Reuters – U.S. hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group has merged with Swiss private bank Banque Benedict Hentsch, bringing their combined assets under management to more than $18 billion.

The deal will allow Fairfield’s clients to access Banque Benedict Hentsch’s (BBH) suite of wealth management services and provide it a broader base of operations within Switzerland, according to a letter by Fairfield founding partner Andres Piedrahita to investors.

BBH gains added products and infrastructure support from the deal and the combined company will try to grow the private bank, the companies said in a statement.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Geneva-based BBH, which was founded in 2004, serves institutional and private clients in areas such as banking, securities, foreign exchange, tax and estate planning, they said.

Read Complete Article

Tags: accredited-investors, bankruptcies, compensation-package, external-managers, fund-positions, indian-financial-institutions, investment-arm, management-meeting, medallion, murdoch, termination-fee

Reuters – Hedge fund manager CQS said on Thursday it had launched a new fund that will aim to profit from the volatility that has gripped global stock markets for much of the past year.

CQS, which had $9.6 billion (5.4 billion pounds) of assets under management at the start of August, said it had launched CQS Global Volatility Fund with an initial size of US$160 million.

The fund will use futures and options to trade volatility, with a primary focus on equity market indexes and on individual equities within the world’s major stock markets.

"The Fund aims to profit from valuation anomalies in equity volatility and from dislocations in markets. CQS believes that equity market volatility provides a consistent opportunity set to capture profits for investors," CQS said in a statement.

Read Complete Article 

Tags: bastion, compensation-package, driss-ben-brahim, ed-rogers, ft-alphaville, fund-managers-in-singapore, scottish-widows, share-index, strategic-partnership