Solutions
The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has ordered that redemption payments made to an investor of the failed Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund prior to the commencement of its liquidation are to be repaid.
The Court ruled that the redemption payments constituted preferences and were therefore invalid. In doing so, the court has ordered that the redemption payments, which totalled over USD8.2m, be repaid to the fund.
The decision, handed down earlier today, represents the first successful attempt by liquidators of a Cayman Islands investment fund to recover redemption payments on the basis of preference, meaning that the
Ernst & Young’s Global Information Security Survey 2015, entitled ‘Creating Trust in the Digital World’ provides a comprehensive insight into how organisations view their cyber defences.
The data presented reveals a number of inconsistencies that illustrate a lack of real awareness or understanding as businesses adapt to a new paradigm of increased cyber threats.
The survey canvassed the opinions of 1,755 respondents in 25 industry sectors spanning 67 different countries. Some 31 per cent of respondents were Chief Information Security Officers, 19 per cent were Information Security Officers, and 17 per cent were Chief Information Officers.
As the survey states,
Since the BVI introduced the Approved Manager regime at the end of 2012 demand has been strong. Currently, there are 101 Approved Managers licensed in the BVI.
In its initial incarnation, any manager running an open-ended BVI fund with no more than USD400million in AuM or a closed-ended fund with USD1billion of aggregate capital commitments could apply for the Approved Manager license. The reason for introducing the regime was to allow smaller managers and start-ups to avoid the Category 3 investment business licensing regime under the Securities Investment Business Act (SIBA), which became the BVI's principal legislation in 2010.
On
McKay Brothers International’s (MBI) Central London POP, adjacent to the London Stock Exchange, is now live, completing MBI’s UK Local millimeter wave network.
MBI connects data centres serving major UK equities, interest rate and FX matching engines at the lowest known latency. For example, latency from Slough-LD4 to a MBI’s Central London POP is 272 microseconds round trip. Slough-LD4 to Interxion’s Central London location is covered in 280 microseconds round trip.
“McKay offers the lowest known latency for each leg of the UK equities trade,” says MBI’s managing director Francois Tyc. “We are the only provider able to meet
Big changes are afoot across a broad spectrum of the financial services industry. For example, in the wealth management and investment advisory space, thanks to huge technological developments in recent years, traditional wealth managers have a new competitor to face; the robo adviser, which sounds exciting but it is less the Terminator and more machine learning software, using algorithms to learn investor behaviour and automatically invest into portfolios based on clients' goals and risk threshold.
Such is the rise of the robo adviser, which includes Betterment and Wealthfront, Nutmeg, Money on Toast (!), not to mention Vanguard and Fidelity, that
Hong Kong-based macro-economic hedge fund Guard Capital is now using TFG Financial System cloud-based, cross-asset technology solution for its multi-asset portfolio and risk management requirements.
Guard Capital, which was founded by Leland Lim and Allan Bedwick, is drawing on TFG’s trade capture and risk management capabilities to support its real-time approach to financial markets. Guard pursues macro-economic themes, making use of highly liquid instruments to maximise investor returns using emerging market currencies, interest rates and other markets.
Guard says it chose TFG because of its focus on multi-asset product support, including real time risk reporting and stress testing features,
Automation lies at the heart of Interactive Brokers' prime brokerage model. Be it for risk management, account management, trade execution and pricing, everything is streamlined so as to provide fund managers with a cost-efficient solution.
Interactive Brokers can be viewed as a technology company that operates in the PB marketplace. At a time when bank-owned primes are overhauling their legacy IT systems to bring them into the 21st Century, the ability to remain nimble and technologically lean is working in the favour of non-banking primes like Interactive Brokers.
"We are constantly updating our systems for the future. I would say
Regulation, in the form of AIFMD and Basel III, has had a profound effect on the way that prime brokers and fund managers view their relationship. Ten years ago, things were simple. Hedge funds and prime brokers alike operated with fewer regulatory constraints, leverage financing was more freely offered to funds of all shapes and sizes. But the environment has become a lot more complex. Banks' balance sheets come under increased pressure and managers face direct regulation under AIFMD, requiring those running EU-based AIFs to appoint a depositary.
"Last year, one of the biggest impacts of AIFMD was that it
There's no question that regulation is causing prime brokers to reassess, and, where necessary, evolve their business model. Much is made of the fact that prime brokers are ruthlessly culling hedge funds, banishing them to hinterland. Hedge funds that aren't generating revenues for their primes have become the vampires of high finance, sucking the lifeblood out of banks' balance sheets.
Speak to any prime broker and the stock response is: `We need to improve our return on assets'.
This is completely understandable; necessary even. But it is equally incumbent upon hedge funds to assess, and, if necessary, cull their prime
As the industry watches the growth of liquid alternatives among institutional and individual investors, fund managers are also looking ahead. The retirement market may be the next frontier. It represents a large and growing pool of assets driven by the importance of retirement savings across multiple investment segments.
How is growth in the retirement space opening the door to liquid alternative strategies? This Q&A with Pershing's subject matter experts Mark Aldoroty (pictured) and Rob Cirrotti will help fund managers understand what to consider when looking to the defined contribution (DC) plan space as a growth opportunity. There continues to be
