Legal & General joins OECD impact investing project Business for Inclusive Growth... [more]Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: British financial services company, Legal & General has joined a group of 34 businesses working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG). The initiative was launched this morning by President

Companies that executed M&As have performed well in 2019, survey finds... [more]Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: About half of companies buying other businesses' divested assets in the first half of the year outperformed an industry benchmark by an average of 1 percentage point (pp), while two-thirds of companies divesting assets during that period underperformed by 7pp.

Investors withdraw $8.42bn from the global hedge fund industry in July... [more]Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Investors withdrew another $8.42 billion from the global hedge fund industry in July, according to the latest 2019 eVestment Hedge Fund Asset Flows Report. However, positive performance has helped to keep industry assets above $3 trillion. Total industry AUM sit

Hedge fund industry sees $12.2bn in outflows for June... [more]Hedge fund industry sees $12.2bn in outflows for June Opalesque Industry Update - Hedge funds were unable to build on the previous month's inflows in June with the industry moving back into net redemption territory with $12.2 billion in outflows for the month. June redemptions, wh

New Launches: EU considers $111bn tech fund to rival Apple, Alibaba, Pemberton raises $3.5bn for new direct lending fund, Palatine Private Equity closes $92.5m for impact fund, Uncork Capital raises $200m across two new funds... [more]EU considers $111bn tech fund to rival Apple, Alibaba From Sky: The EU is reportedly weighing plans for a €100bn ($111bn) fund that it hopes will fuel promising European technology companies and stave off competition from larger Chinese and US-based rivals such as Amazon and Alibab

The exclusive inside story of the fall of Overstock's mad king, Patrick Byrne... [more]On Thursday, Patrick Byrne, the founder and longtime CEO of former e-tailing giant Overstock.com, resigned, saying his involvement as a federal informant in the investigation of infamous Russian spy Maria Butina made performing his duties impossible. That's not the whole story. This is. It's ea

Multi-managers flee alternative funds in Q2 2019... [more]Multi-managers have slashed their allocations to alternative UCITS funds in Q2 2019, according to Harrington Cooper's Proprietary Asset Allocation Tracker, which found cash holdings continued to grow on macro fears. In a quarter that was dominated by news of an escalating trade war between the

Institutional Investors: Minnesota State Board commits $775m to private market funds, Sovereign investors' dislike for equities mostly fades in second quarter, Los Angeles County Employees commits $200m to private equity... [more]Minnesota State Board commits $775m to private market funds From PIonline.com: Minnesota State Board of Investments, St. Paul, on Thursday approved the recommendation of its investment committee to commit a total of $775 million to six alternative investment funds. The investment s

Investing: AQR, Marshall Wace lead hedge funds to benefit from Europe bank slide, Sandler Capital Management makes gold its no. 1 holding amid recession fears, Inside Stanley Druckenmiller's long portfolio, Recession fever has put hedge funds' most beloved stock trades in the crosshairs of disaster, The hedge funds poised to profit from a drug maker's IPO... [more]AQR, Marshall Wace lead hedge funds to benefit from Europe bank slide From Reuters: AQR of the United States and Marshall Wace of Britain are among hedge funds to have taken sizeable positions over the past month to benefit from perceptions of European banks' vulnerability to recession

People: Balyasny's contract 'ideas man' is moving on after three months, Catholic, Equip supers tap Catholic Super CIO as investment chief... [more]Balyasny's contract 'ideas man' is moving on after three months From eFinancial Careers: If you're looking for a contracting role, you could always try a hedge fund. Balyasny Asset Management, the multi-strategy fund which cut 20% of its staff in 2018 and has subsequently gained 10% in

Crypto: EU regulators target Libra. Is Facebook's crypto project worth the effort?, Employees connect nuclear plant to the internet so they can mine cryptocurrency, Japan wants to rival SWIFT with a cryptocurrency network, Some crypto-criminals think jumping across blockchains covers their tracks. Big mistake, While big banks hesitate, small banks seize the crypto scene... [more]EU regulators target Libra. Is Facebook's crypto project worth the effort? From CNN: Weeks after various jurisdictions around the world expressed concerns over Facebook's Libra project, it is now the turn of EU authorities to push back against the social media giant's plans. Accor

U.S.: GMO says emerging markets stocks will trounce U.S. equities, Klarman, Tepper might be trapped in PG&E's latest mess... [more]GMO says emerging markets stocks will trounce U.S. equities From Institutional Investor: Emerging markets stocks will bury U.S. equities over the next seven years, according to GMO. The asset manager has predicted that shares of large U.S. companies will lose 3.7 percent annually over t

Europe: Nordic pensions turn to alternatives, H2O reveals scale of Windhorst writedowns in new report, British pubs aren't the only Brexit bargain... [more]Nordic pensions turn to alternatives From Aljazeera: One of the Nordic region's biggest pension funds is busy reducing its stash of government bonds as it hunts for far less liquid assets in the hope of generating higher returns. Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co., which overse

Asia: Top tech investor brushes off China's startup funding slump, Chinese authorities boost Shenzhen as financial center... [more]Top tech investor brushes off China's startup funding slump From Nikkei: China's startup scene is showing signs of cooling as investors shy away from increasingly high valuations, but a recovery is on the horizon, according to one of the world's leading venture capitalists. James

PE/VC: The high cost of investing in private equity for HNW, How private-equity funds can artificially boost their returns... [more]The high cost of investing in private equity for HNW From Forbes: I recently looked at a few of the largest US banks' private equity solutions for HNW. Even with the perspective of having worked with alternative investments for some time, I was surprised by the extra level of fees char

Regulatory: ISS, SEC commissioners push back against new proxy voting rules, There's a new Volcker rule now... [more]ISS, SEC commissioners push back against new proxy voting rules From Institutional Investor: Institutional Shareholder Services is pushing back against new guidance issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on proxy voting. The SEC is increasing transparency requirements for pro

Activists: Activist threat: Why these five companies could come under attack, H.I.S. abandons fight for Unizo, leaves SoftBank firm as sole bidder... [more]Activist threat: Why these five companies could come under attack From Market Watch: Data storage giant Western Digital, private-label food producer TreeHouse Foods, and tire manufacturer Goodyear are all vulnerable to an attack from activist investors, according to shareholder-activism

News Briefs: Hedge fund cash flows to presidential candidates - at Puerto Rico's expense, Baby boomers are leaving behind a trail of luxury ranches, Yields plumb new lows, but 'century bonds' remain scarce, Big business is beginning to accept broader social responsibilities... [more]Hedge fund cash flows to presidential candidates - at Puerto Rico's expense From Prospect: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have returned campaign contributions from individuals employed at hedge funds that have investments in Puerto Rican debt. An open letter from a coalition of progr

And, finally: Miracle woman survives 5,000 foot fall... [more]From BizarreNews: If you took physics in high school you probably remember that the acceleration due to gravity is 32 feet (or 9.8 meters) per second (squared). That might not sound like a lot, but for a human body falling though the air that means your terminal velocity will be around 120 or 130 mi