Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund and prime broker provider, FTEN has expanded to Europe establishing FTEN Europe Ltd. and the hire of Valerie Bannert-Thurner Ph.D., who assumes responsibilities as European Executive Director.
Ms. Bannert-Thurner comes to FTEN after establishing European operations for Skyler Inc. where she held a variety of executive positions including head of product strategy, strategic alliances, marketing and business development.
“Our expansion into Europe addresses a growing demand from the European trading community,” said Ted Myerson, CEO of FTEN. “Brokers, exchanges and infrastructure providers across Europe are seeking to expand their business to accommodate the rapid growth in high-frequency trading,” continued Myerson. “Valerie will adapt our business model and partnering arrangements to the European landscape, while introducing best practices for high-frequency trading and high-frequency risk controls,” Myerson added.
“My goal is to establish FTEN as a trusted partner for market participants who want to expand their Sponsored Access business into this high-frequency sector,” claimed Ms. Bannert-Thurner.
The FTEN Execution and Risk Control platform offers hedge funds, proprietary trading firms and their sponsoring broker a platform for high speed executions across multiple venues and asset classes along with real-time pre-trade and post-trade risk controls to continuously monitor ’black box’ trading positions and limits.
Ms. Bannert-Thurner has a B.S.M.E., M.S. and Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. She has authored articles in finance, strategy and technology, and has spoken at several Industry conferences.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Press Release – Hedge fund, funds of funds and managed futures funds group, the Managed Funds Association (MFA) has commended the working group paper, “Report to the Supervisors of the Major OTC Derivatives Dealers on the Proposals of Centralized CDS Clearing Solutions for the Segregation and Portability of Customer CDS Positions and Related Margin,” which was submitted to industry regulators on June 30, 2009.
"The efforts of the special working group and the Report are both comprehensive and timely." Richard H. Baker, MFA President and CEO, said, "MFA has been a strong proponent in advocating collateral segregation, portability of trades and direct and indirect buy-side access to centralized clearing. We remain committed to working with industry regulators, industry working groups such as the Operations Management Group, and other trade associations on the next steps toward providing such access."
The report was written by a special working group of eight dealers, four MFA members and four other buy-side market participants, addresses key concerns raised by supervisors and legislators globally, to analyze the various U.S. and European CDS clearing solutions with respect to the issues of customer margin segregation and portability of cleared customer CDS positions.
MFA fully endorses the collaborative efforts with industry regulators to support commercially viable centralized clearing platforms and to promote sound business practices.
MFA members include the vast majority of the largest hedge fund groups in the world who manage a substantial portion of the approximately $1.5 trillion invested in absolute return strategies. MFA is headquartered in Washington, with an office in New York. For more information, please visit: www.managedfunds.org
Reuters – The regulator of U.S. commodity markets said on Tuesday his agency’s weekly Commitments of Traders report will be revamped to include hedge fund positions for better transparency.
"Enhancing the quality of information in these weekly reports will better inform market participants and the public about the positions of the various types of traders," Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in a statement.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Global hedge fund industry group, The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), has welcomed the principles for hedge fund regulation published by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) today.
“We are very happy to welcome the publication of this report today because AIMA has already announced its support for several of the high level principles mentioned in it." Andrew Baker, AIMA CEO, said, “In our new policy platform of 24th February, we said that we supported global registration for managers and we are glad that IOSCO has also come out in favour of this.
“We also expressed our support for the reporting of systemically relevant information by managers of large hedge funds to their national regulators, and this is another one of IOSCO’s key principles.
“We are also delighted that IOSCO refers to the ‘development, implementation and convergence of industry good practices’ because AIMA has been extremely active in this area and is continuing a great deal of work on it with the other groups involved. We are following up on a G20 action point in this respect," he continued.
In a note of caution, however, Baker said, "We would stress that it is hedge fund managers, rather than the funds themselves, that should registered. It is also mentioned that hedge funds use derivatives for speculative purposes without stating that exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives are principally used by the relevant market participants for risk management purposes."
“Finally, we are concerned that these recommendations may lead regulators to seek quantity rather than quality of data. It is important that regulators have the expertise and resources to deal with the data they receive.”
AIMA has more than 1,100 corporate members worldwide, based in 40 countries, including hedge fund managers, fund of hedge funds managers, prime brokers, legal and accounting firms and fund administrators.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund risk and regulatory compliance solutions provider, FRSGlobal, is preparing to work with the hedge fund industry to help it comply with the new wave of global regulations expected to be in place later this year.
Compliance experts within FRSGlobal’s Centre of Risk & Regulatory Excellence (CoR2E) are actively monitoring the discussions taking place at the various U.S. regulatory agencies and are ready to advise hedge funds on the best ways to automate their reporting processes as soon as any new legislation is enacted.
"U.S. regulators are demanding more oversight of the hedge fund industry which means that registration is imminent, "Richard Ferrari, FRS Vice President, commented, "Hedge funds are going to be subject to far greater scrutiny than ever before. Whether it is increased transparency around the trading and valuation of OTC derivatives and structured products or the amount of leverage being taken on, regulators are going to require comprehensive, timely and accurate reporting, a requirement that hedge funds typically have little experience of.
"While the exact form of regulatory reporting is still to be finalized, it is clear from our discussions with market participants and U.S. governing bodies that there is going to be an overwhelming need for the kind of flexible risk and regulatory reporting tools developed by FRSGlobal that have helped hundreds of banks worldwide meet the their regulatory needs over the past twenty years. This experience and expertise is now going to be available to the hedge fund industry."
FRSGlobal’s unified platform has coverage for over 30 countries.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: alex@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
NEW YORK, N.Y. – SecondMarket, the largest marketplace for illiquid assets, announced today that it has launched markets for mortgage-backed securities (MBS), whole loans, and collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Through SecondMarket, buyers and sellers are able to trade these assets in a robust, centralized marketplace that provides transparency, price discovery and an extensive network of market participants.
“Today, the multi-trillion-dollar MBS, whole loans and CDO secondary markets are nearly frozen. For the global economy to recover, it is critical to unfreeze these assets from the balance sheets of financial institutions around the world and restart the securitization markets,” said SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert. “The most effective solution lies in a time-tested model – an organized, independent secondary marketplace that provides transparency and price discovery.”
Through its online trading and auction platform, proprietary matching algorithm and deep network of relationships, SecondMarket has successfully established itself as a trusted marketplace for a variety of illiquid asset classes since its founding in 2004, including auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, limited partnership interests, and restricted securities and blocks in small capitalization companies.
SecondMarket’s trading network includes 2,500 buyers and sellers, hundreds of whom have already expressed an interest in purchasing residential and commercial MBS, CDOs, and portfolios of various whole loans, including residential, commercial, construction, consumer and industrial loans. To date, more than $1 billion in illiquid assets have already been traded over SecondMarket.
Due to the esoteric and opaque nature of many of these assets, pricing is extremely difficult. In an effort to improve investors’ abilities to determine the value of these assets, SecondMarket is providing unparalleled transparency by aggregating data on MBS, whole loans and CDOs and offering it for free to SecondMarket participants. SecondMarket also has established a network of third-party service providers – the SecondMarket Ecosystem – to offer valuation, research, data, analytics, legal and transaction advisory services.
Bill Seidman, former chairman of the FDIC and Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) and advisor to SecondMarket, endorsed the SecondMarket model. “When we were working with troubled bank assets during the S&L crisis, we were forced to do a lot of work to create a market for these assets,” said Seidman. “Had there been a SecondMarket when I was at the RTC, I would have jumped at using their platform.”
The SecondMarket online marketplace and auction platform is expected to serve as a complementary market to assist the efforts being undertaken to address the legacy asset problem by governments in the U.S. and abroad. “We applaud the federal government’s initial efforts to address the legacy assets and restart the securitization markets,” Silbert said, “and an independent, active secondary marketplace is essential to bolster those efforts.”
SecondMarket is also pleased to announce that it has hired two former Credit Suisse directors to lead its efforts in these asset classes. Elton Wells, previously a Director with Credit Suisse in their Structured Products Group, will head SecondMarket’s MBS and whole loans markets and Adrian Radulescu, formerly a Director with Credit Suisse and Head of the European Leveraged Finance CDO Structuring Desk in London, will head SecondMarket’s CDO market.
“Over the past six months, SecondMarket has been diligently and expeditiously preparing for the launch of these markets by hiring dozens of employees, expanding our technology capabilities and developing key industry relationships,” said Silbert. “We are confident that our efforts will result in transparency, liquidity, a functioning secondary market for the so-called ‘legacy’ assets and, consequently, the restart of the securitization market.”
About SecondMarket
Founded in 2004, New York-based SecondMarket (member FINRA | MSRB | SIPC) is the world’s largest marketplace for illiquid assets, such as auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, collateralized debt obligations, residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, limited partnership interests, restricted securities and blocks in small capitalization companies, and whole loans. SecondMarket has 2,500 participants, including global financial institutions, hedge funds, private equity firms, mutual funds, corporations and other institutional and accredited investors that collectively manage over $500 billion in assets available for investment. For more information, visit www.SecondMarket.com.
