Opalesque Roundtable: The Bahamas emerges as a pandemic safe jurisdiction for family offices... [more]As ultra high net worth investors rethink travel-heavy business models in the wake of covid, the Bahamas has become a popular base of operations, according to participants in the recent Opalesque Bahamas Roundtable. More investment firms and funds are choosing to domicile in the Bahamas as recent up

North American private equity real estate market sees a sharp fall, says Preqin... [more]Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: North America-focused commercial private equity real estate (PERE) funds raised just $23bn through 47 closures in H1 2020, a sharp fall from 152 funds that secured $83bn in 2019 as a whole. "The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the North American commercial real estate mar

Long-short hedge funds are necessary, not evil... [more]From Bloomberg: Even a global pandemic has failed to curb investor enthusiasm for stocks, with the MSCI World Index of global equities about unchanged for the year after rallying hard from its March lows. As a result, short sellers who seek to profit from declines are becoming an endangered spe

Bridgewater's July gains boosted its risk parity strategy - but its main macro funds are still hurting, Tiger Global, Whale Rock hedge funds surge on stock market rally, Hedge fund beats 98% of peers with Australian data centers bet... [more]Bridgewater's July gains boosted its risk parity strategy - but its main macro funds are still hurting From Institutional Investor: Bridgewater Associates' risk parity fund is now profitable after posting a sharp gain in July - but the world's largest hedge firm's main macro funds remai

New Launches: Avedon Capital Partners raises $592m for its third fund in five months, MetaProp raising $200m for fourth proptech fund, Axon launches $177m fourth innovation growth fund, Axa IM unveils ESG-focused euro-denominated EMD fund... [more]Avedon Capital Partners raises $592m for its third fund in five months From PE Insights: Dutch private equity firm Avedon Capital Partners has amassed €500m ($592m) for its third fund, regulatory filings show. Launched in February, Avedon Growth Capital Fund IV is the firm's bigges

Sculptor hedge fund outflows diminish while CLO deals weaken... [more]From Bloomberg: Sculptor Capital Management Inc. said quarterly outflows in its main hedge fund diminished while its collateralized loan obligation business weakened. Clients pulled $108.5 million from the Sculptor Master Fund in the second quarter, according to a statement Thursday. The firm cl

Institutional Investors: New York State Common allocates $2.8bn to 11 funds, Louisiana Teachers assigns up to $100m to distressed debt, Louisiana Teachers assigns up to $100m to distressed debt, AP7 shifts $56.5m of passive assets into green equity allocation... [more]New York State Common allocates $2.8bn to 11 funds From PIonline.com: New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, announced new commitments totaling $2.8 billion in a June transaction report posted on the website of Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller and sole trustee of the $194.

Investing: Stock pickers dealt another blow as Freetrade study shows passives win again, Third Point takes new positions in tech stocks, trims earlier losses, Daniel Loeb adds Disney shares, bets streaming is company's 'biggest market opportunity ever', Junk food gives relief from negative yields, hedge fund says, COVID-19 vaccine approval could stall tech stocks boom: Goldman... [more]Stock pickers dealt another blow as Freetrade study shows passives win again From Financial News: Some 60% of preferred active funds from one of the UK's largest fund supermarkets underperformed low-cost passive ETFs. That's according to investment platform Freetrade, which research

People: Goldman names new head of digital assets... [more]From CNBC: The bank made Mathew McDermott, a managing director who ran the investment bank's internal funding operations, its new global head of digital assets last month, CNBC has learned. McDermott, who is based in London, has a radical vision for markets: a future in which all of the world's

BlackRock employees can choose where they work for rest of year, BlackRock joins Crescendo of inflation warnings amid virus fight... [more]BlackRock employees can choose where they work for rest of year From PIonline.com: BlackRock's 16,000 employees may continue to work remotely for the remainder of the year wherever they are located, even as the firm reopens offices around the world in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Crypto: 20 Institutional bitcoin investors revealed, but soon the list may vanish, Crypto venture firm Draper Goren Holm goes big on DeFi, Bitmain delays delivery of bitcoin miners by three months, as co-founders battle for company control... [more]20 Institutional bitcoin investors revealed, but soon the list may vanish From Forbes: Institutional adoption of bitcoin is here, you just have to know where to look. While cryptocurrency advocates have long worked to build an ecosystem deemed credible enough for more than just mom and

Currency: U.S. dollar headed lower, in retreat against the euro: Reuters poll... [more]From Reuters: The dollar's supremacy of well over two years has turned sharply and the current downward trend will continue into next year on expectations the U.S. economic recovery is flagging, especially compared to Europe, buttressing the euro, a Reuters poll showed. A surge in coronavirus ca

Commodity: Gold price rally is a "marathon" for 2020, 'Ample room' for more gold gains as hedge funds late to the party, adviser says... [more]Gold price rally is a "marathon" for 2020 From Funds Europe: ETFs tracking the rallying gold price reached $239 billion in global assets under management at the end of July, with Swiss and German investors among the main buyers. According to the World Gold Council (WGG) gold ETF and sim

Tech: Fintech funding in Asia failed to rebound in the second quarter, report says... [more]From CNBC: Financial technology start-ups in most of the world raised more money in the second quarter than they did in the first three months of the year, but deal activity remained on a decline, according to a new report from CB Insights. Fintech funding rose 17% on-quarter from $7.9 billion

U.S.: Schwarzman's Wallet props up Wall Street Elite's giving to Trump, How David Einhorn is betting on higher inflation... [more]Schwarzman's Wallet props up Wall Street Elite's giving to Trump From Bloomberg: A few years ago, Stephen Schwarzman was just the latest deep pocket on Wall Street to open up to Donald Trump. Right now, he's the biggest one left. Donations to Trump's 2020 campaign from the most elit

Europe: Mercer survey reveals FTSE 350 DB accounting deficits skyrocket by $17bn, UK expat exodus up 30% post Brexit - study... [more]Mercer survey reveals FTSE 350 DB accounting deficits skyrocket by $17bn From IPE: The latest Pensions Risk Survey for July by consultantcy Mercer revealed that UK FTSE 350 defined benefit (DB) accounting deficits increased by £13bn ($17bn) between the end of June 2020 and the end

Asia: Survey: HK and Singapore investors seek professional help, Mirae Asset to launch more China themed ETFs, Fundsmith warns Chinese equity bubble is inflating... [more]Survey: HK and Singapore investors seek professional help From Funds Selector Asia: Hong Kong investors prize honesty and face-to-face contact with their financial advisers above all else, according to a St James's Place survey. Despite the rapid rise of robo-advisory platforms, alm

PE/VC: Passive fund investment set to boost private real estate market, Number of venture capital deals plummets to 7-year low... [more]Passive fund investment set to boost private real estate market Increased passive investment into real estate investment trusts (REITs) is set to drive a new wave of capital into private real estate markets and bring fundamental change to the U.S. The U.S. stock market has seen the

Study: Covid-19 expected to shrink asset management industry by almost $2tn, The world's best pension funds are Canadian. Sorry... [more]Covid-19 expected to shrink asset management industry by almost $2tn From Institutional Investor: Markets may have bounced back quickly from March's Covid-19 crash, but the asset management industry will not escape 2020 unscathed. Global industry assets under management are expected

ESG: Is there an ESG silver lining to Covid?, Slow start for CDS index reveals challenge for sustainable investment... [more]Is there an ESG silver lining to Covid? From Expert Investor Europe: The pandemic has certainly not dampened enthusiasm for sustainable investing. In the US, for example, Morningstar reported almost $10bn (€8.5bn) of inflows to sustainable open-end mutual funds and exchange-traded

Legal: Hedge fund leading battle over Neiman Marcus's MyTheresa faces inquiry... [more]From WSJ: A prominent hedge-fund manager has been accused of using his influence at investment bank Jefferies Group LLC to profit from buying shares in MyTheresa, a Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. e-commerce spinoff. Dan Kamensky, founder of hedge fund Marble Ridge Capital LP, faces an investigation by

Activists: Activist Bramson calls on Barclays to follow Deutsche Bank in trading overhaul, Activist hedge fund managers are great, but not at being activists... [more]Activist Bramson calls on Barclays to follow Deutsche Bank in trading overhaul From Financial News: A 63% surge in trading revenues at Barclays during the first half of this year has failed to convince its largest shareholder of the unit's value - activist investor Edward Bramson is ren

News Briefs: Five myths about George Soros, Billionaire Daniel Loeb's Third Point Re to merge with Sirius Group, It's a good and bad time for IPOs... [more]Five myths about George Soros From Washington Post: George Soros, who turns 90 on Wednesday, is arguably the world's most famous boogeyman. He's one of the great hedge fund managers and is arguably the most successful currency speculator in history; he is a major political donor; a

And, finally: Fox unmasked as thief of over 100 shoes from neighborhood in Germany... [more]From Fox: A fox with an affinity for fashion is believed to have stolen over 100 shoes in Germany's capital city. Residents of Berlin's southwestern Zehlendorf neighborhood recently noticed the disappearance of footwear left outside their homes, according to local media. Among the slippers, sand