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Optima Partners has appointed compliance industry veteran Portia Amato as a Director in the firm’s New York office.
Amato (pictured), brings nearly two decades of experience in providing compliance services for the investment management industry. In her new role, Amato will be responsible for maintaining client relationships and working with management to drive further growth for the firm, which has more than 500 clients including hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms, broker dealers, and global banks.
Before joining Optima, she was a Compliance Officer at DRA Advisors, a New York-based investment advisory firm specialising in real estate
ZEDRA, a specialist in trust, corporate and fund services has opened its third Swiss office, in Zug, to support its other Swiss businesses based in Zurich and Geneva.
ZEDRA says the three offices will work closely together, with company registration, accounting and legal services all eventually available from the new location.
ZEDRA’s Managing Director for Switzerland, Stuart McLuckie (pictured), says: “Our new Zug office will give us the additional means to support a range of specialist Swiss corporate business. It is therefore an important strategic step for us.”
Vadim Neumann, Managing Director of ZEDRA’s Zurich operations, adds: “Since
Jupiter Asset Management has appointed Mark Richards as a Strategist in its growing Multi-Asset team, reporting to Head of Strategy, Multi-Asset, Talib Sheikh.
Richards has sixteen years of experience covering economics and financial markets, most of which as he has spent as an equity strategist. He will work closely with Talib and the Multi-Asset team with a particular focus on the Jupiter Flexible Income fund, which launched in September 2018. The role of Strategist is a new addition for Jupiter and will give Richards the flexibility to draw on the breadth of equity and macro expertise across the company’s investment
StatPro Group, an AIM-listed provider of cloud-based portfolio analytics and asset pricing services for the global asset management industry, capped off 2018 with a new strategic partnership with Broadridge, and the acquisition of ODDO BHF, a regulatory risk services bureau.
In addition, the company made three new senior executive hires.
During the course of the year StatPro signed 20 clients in eight different countries for contracts greater than USD100k per annum, underscoring the momentum we are building across the industry.
Justin Wheatley (pictured), CEO of StatPro, says: “Our 2018 partnership with Broadridge re-affirmed our role as a leader
SANNE, a provider of alternative asset and corporate services, has opened a new office in Tokyo, Japan. The company has also made the key appointment of Mark Bennett as Country Head of its Japanese business.
The opening of this new office expands SANNE’s already strong network of offices across the Asia-Pacific region and adds further capability and scope to the services SANNE can offer its clients. SANNE first established a presence in Asia in 2010 when it opened offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, further opening a Singapore office in 2014.
Mark Law, Managing Director – Asia-Pacific & Mauritius,
Leading offshore law firm Carey Olsen has appointed Jasmine Amaria as a Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands (BVI) corporate partner in its London office.
Amaria, who joins from the London office of another offshore law firm, specialises in both Cayman Islands and BVI corporate law. She has significant experience in investment funds and corporate and finance matters, with a particular emphasis on fund formation and ongoing corporate transactions and financing activities, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, shareholder arrangements and group reorganisations and restructurings. Prior to moving offshore, Amaria spent nine years at Slaughter and May, where she trained and
Jose Castellano has joined iM Global Partner as deputy CEO and Head of International Business Development.
iM Global Partner is an investment and development asset management platform focused on acquiring strategic investments in traditional and alternative investment firms, its Partners, with an objective of growing together. iM Global Partner aims to cover a wide spectrum of high alpha strategies globally supporting its present and future top-of-the-range managers.
iM Global Partner, which opened a distribution platform in the United States mid-2018, is now accelerating its international business development’s resources for its Partners.
Castellano (pictured), will support the continuous build-up
RD Legal, an investment management firm focussed on post-settlement litigation finance, has appointed Amy B Hirsch to the additional role of Portfolio Manager for the firm’s strategies. Hirsch joined RD Legal in 2016 as Co-Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer.
RD Legal also announced that it is expanding its data analytics and engineering functions under Dr Joanne Chen, Chief Analytics Officer since joining the firm in 2016. Dr. Chen has designed a proprietary methodology for analysing litigation data.
The moves come as the litigation finance sector sees explosive growth. According to a recent report, litigation finance is now
BNY Mellon has appointed Jorge Sanchez to its Hedge Fund Services team with responsibility for overseeing the delivery of hedge fund operations to key clients.
Sanchez, who will report to Nicholas Gialanella, Global Head of Hedge Fund Services Operations, joins BNY Mellon from Analytical Research Capital Management in New York, where he oversaw all operations, compliance and finance policies and procedures for the firm.
Prior to this, Sanchez was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of the USD4 bn hedge fund WCG Management in White Plains, NY, where he led all elements of its accounting and compliance teams.
Nordea Asset Management (NAM) has hired Sébastien Galy to the role of senior macro strategist.
Based in Luxembourg, Galy will deliver macroeconomic and financial analysis across the vast array of assets covered by NAM. The position entails analysis of both strategic and tactical asset allocation, as well as commentary on macro themes and investment ideas. Galy will deliver timely market perspectives, along with NAM’s quarterly outlook.
Galy previously worked on the sovereign buy side and sell side at Deutsche Bank and UBS for more than a decade – with a focus on macroeconomics, currencies, balance sheets and quantitative work.