Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:Randy Swan and the team at Swan Wealth Advisors might not jump to mind when you start thinking about asset managers, but they probably should. Since 1997 the firm has run a strategy that eschews a lot of exotic overlays and market timing to provide consistent performance. Once a group of private separately managed accounts, the team moved into the retai...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:SkyBridge Capital, a New York-based global alternative investment firm formed in 2005, had $9 billion in assets under management (AuM) or advisement as of October 31, 2013. The firm increased its AuM by almost $2bn so far this year. It had $7.6bn in AuM two years ago...

Precy Dumlao, Opalesque Asia for New Managers:Emerging hedge funds struggle to cover operational expenses solely on their management fee alone and do not realize comfortable operating margins at any point below $1bn in assets under management, that was the finding of the second annual Hedge Fund Business Expense Benchmark Survey by ...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:Panelists at the recent Alternative Assets Summit in Las Vegas said that costs to bring a '40 Act to market had dropped significantly and that it now takes around four months to structure a fund. Indeed, now a lot of...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London:The Opalesque Hard Assets Roundtable, sponsored by Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry and Eurex saw Stephen ...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:Franklin Templeton and K2 Advisors have launched a multi-manager, multi-strategy mutual fund focused on alternative investment strategies, the Franklin K2 Alternative Strategies Fund. The fund is designed to be roughly similar to the K2 flagship fund. Franklin Templeton took a majority stake in K2 last year. As the Fund’s investment manager, K2...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:This series of articles explores the concept of the Great Rotation, its reality and how it is viewed. Today, we look at how the Great Rotation was predicted last year just as equities were outperforming Treasuries. Part 2 will be published tomorrow (Nov.14th, 2013), Part 3 on Friday and Part 4 on Monday. ...

Mark Melin, Opalesque Futures Intelligence, Chicago:In response to a CFTC civil suit against AlphaMetrix alleging fraud, the firm issued a statement denying the charges alleged in the suit and re-iterated it is fully cooperating to properly liquidate funds on its managed accounts platform. The statement reads: On November 5, 2013, the Federal Court in Chicago entered ...

Mark Melin, Opalesque Futures Intelligence, Chicago:As a public deadline with the National Futures Association (NFA) approaches that could essentially end the firm’s business, a source inside AlphaMetrix expressed optimism the January, 2014 conference in Miami Beach will take place. Further, this source considered it likely the firm will pay all outstanding fees owed to managed futures C...

Mark Melin, Opalesque Futures Intelligence, Chicago:AlphaMetrix, the investment platform connecting primarily institutional investors with hedge funds and managed futures programs, has suspended paying performance and incentive fees to the funds on its platform and fired its Chief Financial Officer, according to ...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:Umberto Boccato, CIO of Alternative Investments at Mirabaud, an international financial group that offers private banking and asset management services, talks to Opalesque from his Geneva of...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva for New Managers: Andreani & Associés’s new quantitative long/short equity program, the COPS program (currently a managed account on Interactive Brokers), has returned 2.39% since its June 3rd inception, through to October 1st, 2013 (unleve...

From Artemis.bm: According to numerous reports in the press, SAC Capital, the embattled hedge fund owned by Steven A. Cohen, is looking for a buyer for its year old reinsurer SAC Re, as the hedge fund continues to fight insider trading charges. SAC Re, which launched in July 2012 with $500m of capital and looked set to follow the typical hedge fund reinsurer model of underwriting low-v...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: South Africa’s big retail chains such as Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Woolworths are expanding in sub-Saharan Africa to counteract a sluggish home market, reports this week’s Economist...

Precy Dumlao, Opalesque Asia: Morgan Creek Capital Management is the latest fund manager to offer so-called hedged mutual fund business or a daily liquidity mutual fund to give its retail clients a taste of hedge fund. In a ...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: An Opalesque column for global macro investors. The U.S. Fed recently announced a forthcoming tapering of QE, which coincided with money leaving emerging market (EM) investments. EM currencies have been battered, bond issues have lowered, and equities have lost value. Vijai Mohan, founder of San Francisco-bas...

This open letter to Warren Buffet is from Jad Comair, Founder and CIO Melanion Capital, Paris. In finance, a dividend future is an Exchange-traded derivative contract that allows investors to take positions on future dividend payments. Dividend futures settle on the amount of dividend paid by the com...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London: Hedge funds with highest performance fees deliver best net returns reveals new research from Preqin. The firm found that hedge funds that charge performance fees of more than 20% have produced the highest net returns in four out of the past six years...

Matthias Knab, Opalesque: Third Point Re’s shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday last week. While the 22 million shares offered in its IPO priced at $12.50 per share, which was the low of its range, 14 million shares traded on the first day and two million traded on Friday, where it closed at $13.30 per share, up 6.5% and a 10% premium to book value (Greenlig...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Victor Viner, a 25-year veteran of the investments industry, first created V2 Capital in 2004. After working with his partner to refine their equities strategy, the firm launched the V2 Hedged Equity Fund, with capital from firm principals in 2010. Last year, Opalesque first reported on the opening of that fund to outside investors. Now, as V2 Hedg...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: An Opalesque column for global macro investors. According to a research piece by Deutsche Bank, the Arab Spring, which started on December 17, 2010 with Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in Tunisi...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: Trading in hedge fund secondaries has become very popular since 2008, and now more and more investors use it to acquire liquidity. Apparently, investors were still sitting on an estimated $50 to $75 billion of illiquid ...

From Metro.co.uk: The next time you complain about your commute just take a moment to think about these poor subway passengers in China who face a nightmare journey to work every morning. The footage above of commuters battling their way onto a train was filmed at Xierqi subway station, on Beijing’s Line 13. It shows people waiting in huge queues for the train to arrive and...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: Alternative strategies that are normally used by hedge funds and private equity are increasingly being packaged as mutual funds in the U.S. and as UCITS in Europe. Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment and advisory firms, is jumping on that bandwagon. ...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: Now that SEC has lifted the ban on solicitation and advertising, hedge fund managers, who are at a disadvantage since most lack a marketing structure and a strong online presence, need to identify what is unique about their portfolio if they want to be seen by potential investors, a marketing strategist told Opalesque. Yesterday...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London: James Skeggs, global co-head of the advisory group at Newedge and senior director of Alternative Investment Solutions presented his latest research paper on managed futures industry capacity and its effect on CTA returns at the ...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London, for New Managers: A gathering of industry veterans, largely drawn from the managed futures and CTA community lies behind the conference in London this week for emerging managers, the Emerging Manager Forum from Bucky Isaacson and Frank Pusateri. The occasio...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London: Investment software provider Multifonds has published its white paper, entitled: The impact of AIFMD and convergence survey. Key findings from the survey include: 83% of respondents agree convergence of traditional and alternative funds will continue 64% of responde...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: - Arié Assayag, head of alternative investments at Union Bancaire Privée, aka UBP, told Swiss daily Le Temps that the Swiss bank is changing its alternative funds' manage...

From eFinancialnews.com: Over four fifths of investments in hedge funds last year were made on full fees, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs, suggesting that although cost-sensitive pension funds are a growing component of the investor base, managers are holding fast on fees. Goldman Sachs prime brokerage division’s 13th Annual Global Hedge Fund Investor Survey 2013, publishe...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: The recent Cyprus banking crisis, triggered by the Eurozone debt crisis, sent shock waves through Europe, Russia and the global financial system. It was said that Russian companies and individuals then had about $3...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Endurance Series Trust, a multi-series trust, is launching with Gator Capital Management, LLC as the adviser for the Trust’s first mutual fund series. Endurance Fund Services, LLC, an independently owned and operated fund administration company will serve as the fund administrator for mutual funds in the trust. Endurance Series Trust is the l...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: There are more investigations coming from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Stephen Crimmins, Washington and New York-based partner at K&L Gates LLP, an international law firm. "The world of SEC regulations of the investment manag...

From Valuewalk.com: Hedge fund leverage has been on the rise over the past few months. We have already covered the topic several times in 2013. According to the latest data the trend has continued and is close to the peak reached in 2007. BAML is out with its latest weekly hedge fund monitor (although they skipped last week). In the report issued on Sunday the 5th of May, BAML notes that hedge fun...

This article was authored by Shahid Ikram, CIO at Aviva Investors, a global asset manager that is part of Aviva, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, and appeared first in Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps on Monday. Mounting pension deficits present a dilemma for trustees. New cash...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: - Stenham Asset Management, a fund manager headquarted in London, has just unveiled two new funds of hedge funds: Stenham Credit Opportunities and Stenham Healthcare, both launched on 1st January, 2013. The firm has invested in credit and healthcare strategies for more than...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: In 2010, I.A. Englander launched its managed accounts and prime services along side its electronic trading platform. The electronic trading platform spun out of Englander last summer, as planned, leaving the firm with the plumbing of a prime services division. Now, that division is providing new and critical infrastructure to the emerging managers that...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: If one of the funds of hedge funds that invested in Madoff had decided to dig beneath the Madoff funds’ shiny coating and hired a white collar fraud specialist beforehand, things might have looked and felt different to the many investors who have lost out. Opalesque interviewed the heads of white collar investigative firm, who explained what they do,...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: - Switzerland is one of the most important commodity trading centres in the world, said the Swiss Federal Council in a release last week announcing the publication of a background report on commodities. This report responds to challenges within the commodities tra...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Exclusive: Stephen C. Tirrell, Partner at global law firm Bingham McCutchen, New York, talked to me about the existing legal landscape for new investment managers who want to raise private funds in the U.S., with...

An Opalesque column for global macro investors. Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: Financial markets have been on the road to recovery, but real economy has not, says Fitch Ratings, a global rating agency, in its latest Global Economic Outlook Special Report. In the fourth quarter of 2012 (Q412), the Eurozone and the U.S. had t...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: As part of the "sharing economy" phenomenon brought on by the internet are platforms where lenders and borrowers meet. Borrowers may seek an alternative from the more traditional lending outlets which have tighter string to their purse, and lenders may be attracted to the prospect of uncorrelated monthly income. There are two ma...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: For the founders of iStar Capital, an Amsterdam-based CTA, choosing trend following as a core trading strategy was a bit of a journey. Co-Founder Rudolph Shally, actually started his professional career theoretical physics, and moved into financial services, where his work at Citibank showed him how trend following could be a winning strategy. He moved ...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: For investors looking into emerging markets, specifically Latin America, commodities have often been the driver of those opportunities. Now, several new funds are emerging that are expanding that opportunity set to include new countries and different investment opportunities. LW Investment Management is one such firm. LW is a Latin American focused hed...

Orix Corporation, the Japanese financial services group, is close to buying the asset management arm of Rabobank, the Dutch lender, for about €2bn ($2.7bn), as it seeks a European bridgehead to complement growing businesses in the US and Asia. Orix confirmed to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday that it was eyeing the acquisition of Robeco, a firm with €189bn in assets under management at the end ...

Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London: Dan Steinbrugge of Agecroft Partners reports that hedge fund industry assets are up slightly from their peak in the third quarter of 2008 but the average fee paid on industry assets has declined much more than reported in industry surveys. "These surveys typically show that the stated fe...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: The Cassiopeia Fund, a volatility arbitrage fund, was launched in 2003, after years of research done by the fund's founder, Dr. Michel Dominicé. This fund profit s from markets' irrational moves and proves through its performance that a rational approach to irrationality can lead to high reward. Indeed, the Share Class B ...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: The principals of Forum Asset Management, a decade investment advisor have come together on a new firm, Connecticut-based Waypoint Asset Management, which will focus on emerging market lending, debt, and special situations opportunities. The founders are taking their 13-year track record of successfully outperforming in Latin America, Eastern Europe, ...

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: Global macroeconomic uncertainty has driven bond yields to record low and global risk premia to all time highs. AlphaParity’s new fund, the All-Weather Strategy, which is to be launched this week, is designed to capture those very risk premia. The fund is fundamental with a momentum bias, and it focuses on value, carry ...

This article was authored by by Bartt Kellermann of Global Capital Acquisition, a hedge fund consulting company based in New York City. "It's going to happen!" - that was the refrain at the recent hedge fund event in Shanghai titled "International Hedge Funds and Direct...

From Precy Dumlao, Opalesque Asia – Family office Athena Capital Advisors, has announced the opening of a New York City office and the hiring of Zung Nguyen to lead the new office. This is the second location for Athena Capital Advisors, with headquarters located in Lincoln, MA. Lisette Cooper, Founder and CIO of At...

From Businessinsider.com: Morgan Creek Capital Management, an investment management firm with offices around the world, released its 2013 market outlook, entitled "Peering Over the Precipice."…The slideshow presentation focuses on the three big risks facing the market: the Euro crisis, possibility of a downturn in China, and fallout from the Fiscal Cliff. Of these three, the ...