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By Markus Fuchs – Switzerland’s fund and asset management industry is on the brink of major changes not only resulting from the revised Collective Investment Schemes Act, which sets out regulatory requirements for both traditional and alternative funds, but also from changes partly outside the regulatory framework.
Banking services in Switzerland are primarily associated with private banking and wealth management. In contrast, asset management, which for many banks and financial services companies is a core activity, has tended to stay more on the side lines. And yet the importance of asset management for the Swiss financial centre cannot be overestimated.
Total capital invested in the global hedge fund industry expanded during the first quarter at the fastest rate since 2010 as global financial institutions positioned for both growth and volatility across fixed income, equities, currencies and commodities.
Total assets under management increased by USD122bn, the largest increase since Q4 2010, bringing industry capital to a record USD2.375trn, according to the latest HFR Global Hedge Fund Industry Report.
Investors allocated USD15.2bn of net new capital to hedge funds in Q1 2013, marking the highest inflow since 1Q12. Hedge funds have experienced capital inflows in 14 of the 15 quarters.
Stenham Asset Management has launched two funds of hedge funds – Stenham Credit Opportunities and Stenham Healthcare. Stenham Credit Opportunities launched on 1 January 2013 with USD21m and has returned 3.44 per cent since inception.
The fund is a concentrated portfolio of credit managers, targeting eight to 12 per cent annualised returns and allocates across the full spectrum of credit strategies, investing in best-in-class managers in credit long/short, structured credit and distressed debt strategies which are often unavailable to traditional investors. Allocations to individual strategies are managed dynamically as opportunity sets evolve. The fund invests in six to 10 high conviction
The SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator for April 2013 measured 2.95 per cent, down from 4.33 per cent in March.
“April redemption activity decreased from March and remains consistent with historical averages,” says Bill Stone, chairman and chief executive officer, SS&C Technologies.
The SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator represents the sum of forward redemption notices received from investors in hedge funds administered by SS&C GlobeOp on the GlobeOp platform, divided by the AuA at the beginning of the month for SS&C GlobeOp fund administration clients on the GlobeOp platform. Forward redemptions as a percentage of SS&C GlobeOp’s assets
This week Alceda Fund Management SA announced that two US fund managers had joined the Alceda UCITS Platform (AUP). The two managers in question are Miller/Howard Investments, a New York-based equities specialist and Clark Capital Management Group, a Philadelphia-based investment firm.
Miller/Howard has been focusing on high-quality, income-producing equities since 1991 and has allowed the firm to grow to over USD5.3billion in AuM. Commenting on the decision to join the Alceda platform Lowell Miller, President and CIO, said: “Today we’re excited about being able to offer our strategy in a UCITS format for international investors. Given the uncertain economic world,
Mariner Investment Group, an alternative asset manager, has named Richard Rumble, the former head of global emerging market equity prop trading at Goldman Sachs, to run a global emerging market equity portfolio on the Mariner Incubation Platform.
The platform is a multi-strategy mandate Mariner launched in April 2013 to be managed by leading investment talent sourced from the hedge fund industry.
The portfolio will be known as the Mariner INOX GEM. Today’s announcement follows the firm’s recent appointment of Eric Pellicciaro to manage a global macro portfolio on this new platform.
The Mariner Incubation Platform allocates capital to
Stuart Levett and Julia Agafonova have joined CVC Credit Partners as managing director focused on European trading activity and director of fund administration, respectively.
Levett has spent more 16 years in banking with expertise in sourcing, managing and trading of performing, stressed and distressed credit assets. Levett spent eight years with Credit Suisse and its predecessor Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. More recently Levett was a managing director and senior originator and leverage sales at UBS and Cantor Fitzgerald responsible, inter alia, for sourcing impaired and distressed single line assets and portfolios, trading through capital structures and asset classes.
Ireland’s Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton has formally launched the Irish Debt Securities Association at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.
The IDSA is an industry organisation whose membership includes the corporate administrators, audit firms, legal advisors, listing agents, and other parties involved in the structuring and management of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in the industry in Ireland.
Around EUR500bn of SPV assets are already resident in Ireland, representing approximately 22 per cent of all European SPV assets. IDSA’s objective is to enhance the environment in Ireland for structured finance and debt securities and
EDHEC-Risk Alternative Indexes with equity-focused strategies all exhibited robust returns in March, characterised by a wide dispersion in terms of dynamic alphas.
The long/short equity strategy (1.57 per cent) performed in line with its modelled dynamic exposure, the equity market neutral strategy (0.26 per cent) showed mildly negative alpha, whereas the event driven strategy (1.52 per cent) produced a very strong idiosyncratic return possibly indicative of market timing effects or hidden risk premia.
The convertible arbitrage strategy (0.83 per cent) extended its winning streak to ten months despite convertible bonds being the single beneficial exposure among its risk
Rich Ricci, currently chief executive of corporate and investment banking (CIB) at Barclays, has decided to retire on 30 June 2013.
He will step down from the bank’s executive committee on 30 April 2013.
Ricci’s (pictured) retirement is just one of a raft of changes to the senior management within corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management, and Barclays’ business in the Americas which will streamline the leadership in these areas. They follow on from the elimination of the global retail and business banking layer in late 2012, and the integration plans in hand to bring together
