Solutions
By Beatrice Bedeschi – The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Saudi Aramco has seen a refocus on domestic investors after what was expected to be the largest IPO on history saw a reduction in valuation amid challenging market conditions.
On 17 November, Saudi Aramco said it was looking to sell 1.5 per cent of the company’s stock, or about three billion shares, on the country’s Tadawul exchange at an indicative price of 30-32 riyals, putting it at a maximum valuation of USD1.7 trillion, and below the value of USD2 trillion previously set by Riyadh, according to media
Digital asset platform Bitfinex and on-demand education and employment marketplace ODEM SA have collaborated to produce a new model of education on the role of digital token in the blockchain-enabled economy.
The idea is to provide an innovative token transaction simulation model, designed and operated by ODEM, using Bitfinex as its premier liquidity platform.
Bitfinex and ODEM will launch a series of programmes and courses aimed at increasing the level of education of both novice and advanced Bitfinex users who are interested in obtaining more knowledge about the technical features of digital tokens. In conjunction with these educational programmes,
Futures cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has added four major partners for OKB, its global utility token aimed at connecting digital asset projects.
First, OKB will be listed on Ledger’s hardware wallet, which helps both cryptocurrency traders and institutional investors keep their digital assets secure in cold storage. With clients in 165 countries, Ledger has sold 1.5 million of its wallets.
In addition to Ledger, OKB is now listed by Aliniex, Vietnam’s largest OTC exchange, and Bvnex, Vietnam’s top fiat/cryptocurrency exchange. OKB will also be accepted by virtual retailer Cryptomall. These partnerships are part of OKEx’s mission to collaborate with mainstream and
Wellington Management, a USD1.1 trillion global asset manager, has chosen Artivest’s open-architecture digital platform to help provide financial advisors and qualified high-net-worth investors access to its alternative strategies.
“At Wellington, we are dedicated to using our specialised investment management expertise and skillset to help our clients surpass their goals,” says Chris Kirk, CFA, President of Wellington Alternative Investments. “We’re looking forward to partnering with Artivest to expand the current distribution of our alternatives strategies to a broader group of qualified high-net-worth investors and the advisors who serve them.”
Wellington is the latest investment manager to expand how it currently provides
Itarle, a provider of high-performance, best execution services, algorithmic execution and analytics services to trading venues, has appointed James Thorpe as Regional Manager of its Chicago office to further boost its presence across North America.
Thorpe joins Itarle from Clear Capital Group, a proprietary trading group (PTG) in Chicago where he served as CEO. Prior to that, he was CEO of Mercury Derivatives, part of The Hertshten Group, where he managed the company’s day-to-day expansion across China before managing the global trading group with over 250 million Futures contracts traded annually.
“James’ extensive knowledge in short term interest rates (STIR)
Tradeweb Markets, an operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, has launched portfolio trading for European Credit bonds, just ten months after successfully introducing the functionality for US Credit bonds.
So far, Tradeweb has seen portfolio trading activity exceed USD29 billion, with single trades as large as USD1 billion in notional value. Currently, Tradeweb facilitates portfolio trading for European, US Investment Grade, US High Yield, and Emerging Markets bonds.
“Our portfolio trading functionality showcases Tradeweb’s unique ability to connect innovative technology with deep pools of liquidity to create greater efficiency for our clients,” says Enrico
CGS-CIMB Securities (CGS-CIMB) has launched a new full-service prime services platform designed to service the rapidly growing smaller funds sector, including hedge funds, family offices, proprietary traders, asset managers and broker dealers.
It extends CGS-CIMB’s prime services to smaller funds of up to USD50 million and provides them with services that are normally reserved for bigger funds. Drawing on the resources of CGS-CIMB’s global brokerage business, the service offers access to Asia’s growing markets with products including equities, fixed income, securities financing, exchange-listed futures, stock borrowing and lending, as well as custody, clearing and settlement solutions.
Flexible account structures
Analyst Hub, an independent research infrastructure platform company that provides talented sell-side analysts a path to owning their own enterprises, has added FFTT (Forest for the Trees) a boutique research and investment strategy firm that produces unique macroeconomic and thematic research, to its platform.
Founded in 2014, FFTT serves a customer base of institutional and high-net worth individual investors. FFTT aggregates large amounts of publicly available data from a wide variety of sources in a unique manner to identify developing economic bottlenecks and resulting investment opportunities. FFTT serves clients around the world with a focus on the United States and
iCapital Network is to create a customised technology platform for PIMCO, that will provide financial advisers and their high-net-worth clients access to PIMCO’s alternative strategies.
iCapital Network says the relationship will enable advisers to provide a best-in-class investor experience via enhanced access to PIMCO alternative strategies. iCapital’s technology automates the subscription process, provides transparency into each step of the investing process and seamlessly integrates performance and tax reporting for alternative investments in an end-to-end platform.
“We are excited to partner with iCapital and look forward to leveraging their capabilities as we continue our efforts to democratise alternative investments for qualified investors seeking additional sources
CFA UK’s Certificate in ESG Investing, the first qualification of its kind in the UK, will be available to investment professionals from December.
The Certificate has been introduced to meet the increased demand for ESG knowledge and skills in the investment sector and is already seeing high uptake.
In the UK, over 500 candidates are already signed up to complete the course; they will be able to take the exam from 2 December 2019.
The launch follows a pilot programme conducted in September 2019, which was designed to ensure that the training materials developed for the qualification were
