The sixth edition of the Hedgeweek Awards, presented on 27 February in London’s Mayfair and sponsored by Morgan Stanley, brought together the leading names in the global hedge funds industry to celebrate the achievements of the best performing managers and service providers in 2014.

Omni Macro Fund is a discretionary global macro fund trading instruments at the most liquid end of the spectrum. Roughly 50 per cent of the Fund’s positions are in FX (developed market-heavy), with the rest of the portfolio trading commodities, equity indices and front-end rates and bond futures. 

Foxhill Capital Partners LLC is an SEC-registered value-oriented event driven hedge fund with particular expertise in distressed and special situations. The firm is based in Princeton, New Jersey. It was established by Neil Weiner (pictured), CIO, in 2006, with the launch of the Foxhill Opportunity Fund, LP.

Saemor Capital is a specialist in quantitative investment management. With approximately USD575m in AUM, Saemor is the second largest hedge fund manager in The Netherlands and is AIFMD-regulated.

2014 proved to be another strong year of growth for Morgan Stanley’s managed accounts platform, which saw assets increase from USD2.6bn to USD3.5bn. 

DMS Offshore Investment Services (‘DMS’) Limited was established in the Cayman Islands by Don Seymour in 2000. Over the past 15 years it has grown into one of the industry’s leading fund governance firms with over 200 people.

Quintillion Limited is a European-based affiliate of U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, a global alternative administrator with assets under administration of USD117bn. Over the last 12 months, Quintillion has seen its AuA increase from USD18bn to USD25bn. 

The Lyxor Epsilon Managed Futures Fund first launched back in 1997. It was only in 2011, as demand for UCITS-compliant alternative fund strategies started to grow in Europe, that Lyxor then decided to launch a regulated version of the flagship. 

2014 was another encouraging year at Concept Capital Markets LLC, one of North America’s leading introducing brokers.

Celebrating its 150th year anniversary in 2014, Société Générale took the decision in May 2014 to buy out Credit Agricole’s 50 per cent stake in Newedge, a leading Prime Broker in Equities, Fixed Income, Listed and OTC Products. Newedge is now able to leverage the strengths of Société Générale and operate as a full-scale prime services business under the new moniker, Société Générale Prime Services. 

State Street’s liquid alternatives financing and servicing capability is well positioned to support asset managers, both traditional and alternative, who are looking to diversify their product range. It has built a state-of-the-art global platform that provides fully integrated reporting, compliance, accounting, custody, settlements and investment analytics. 

Sadis & Goldberg LLP is one of New York’s leading financial services-focused law firms. The Financial Services Group is headed up by partner Ron Geffner (pictured) and consists of a team of 13 seasoned legal professionals. They routinely handle a diverse range of enquiries providing legal counsel to several hundred investment advisers, broker-dealers and commodity pool operators running hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds and separately managed accounts. 

Multi-award-winning hedge fund administrator Opus Fund Services was established in Bermuda in 2006, subsequently expanding its footprint into the US with offices in Chicago (2008), San Francisco (2009), New York (2013) and most recently Portland (2014). It serves over 200 fund managers and 300+ funds with a combined AUM exceeding USD10bn.

By Marianne Scordel – When we wrote about the European hedge fund industry a year ago, we described several long-term trends that had emerged recently and were contributing to the re

2014 was a big year for New York-based HedgeMark International, LLC. On May 1, 2014 the firm became a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNY Mellon. 

2014 was a great year for ML Capital. Following a period of successful asset raising and a number of fund launches, firm-wide assets broke through the USD1bn barrier to reach USD1.2bn. The distribution and European-regulated fund structuring specialist has achieved more than 100 per cent growth every year since it was established in 2009. 

SunGard’s APT solution models market risk, liquidity risk, and counterparty risk across both liquid and illiquid asset classes, supporting regulatory reporting, portfolio optimisation and performance analysis.

Peregrine Communications is a marketing communications agency focused on brand building, brand protection and lead generation for the asset management industry.

Maitland is an independent third party fund administrator with over USD200bn in assets under administration. To be seen as a viable partner to hedge fund managers today, administrators need to offer a comprehensive range of products and services. This is particularly important in light of the regulatory environment that has emerged in recent years, with the AIFM Directive representing a key challenge. 

ASPN Solutions (The Alternative Share Private Network “ASPN”) is a comprehensive front, middle, and back office solution designed to empower institutional investors to build, execute and monitor multi-manager hedge fund portfolios. Developed within Protégé Partners, a FoHF manager that invests in emerging managers and seeds new managers, and the same team that built Altvest, the first internet hedge fund database, ASPN is the first end-to-end solution that can run on any device or operating system.

Pacific Fund Systems (PFS) is a global leader in supporting investment fund accounting and administration through its integrated share registry/fund accounting platform, PFS-PAXUS and its real-time web portal, PFS-CONNECT. Rather than having an administrator rely on multiple systems, PFS-PAXUS delivers true integration using a single database infrastructure to deliver greater workflow efficiencies, reduced risk, and more timely valuations. The PFS-PAXUS platform is continually evolving with PFS releasing two major system upgrades per annum. In 2014 both upgrades contained significant new regulatory-related functionality including the full automation in the system for AIFMD Annex IV and FATCA reporting.

TradingScreen is a leading provider of electronic trading solutions. Through the innovative use of technology, TradingScreen delivers a proven execution management platform and a global network to access any market, any counterparty and trade any financial instrument, from anywhere.

2014 was a busy year for Cordium, not least because of the uncertainty that arose around the implementation of the AIFM Directive. Originally, the FCA had set the registration deadline for UK AIFMs to be 22 January, before eventually accepting HM Treasury’s interpretation of the law and setting 21 July 2014 as the final filing deadline. As Stephen Burke (pictured), Managing Director, EMEA, reflects: “Our clients were continuing to look at what the deadlines were, what they needed to do and by when. It was a significant issue for them.”

For the fifth consecutive year, the Best North American Accounting Firm is Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. With a staff of more than 350 and numerous specialised industry and service teams, Anchin is a full-service accounting, tax and advisory firm that provides investment companies, privately-held businesses, and high net worth individuals with a wide range of traditional and non-traditional services. 

ConceptONE LLC specialises in regulatory and risk reporting, an area of expertise that is fast gaining prominence as alternative fund managers begin to comprehend the enormity of regulatory compliance.

At New York-headquartered Prosek, the tag line is to “unbox communications” and deliver unique, unconventional strategies for financial firms. At the helm is Managing Partner and CEO Jennifer Prosek (pictured), who built Prosek from a small Connecticut PR company to an international communications consultancy with offices in London and a number of key partnerships with agencies in Asia and South America. 

As Asia’s only full service prime broker, Nomura is well positioned to provide access to this region. However, with more than 65 per cent of its wholesale revenues generated outside Japan in 2013/14, Nomura has a comprehensive global offering. 

Pomerol Partners is a global business intelligence consulting firm that specialises in advanced data visualisations. The firm builds business toolsets, such as dashboards, to help senior executives make informed decisions. While it sounds straightforward, the financial services industry faces such complexity and fragmentation of data that getting a clear picture of what is driving profits up (or down) is nearly impossible. 

When it comes to representing the offshore hedge fund industry, the Cayman Islands remains the clear choice among practitioners and fund managers of all varieties. Its funds industry continues to do well. In 2013, for example, Cayman recorded a historical high of 11,379 funds.