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SEI has signed ten new collective investment trust managers over the past eight months.
According to Cerulli Associates, CITs represented about USD733bn in employer-sponsored retirement plans, including defined benefit and defined contribution plan assets as of 30 June 2009.
SEI has specialised in the CIT market for more than 15 years, but has experienced even stronger growth as the adoption of CITs in the retirement space becomes more prevalent. Public policy and litigation has increased the scrutiny of retirement plan costs and fees, pushing plan sponsors toward lower-cost solutions such as CITs. Technology enhancements have also played a role in
Global consulting firm Watson Wyatt has promoted Damien Loveday to global head of hedge fund research, taking on the role from Craig Baker, who also leads the wider global manager research team.
The role is one of four global manager research leadership roles, the others being bonds (Margaret Frost), equities (Martin Knowles) and private markets (Jane Welsh).
Loveday (pictured), who has a CFA qualification, joined Watson Wyatt from the Royal Bank of Scotland Asset Management’s multi-manager team three years ago. His appointment was effective from 1 October 2009 and he will report to Baker.
Baker says: "We still believe in
Hedge funds consolidated their upward trend in September, with all hedge fund strategies except dedicated short-bias (-1.22 per cent) ending the month in positive territory, according to a report by Lipper.
A series of positive US macro readings, the IMF’s upwardly revised forecast, and rising M&A deals contributed to the stock market rally.
Emerging markets (+1.96 per cent) and long-bias (+1.92 per cent) were the best performing strategies for September for year-to-date returns of 18.94 per cent and 20.73 per cent, respectively.
Convertible arbitrage (+1.76 per cent), long/short equity (+1.48 per cent), and global macro (+1.25 per cent) were the
Multi-jurisdictional law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman has hired Guy Cooper to its corporate practice in Bermuda as part of a spate of new hires to the firm.
Cooper (pictured) will focus on company and commercial work, with specialist expertise in the formation of companies and partnerships, joint ventures, restructuring and finance transactions.
He has experience in a diverse range of corporate, transactional, regulatory and finance work.
Cooper joins Conyers from Reed Smith’s financial industry group, where he worked as an associate in both the Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices of the firm. Prior to working at Reed Smith, Cooper
The South African hedge fund industry remained stable through the recent market turbulence with assets under management of ZAR29.7bn at 30 June 2009 – just two per cent lower than the previous year’s ZAR30.3bn, according to a survey by Novare Investments.
Even though the industry recorded its first year of net outflows in the 12 months to June 2009, the total size of industry outflows (including estimated outflows as a result of funds dissolved) netted against inflows amounted to an approximate ZAR3.3bn, less than 11 per cent of the industry size a year ago.
The 12 months to June 2009
Offshore law firm Harney Westwood Riegels has appointed Jane Yao, Monica Chu and Tiffany Tang in the firm’s Hong Kong office.
Yao (pictured) joins as a senior associate. Prior to joining Harneys, she was a senior foreign associate with the law firm of Colin Ng Partners in Singapore where her areas of practice included mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and foreign direct investment into China.
Chu joins as an associate from another Cayman and BVI law firm. Her areas of expertise include all corporate and commercial disciplines, particularly in relation to banking and finance, and investment funds.
Tang joins as a
The Association of Investment Companies says the proposed Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive fails to take account of the benefits the investment company structure provides for shareholders.
In its written evidence to the House of Lords European Union Committee inquiry into the directive, the AIC says the proposals would create unnecessary and duplicating regulatory objectives, increase costs and reduce investment companies’ commercial flexibility.
According to the AIC, the directive fails to recognise the role of the independent board. It says this should be resolved by ensuring that the rules do not create regulatory obligations which conflict with the investment
The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index rose 1.14 per cent in September, bringing year-to-date performance to +5.40 per cent.
The top performing strategies over the month were L/S credit arbitrage (+5.15 per cent), convertible bonds and volatility arbitrage (+2.59 per cent), and equity long bias (+2.19 per cent).
Just three strategies posted a negative performance in September: L/S equity short bias (-4.21 per cent), distressed securities (-0.72 per cent) and L/S equity market neutral (-0.08 per cent).
The thematic Lyxor Emerging Markets Index fell by 0.35 per cent in September, bringing year-to-date performance to -7.25 per cent.
The Lyxor hedge indices
The international derivatives exchange Eurex is launching an equity index future based on the MSCI Japan on 26 October 2009.
The new future will be Eurex’s first derivative based on an Asian equity index.
“The MSCI Japan future extends our existing suite of foreign equity indices, among them the MSCI Russia future”, says Peter Reitz, member of the Eurex executive board. “Nowadays, many participants in financial markets invest globally. The Japanese cash market is the largest and most important market in Asia. With our MSCI Japan future we enable our European and US customers, in particular, to better hedge their
BTIG, a broker dealer specialising in institutional trading and related brokerage services, has appointed Vikas Tandon as managing director and head of high yield and distressed analytics with BTIG’s global fixed income group.
“Vikas is a significant addition to our growing fixed income team,” says Steven Starker, co-founder of BTIG. “His extensive experience will enable us to focus on the credits most important to our clients, and ensure that the form and substance of our analytical reports are of the highest regard.”
Tandon joined BTIG from Joshua Tree Capital Management, a distressed fund focused on extremely illiquid securities that
