Solutions
By Don Steinbrugge (pictured), Agecroft Partners – With more 15,000 competitors, the hedge fund industry is extremely competitive. Many institutional investors are contacted by thousands of managers a year, meeting with a few hundred, have follow up meetings with fifty, and ultimately allocating to two. In this competitive environment, any edge over the competition is vital. Having a well thought-out social media strategy is one way to achieve this.
During the past five years, the use of social media has significantly increased within the hedge fund industry. Today, a vast majority of firms have at least some presence on social
London Block Exchange (LBX) – a UK-based, dedicated cryptocurrency exchange – is to add a new coin a day to its offering this week – Basic Attention Token (BAT), STATUS (SNT), Golem (GNT), OmiseGo (OMG) and 0x (ZRX).
OMG – an Ethereum-based token owned by renowned Asian payments service Omise – has experienced strong growth in just under a year and has Vitalik Buterin as an advisor, while BAT is co-owned by the CEO of Mozilla and the creator of JavaScript.
Taking its total number of digital currencies to 11, with hints for more in the near future,
Carey Olsen’s investment funds team in Jersey has advised CoinShares Group on the successful first close of CoinShares Fund II.
The new investment vehicle follows the June 2017 launch of CoinShares Fund I, the first fund ever to be denominated in Ethereum. Like its predecessor, the closed-ended fund will invest in a range of opportunities in the blockchain space, among them – newly created digital assets, emerging from Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
The fund has been authorised under the Jersey Private Fund Regime, a regime which provides for a streamlined regulatory authorisation process as it is a selective offering
Cayman Island’s based Paget-Brown Trust Company has implemented FundCount software to support its expanding fund administration business.
Paget-Brown is using FundCount for the accounting and reporting of its investment fund clients. Automated processes for calculation of net asset value (NAV), general ledger reporting, fees and other financial data enable Paget-Brown to manage investments with greater speed, accuracy and efficiency.
FundCount replaced a time-consuming manual operation that was a hindrance to growth. By integrating all accounting, general ledger functionality and reporting on a single platform, Paget-Brown has realised significant improvements in workflow allowing the team to shorten delivery timelines for clients
Crypto Facilities, a world-leading cryptocurrency trading platform, has launched futures for Ethereum. The new derivatives contract will start trading at 4pm UK time on 11 May.
The first Ethereum futures to be offered by a regulated firm, the products will enable market participants to take a long or short position in the cryptocurrency, allowing them to broaden investment opportunities and manage risks more effectively.
The new contract expands Crypto Facilities’ derivatives offering which currently includes Bitcoin and Ripple futures. Crypto Facilities is a world-leading cryptocurrency trading platform for professionals, offering individuals and institutions regulated, transparent and secure trading 24/7/365.
Broadridge Financial Solutions has secured a US patent for blockchain technology that will enhance the processes for proxy voting and repurchase, or repo, agreements. 

Building on Broadridge’s successful blockchain-based bilateral repo pilot with two global investment banks, which showed how blockchain technology can increase operational efficiency, reduce risk and improve auditability, the ‘238 Patent’ demonstrates how Broadridge’s technology can streamline reconciliation processes, improve data management and reduce non-value added costs. It will also expand Broadridge’s end-to-end proxy solution suite, leveraging the firm’s collaboration with three leading global banking institutions to employ blockchain technology to enhance global proxy vote transparency and
DelphX Capital Markets is unveiling a new alternative trading system (ATS) and new securities products through its subsidiaries, DelphX Services Corp and Quantem Capital Corp, which are designed to provide a securities-based alternative to the single-name Credit Default Swap (CDS) derivatives market, at the upcoming Fixed Income Leaders’ Summit USA, convening in Boston on 6-8 June.
DelphX CEO, Larry Fondren, says: “Consistent with our sponsorship of the 2018 USA Summit, we will provide industry participants an exclusive under-the-hood preview of the DelphX ATS, which will launch this year. Attendees will also get a first look at our new Quantem securities
Global accountancy network PKF has expanded its successful service for family offices and private funds in the UK and Ireland.
The PKF Funds and Family Office service, which was launched in New York in 2011, has now extended its presence to London, Edinburgh and Dublin. The expansion gives PKF’s Family Office and Investment Fund clients greater access to expertise across some of the world’s leading financial centres. The team already maintains offices in the United States, Geneva, Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
The business has appointed Paul Pratt, formerly with Trusted Family, to help launch the offer in the UK and
Metamako, a specialist in low-latency, FPGA-enabled network solutions, has now entered the security space with the launch of its MetaProtect Firewall solution.
The powerful 48-port (x10GbE) network appliance is designed to deliver new levels of ultra-fast firewall protection through packet filtering and logging. It is ideal for situations where a firewall solution is mandatory but ultra-low latency as well as high port density are required.
Metamako’s approach to innovation has established the company as unique in bringing fast, intelligent switching technology to market; the launch of MetaProtect Firewall is set to make similar changes offering security for exchanges, banks
Numerix, a provider of risk technology, is to deploy Oneview, a front-to-risk platform, on the OpenFin desktop operating system (OS).
Building on OpenFin will enable Oneview’s front office XVA trading and risk applications to run in a high performance, multi-window, desktop environment, while ensuring interoperability between applications and into existing workflows, for an enhanced desktop user experience.
Numerix Oneview offers powerful trading applications for front office XVA management, structured products sales and trading, as well as desk-level pricing and risk. In the XVA context, front office risk systems place great emphasis on pre-deal checks, XVA sensitivities, PnL explain and
