As equity markets rallied, dedicated short posted losses of 2.99 per cent and
The Federal Court of Australia has approved the settlement of a compensation claim initiated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for Bongiorno Financial Advisers clients who were advised to invest in York Street Mezzanine, a company within the failed Westpoint Group.
ASIC has also reached an agreement to settle a class action against Melbourne-based trustee company State Trustees for AUD13.5m. The settlement of this class action is subject to the approval of the court.
In the Bongiorno settlement, Bongiorno must pay eligible investors a total of AUD2,559,760. The court approved a distribution mechanism whereby group members will ultimately recover
