by Dechert LLP: In December 2018, the SEC announced two enforcement actions involving business development companies (BDCs) - one against Fifth Street Management, LLC, the former external registered investment adviser to two BDCs, and the other against KCAP Financial, Inc., an internally managed BDC. While the two actions involve wholly separate issues, they do demonstrate the SEC Division of Enf...

Psychedelics, Ferraris and art: An alternative investment guide From Fa-Mag: When money and connections mean you can invest in just about anything, anywhere and over any time frame, what winds up in your portfolio? Yes, the rich are buffeted by the same forces affecting everyone else: rising rates, trade wars and global populism. But in the rarefied world of ultra-high...

Hedge funds make big bets against post-Brexit UK economy From The Guardian: A pair of hedge funds owned by prominent Brexit supporters have made significant bets against companies exposed to the British consumer including big high street names. Odey Asset Management, part-owned by Crispin Odey, and Marshall Wace, part-owned by Sir Paul Marshall, have declare...

Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: Chicago-based asset manager Northern Trust has added private market capabilities to supplement the recently launched ArcLine Alternatives platform for the firm's wealth management clients. The administrator of assets worth $10.8tn said in a press note that the private market investment offering, developed with alternative investment technology fi...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York for New Managers: Crypto prices have cratered over the past month but one emerging manager is still finding arbitrage opportunities. Mitchell Dong, Founder of Pythagoras Investment Management tells Opalesque New Managers that even though there have be...

SS&C Technologies Holdings, a global provider of financial services software and software-enabled services, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Intralinks Holdings, Inc. Intralinks is a leading financial technology provider for the global banking, deal making and capital markets communities. Intralinks facilitates strategic initiatives including mergers and acquisit...

Hedge funds on track for worst year since Lehman collapsed From Barrons: The hedge-fund industry is on track to post its worst performance since Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, triggering a crisis that brought the global financial world to its knees. A composite measure of hedge-fund performance is down 1.66% year to date, the worst performance in the ...

From Deal Street Asia: Chinese venture capital firm Shunwei Capital has closed a total of $1.21 billion for new funds, according to an announcement on its Linkedin page. The announcement did not specify which Shunwei funds the newly-raised fund was for, but a SEC filing earlier this year suggests that the fundraising was for Shunwei China Internet Fund IV and Shunwei China Internet Opportunity Fun...

From Reuters: FundSeeder, a U.S. financial software company co-founded by Jack Schwager, author of best-selling book series "Market Wizards", plans to create its first index investment products within the next six months, its CEO told Reuters. Using its own performance analytics platform FundSeeder aims to connect institutional money with some of the world's best traders...

Frustrated GM investors ask what more CEO Barra can do From Reuters: General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra has transformed the No. 1 U.S. automaker in her almost five years in charge, but that is still not enough to satisfy investors. Ahead of third-quarter results due on Oct. 31, GM shares are trading about 6 percent below the $33 per share price at...

Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: The financial services firm BB&T Securities has selects the financial product marketplace CAIS to expand alternative investment access for advisors. A press release from the wholly owned subsidiary of BB&T Corporation said that with CAIS, it will gain access to premier hedge funds, private equity and debt, real estate and other non-traditiona...

Investors pull back their wagers on oil's rally From CPI Financial: This year's longest build-up of hedge-fund bets on higher Brent crude prices is faltering, with bulls retreating for the first time in six weeks. After fears of dramatic shortfalls from Iran sent the global benchmark on a tear and triggered speculation that it will reach three digits, the ral...

SS&C Technologies Holdings, a global provider of financial services software and software-enabled services, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Eze Software, a leading global provider of investment management solutions. Eze Software serves asset managers, including a mix of hedge fund, long-only asset manager, multi-manager and asset owner clients. As a result of the a...

Spotify: 8 key issues hedge funds are ignoring From Seeking Alpha: Bandwagons are easy to jump on but it can be hard to decide when it's time to get off, especially when a stock has famous hedge funds like Soros Fund Management, Philippe Laffont of Coatue Management, and Louis Bacon's Capital Management holding sizable stakes. Since its IPO in Apri...

From Bloomberg: It was a bold move: buy at Lehman Brothers's darkest hour. But a decade after Lehman's collapse, a handful of hedge funds that bought up the bank's debt for pennies on the dollar have made even more money than seemed possible. More than $124.6 billion has flowed to Lehman creditors, and another $1.4 billion may yet be coming. At least $92.2 billion has go...

The incredible shrinking hedge fund From Bloomberg: You'd be forgiven for thinking the hedge fund industry might be starting to rebound. Industry assets are at a record $3.2 trillion this year, and a brand-new ?rm just brought in an unprecedented $8 billion. But the reality isn't so rosy. In?ows into funds, on the whole, are non-existent and the number of sta...

From Mother Jones: Boy meets girl. Boy had messed-up boyhood and is weird and sort of delusional. Boy became hedge fund manager, very rich. Boy (white, 40s, Princeton) marries girl (child of Indian immigrants, way younger, Yale Law). Girl gives up career. Boy and girl have severely autistic son. Boy cannot deal. Boy also has made an unscrupulous investment. His hedge fund is in troub...

Berkshire Hathaway takes stake in India's Paytm From Times of India: Berkshire Hathaway Inc invested INR 2.5bn ($356m) in the Indian company behind digital payments firm Paytm, according to a source with direct knowledge of the deal, in a foray by the conglomerate into India and the financial payments industry. Billionaire chairman Warren Buffett'...

Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: Is the Chinese government moving to tighten the knot on the cryptocurrency industry, which continues to thrive despite last year's trading ban? The writing on the wall is loud and clear. - WeChat, leading social media messaging and mobile payment application in China, has banned original content related to cryptocurrency and blockchain ...

From Bloomberg: Ten years on from the financial crisis, bank balance sheets haven't become any simpler to digest for the average investor. Finance firms are big and leveraged; regulations have just become new instruments of complexity. That might suggest a potential windfall for any brainy number-cruncher who's bored enough to spend a year looking for inconsistencies in the in...

Matthias Knab, Opalesque: S&P Dow Jones Indices today announced the launch of the S&P Risk Parity Indices, its first index family designed to replicate a multi-asset risk parity strategy. Delivering an alternative for market participants, the S&P Risk Parity Indices index portfolios are comprised of futures contracts of three asset classes - equity, fixed income and commodit...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York for New Managers: When Andrew Middlebrooks launched EIA All Weather Alpha Partners last year, he didn't fit the profile of a typical hedge fund manager. He opened his fund in Detroit, not New York, becoming the first minority-owned quantitativ...

From FT.com: Investor inflows to computer-powered "quantitative" hedge funds have halved this year to the most sluggish pace since 2009, after a spate of poor performance from many of the industry's biggest players. So-called "quants" use a wide array of approaches, from taking advantage of tiny arbitrage opportunities in stock markets to surfing trends in comm...

Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia: Hedge fund managers Blackstone Alternative Asset Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) took a minority stake in Francisco Partners, global private equity firm that specializes in i...

From FT.com: Some sovereign wealth funds have started to trim their exposure to private equity because of growing fears that rising competition for assets will hurt returns, according to a new global study. While half of those surveyed said they had increased their allocation to the asset class over the past three years, 7 per cent said they had reduced it for the first time. Most of the...

From Bloomberg: Italy's sovereign bonds, the worst performers in the euro region this year, have found one ally as investors come to terms with the country's first populist government. A hedge fund which oversees about 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) is betting that Italian securities will fare better than their German peers as concerns over the existence of the shared currency are over...

From US News: Fintech robo advisors are blanketing the financial landscape. The robo advisory market is expected to reach between $2.2 trillion to $3.7 trillion in assets under management by 2020 and $16 trillion by 2025. Yet, robo advisors aren't a uniform investment management solution and vary among companies. The drivers for this financial explosion are investment strategies ...

From Citywire: The wide discount on Pershing Square Holdings (PSH) is 'unsustainable' and puts star hedge fund manager Bill Ackman under pressure, says British Empire (BTEM). Pershing is the third largest holding in the £850 million British Empire trust, managed by Joe Bauernfreund, which specialises in buying undervalued investment companies and family-run conglomerates. More:...

Matthias Knab, Opalesque: Market developments in May saw some trend reversals across the fixed income and commodity space. On the one hand, the unfolding of the Italian political crisis coincided with a rebound of U.S. Treasuries during the second half of May. On the other hand, the rising likelihood that OPEC and Russia will raise oil output under the pressure of the U.S. administration ...

From Koreaninvestor.com: The National Pension Service (NPS) is studying investing in a single hedge fund and the Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) will switch towards small-sized, satellite portfolio managers away from large fund houses in pursuit of high alpha, said their senior officials. Korea Post is considering including an Asia-based hedge fund to its portfolio and doubling the poo...

Blackstone woos ultra-wealthy with tax-free hedge fund pitch From Bloomberg.com: Blackstone Group LP has an enticing pitch for the ultra-wealthy: Invest in hedge funds and avoid paying taxes forever. The private-equity firm's Lombard International is leading the charge to promote exclusive insurance vehicles that can contain hedge fund investments. Lo...

From Reuters.com: Daniel Loeb's hedge fund Third Point LLC plans to raise $400 million for a "blank check" company which will be run by outgoing stock market operator NYSE Group President Thomas Farley, according to a regulatory filing made on Tuesday. The new company, referred to on Wall Street as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), will be called Far Point Ac...

Hedge funds hike Smurfit Kappa positions amid takeover deal hopes From Irishtimes.com: Two US hedge funds, Davidson Kempner and York Capital, have accumulated a combined 4.74 per cent interest in cardboard box maker Smurfit Kappa using financial derivatives. It comes as many investors cling on to hopes that US peer International Paper (IP) will make a third bid for Sm...

Warren Buffett: Target date funds aren't the way to go Planning for retirement can be complicated and stressful. This is why target date funds - funds that are managed based on when you expect to retire - are so attractive. Over time, the balance of stocks, bonds and cash evolve automatically as retirement nears. Set it and forget it. But is investing really that...

By: Marc Finer, Murtha Cullina, LLP New partnership audit rules became effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2018. These rules, which are designed to make it easier for the IRS to audit partnerships and collect additional tax liabilities relating to partnership operations, apply to all partnerships and limited liability companies taxed as partnerships (hereinafter, &qu...

Hedge funds suffer first back-to-back loss in two years From Bloomberg.com: Hedge Fund returns sank for a second straight month in March, the first back-to-back loss since the first two months of 2016, as trade wars, tech-sector woes and a Fed rate hike dragged down the S&P 500 from its mid-month highs and hedge funds into the red for the year. Hedge F...

Sequoia takes Facebook stake as shares slide in data controversy From Bloomberg.com: The $4.2 billion Sequoia Fund bought a small position in Facebook Inc. as the stock slid late in the first quarter, investment manager Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb told clients. "The recent controversy enabled us to purchase a very unusual business franchise riding several power...

From Investordaily.com.au: There's no way around it; the fund administration space is ready for a major shake-up. Whether it's banks, hedge funds or venture capital organizations, fund and asset managers have traditionally been burdened with manual, antiquated, labor and time intensive processes that result in massive inefficiencies. Thankfully for fund administrators, new te...

From Vanityfair.com: From Vanityfair.com: Few people on Wall Street are as polarizing as Eddie Lampert, the billionaire majority shareholder of Sears and Kmart. His friends say he is reticent, while his critics find him aloof. His pals talk about his very high standards, while some observers say he is condescending, overly critical, and disengaged. Some people praise his determination and persiste...

Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia: John Paulson is reported to be retuning some of his investors' money as a number of his hedge funds continue to suffer setbacks, reports Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter. T...

Hedge funds amass big bets against world's leading advertisers From FT.com: Hedge funds have amassed bearish bets of more than $3bn against the world's largest advertising companies in an attempt to profit as the industry undergoes ongoing wrenching disruption and slowing growth. Funds including the UK's Marshall Wace and the US funds Lone Pine and Mave...

Hedge fund mojo is back with investor hopes at six-year high From Bloomberg.com: Hedge funds on the heels of a surprisingly strong performance in 2017 are raising hopes for an encore. Investors expect their managers to return 8.5 percent in 2018, according to a Credit Suisse Group AG survey. That's the most enthusiasm around the smart money since 2012, when globa...

From IPE.com: Swedish national pension fund AP6 - which invests solely in private equity - reported a 12.3% overall return in 2017, almost twice the investment profit it had made the year before. The Gothenburg-based state pension buffer fund said the return on capital actually invested in private equity funds and unlisted companies reached a record high of 20.3% for 2017, up from 9.5%...

Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia: Luxembourg-based Art & Motion has launched a new investment vehicle dedicated to vintage cars and exceptional high-quality vehicles as this collectible market has grown exponentially the turn of the century to become an asset class in its own right. Founded by Laurent Lef...

From Businessinsider.com: A $5.4 billion hedge fund told clients markets could tumble just like they did in the 1987 crash. In a February 14 letter to clients, London-based Chenavari Investment Managers warned about current market conditions. From the letter (emphasis added): "Our view is that the market will experience a "systemic de-risking period". The recent weakness...

Hedge funds bet against some Italian banks on the rise From Reuters.com: A group of hedge funds have stepped up bets against a string of Italian banks, taking a contrary stance against a sector and broader market on the rise ahead of an election which could yet rattle investors. The negative stance, shown in positioning data filed with the regulator, is at...

Global fund managers are long, unhedged and partying like it's 2019 From Valuewalk.com: Global fund managers don't see an equity pullback in 2018 and expect the bull market to continue into 2019 according to Bank of America's latest Global Fund Manager Survey. The survey, which the bank conducts on a regular basis to gauge the sentiment of fund managers...

Steven Cohen doubles London office space ahead of comeback Hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen has doubled the floor space of his London office as the controversial figure prepares his highly-anticipated return to hedge fund investing. Cohen, who previously ran SAC Capital, one of the most successful hedge funds ever, has leased an extra 6,000 square feet of space in ...

Miami bitcoin conference stops accepting bitcoin due to fees and congestion From Bitcoin.com: Next week the popular cryptocurrency event, The North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) will be hosted in downtown Miami at the James L Knight Center, January 18-19. However, bitcoin proponents got some unfortunate news this week as the event organizers have announced they h...

Hedge funds start 2018 with record $19 billion bet on the euro From Reuters.com: Hedge funds have kicked off 2018 with their biggest bet ever on the euro rising, a clear vote of confidence in the single currency but, with positioning so stretched, one which could backfire in the near term. Data from the Chicago Futures Trading Commission show that hedge fu...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: The Carlyle Group has raised more than $800 million for the Carlyle Structured Credit Fund (CSC). The fund will invest in Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) backed by U.S. and European senior secured corporate loans actively managed by third parties. CSC will opportunistically invest in the primary and secondary CLO market, targeting pools ...