Latest News
Czarnikow, one of the London’s oldest commodity traders, says sugar cane derived ethanol has the potential to become a super biofuel, but only if there is significant investment in production and infrastructure.
Analysts at Czarnikow, which produces a monthly report on biofuels, say government mandates for renewable energy, which are expected to be debated at this week’s Copenhagen summit, can only be satisfied if money is spent on production and infrastructure.
Toby Cohen, head of research at Czarnikow Group, says ethanol derived from sugar cane has the capacity to become the world’s leading biofuel, but there has to be
Alternative asset manager Cheyne Capital has appointed Tom Wiggin as head of UK marketing.
In this newly created position, Wiggin will be responsible for the marketing of Cheyne’s expanding range of products in the UK and will work alongside Max Nardulli who was recently appointed as head of international sales and distribution.
Wiggin joins Cheyne from Deutsche Bank in London where he was since 1998, most recently as managing director responsible for hedge fund relationships in Europe. Prior to this, he ran Deutsche Bank’s convertible bond business.
He has also managed the convertibles business at Flemings, and has also
Future Capital Partners, the GBP6bn alternative investment boutique, has appointed Piers Denne to lead its business development strategy.
Denne (pictured) takes over an expanded head of sales and marketing role at Future Capital, with primary responsibility for implementing a new strategic focus for the firm’s business development campaigns.
His immediate task will be the marketing of the range of new product launches that the firm has lined up for Q1 2010.
Denne brings with him a vast amount of experience in third-party distribution of investment products. Heading up the sales team, recently enhanced by the appointment of Andrew Derrington, he
Blacksquare Capital, an alternative asset management firm, has launched the IFSL Blacksquare Multi-Manager Absolute Return Fund.
The fund aims to deliver positive absolute returns which are uncorrelated to equity and bond markets.
The fund provides daily dealing and the two week launch period begins on 4 January 2010.
The fund is one of the first regulated Ucits compliant multi-manager investment products to be launched in the UK, investing in a portfolio of regulated Ucits absolute return funds and money market instruments.
Managed by Richard Sherwin, portfolio manager, the fund will launch with approximately 15 absolute return funds and
Aegis Film Fund has launched two share classes that will open the fund up to a broader range of retail and institutional investors.
This is in response to increasing investor demand for a product that enables them to invest in the booming film industry but also minimise risk.
According to Aegis, the film industry is set to be one of the hottest investment opportunities of 2010. The financial crisis has meant the banks that traditionally financed films have pulled out of the sector. This has provided a window of opportunity for other investors, especially as the worldwide box office
Investment management firm AllianceBernstein has appointed Wayne Godlin as a member of its municipal bond portfolio management team.
Godlin, who has extensive investment expertise in both the investment grade and high yield municipal markets, will help design and manage the firm’s municipal investment strategies and customised product solutions to serve the needs of financial advisers and clients.
"We are pleased to have Wayne join our firm as we continue to enhance and expand our municipal bond offerings," says Guy Davidson, director of municipal fixed income at AllianceBernstein. "His experience further augments our portfolio-management team’s ability to provide municipal bond
The International Financial Centres Forum has been formally launched in London with a formal discussion between key organisations and individuals who are recognised as thought leaders in the field of international finance.
The forum was established to provide authoritative and balanced information to contribute to the public conversation on the role of IFCs in the global economy.
The forum has launched a website (www.ifcforum.org) with a Key Issues section and Knowledge Centre as a publicly available resource. The IFC Forum will be constantly adding policy papers to these sections.
The forum will also publish a monthly newsletter
The US credit default swap market remained characterised by further widening throughout the course of last month, extending the gradual decline in creditworthiness that began in late summer 2009, according to a report by GFI Group.
Risk aversion trades appear to be gaining increasing traction among credit derivatives markets, with the predominant bias of the corporate market remaining to the upside.
Sovereign contracts sparked by a host of weaker-than-anticipated macro data in the US are also beginning to flag increasing concern, with the US sovereign five-year contract moving above 30bps towards the end of last month from the low-20bps region
List Group, the electronic trading provider behind 15 of Europe’s electronic markets, has launched its standard alone grid computing platform, FMR Grid.
The platform enables financial institutions to conduct complex risk analysis simultaneously across asset classes, improving risk management performance and effectiveness.
The grid-based software tool provides portfolio managers, asset management firms and market makers with the ability to price, stress test and evaluate the risks of large and complex portfolios in real-time.
Asset class coverage includes FX, MM, fixed income, equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives for both over-the-counter and exchange-based markets.
Enrico Melchioni, chief executive of
Horacio Valeiras, Managing Director, Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management and CIO, Allianz Global Investors Management Partners, looks back at 2009 and outlines his views on 2010.
History will remember the first decade of 21st Century as when we saw the first signs of a shift in economic power, with the last year showing it most significantly, from West to East.
With regard to investment classes, we experienced a negative 10 year cycle for returns in equities with the S&P 500, Dow Jones and EuroStoxx 20 being down significantly
Review: 2009
The story of 2009 has been the massive and unprecedented amounts of
