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New York (HedgeCo.net) – A new whitepaper published by Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, and Aite Group LLC examines critical hedge fund operations, entitled, Fueling Growth: Outsourcing Solutions for Hedge Funds, reports that an increase in client redemption requests is threatening the viability of even the most well-managed hedge funds.
Key findings from the whitepaper include:
* Choosing the Proper Outsourcing Model
* Smaller Hedge Funds Challenged by Resource Restrictions
* The Role of the Prime Broker
* Consider Disaster and Recovery Planning in Vendor Selection
“It is important for hedge funds to develop a thoughtful, long-term outsourcing strategy to ensure that its needs for support during various stages of the fund’s lifecycle are closely aligned with its goals and objectives to serve investors well.” Craig Messinger, managing director of Pershing Prime Services, said, “Employing this type of approach will enable hedge fund managers to focus on generating profitable returns for their clients and help them grow their businesses in a more productive manner.”
To help hedge fund managers better understand business continuity and disaster recovery planning processes and principles, Pershing Prime Services, in collaboration with Eze Castle Integration and its colleagues across BNY Mellon, has developed a guidebook entitled, Establishing Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans: A Hedge Fund Manager’s Guide.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund prime brokers, Northern Trust and Merlin Securities, have set up an agreement which enhances Merlin’s existing broker-dealer custody relationships with Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing and J.P. Morgan Clearing Corp. Merlin’s clients now have easy access to all three providers through Merlin’s award-winning multi-prime reporting platform.
“In today’s market, managers and investors are seeking custodial solutions that reduce their counterparty risk and provide fully integrated, multi-custodian reporting analytics and risk data,” said Stephan Vermut, Founder and Managing Partner of Merlin. “Our agreement with Northern Trust addresses this need for our clients and grants seamless access to a bank custody provider with an unparalleled reputation for quality, safety and stability.”
“Northern Trust is delighted to add Merlin and its clients to our growing hedge fund custody and administration business – which now provides asset servicing for more than $90 billion in assets worldwide,” said Peter Cherecwich , Chief Operating Officer for Corporate and Institutional Services at Northern Trust. “Merlin’s technology, risk analytics, and multi-custody reporting capabilities are a strong complement to Northern Trust’s hedge fund services.”
As of June 30, 2009 , Northern Trust had assets under custody of $3.2 trillion, and assets under investment management of $558.9 billion.
Merlin Securities has offices in New York and San Francisco and is a member of FINRA and SIPC. Recognized as the #1 prime broker for funds less than $1 billion by Alpha magazine’s 2008 hedge fund service provider survey for the second year running Merlin was the top-ranked non-algorithmic-driven firm and second overall among brokerages trading NYSE stocks as measured by arrival price, according to the 2008 Elkins/McSherry annual transaction cost survey.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Deutsche Bank’s Alternative Fund Services, part of the bank’s Global Transaction Banking (GTB) division, has ranked second among top administrators in Global Custodian magazine’s 2009 Hedge Fund Administration Survey.
This is the first time Deutsche Bank has participated in the survey, which is published annually and includes responses from 1,370 clients of hedge fund administrators around the globe. It is intended to measure service quality and value in 12 categories including client service, fund accounting and middle office services, across a full range of fund characteristics such as size, strategy and location.
“In our first appearance in the Hedge Fund Administration Survey we are very pleased to have ranked second and scored highly in a range of categories,” said Christopher Nero, Managing Director and co-head of Alternative Fund Services within Global Transaction Banking.
In a write-up accompanying the results, Global Custodian commented, “(GTB) has a long pedigree in hedge fund administration too, with operations scattered across Cayman, Delaware, the Channel Islands, Dublin, Luxembourg, Mauritius and Singapore. But in January last year Deutsche transformed its presence in the industry by the acquisition of California based hedge fund administrator Hedgeworks. With staff in Boston and Cayman as well as the Golden State, Hedgeworks helped Deutsche double the size of its business. As it did for the prime brokerage business, the credit standing of the bank has attracted clients.”
Last month, Deutsche Bank announced that its Global Prime Finance business within its Global Markets division received 127 “Best in Class” and 16 “Top Rated and Commended” awards, the most among all global prime brokerage providers, in the Global Custodian 2009 Prime Brokerage Survey.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.net
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Earthtimes – Lighthouse Prime Services, a division of Lighthouse Financial and a leading prime brokerage services provider dedicated to the needs of emerging and newly established hedge funds and managed account platforms, announces its upcoming slate of events as part of Lighthouse Prime Services’ Capital Introduction Program. Based upon the success of recent Lighthouse Prime Services’ Investor Roundtable events that took place in Chicago and San Francisco,
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund prime broker, Newedge, has started using a Dubai Point of Presence (POP) connection to facilitate their access to the Dubai Gold and Commodity Exchange (DGCX). The new connection has high bandwidth and is more secure than an internet-based connection, the company said.
Amaury de Villemandy, CEO of Newedge Europe and Middle East, commented on its fixed line capacity, saying, “Our investment in establishing direct connectivity to DGCX was based on the increased interest among our clients in capitalizing on the commodity and currency trading opportunities offered by the Exchange.”
Newedge is a 50/50 joint venture between Societe Generale and Calyon. With a presence in 25 locations in 17 countries, Newedge primarily serves institutional clients, providing access to more than 85 exchanges.
Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.net
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!
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Hedge fundprime broker Merlin Securities and financial tech group Gerson Lehrman, announced an exclusive research partnership which will allow Merlin to provide emerging managers with access to Gerson Lehrman Group’snetwork of more than 200,000 experts. As a result of the partnership, Gerson Lehrman Group’s platform will be much more accessible to fund managers with assets of up to $150 million.
”We are very pleased to announce this exclusive partnership with Gerson Lehrman Group,” Stephan Vermut, founder and managing partner of Merlin Securities, said, ”Gerson Lehrman Group is a trusted name and resource for generating alpha, and as leaders in our respective markets, the combination of Gerson Lehrman Group’s worldrenowned expert network with Merlin’s prime, multi-prime and analytical solutions represents an extremely powerful offering for emerging managers.”
”The decision to offer services to emerging managers was a natural one,” Alexander Saint-Amand, president and chief executive officer of Gerson Lehrman Group, said, ”Like our current clients, emerging managers greatly value the sophisticated expertise offered through our global network. We are excited to be working with Merlin as our partner in providing Gerson Lehrman Group services to emerging managers.”
Merlin was recognized as the #1 prime broker for funds less than $1 billion by Alpha magazine’s 2008 hedge fundservice provider survey for the second year running. Merlin was also the top-ranked non-algorithmic-driven firm and second overall among brokerages trading NYSE stocks as measured by arrival price, according to the 2008 Elkins/McSherry annual transaction cost survey.
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HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Golden Hedge Umbrella Sicav has launched a multi-strategy hedge fund and is currently looking for seed investors.
The Golden Hedge Multi-Strategy Fund, Malta domiciled, is the first subfund of the umbrella structure, run by Andreas Koettner and Dr. Bernhard Goetsch, the new hedge find specializes in relative value commodity trading and stock index arbitrage strategies.
Targeting an annualized return of 15% with volatility at 8%.The quantitative strategies are designed to generate returns with low correlation to traditional CTA and hedge fund styles. Inception of trading was in May 2009.
Minimum investment starts at EUR100,000 ($142,000) with monthly liquidity. The auditor is Ernst & Young, prime broker MF Global and fund administrator Valletta Fund Services.
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 (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.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Citi is opening a daily operational suite of solutions for hedge fund managers that they hope will improve efficiency and allow managers to focus on optimizing investment decision making.
"The Hedge Fund Middle Office service has been designed to improve operational efficiency and transparency for hedge fund managers by providing independent third party operations," said Chandresh Iyer, Head of Global Custody and Investment Administration Services at Citi. "It can be used either on a stand-alone basis, or in conjunction with Citi’s suite of Hedge Fund Administration services," he added.
Citi’s Hedge Fund Middle Office services include a comprehensive suite of post-trade and pre-settlement services which are scalable and modular. The services are global and include technology solutions that help manage daily trade processing and P&L reporting, OTC confirmation and valuation, collateral management, corporate action processing and cash management. In addition, Citi’s solution allows hedge funds to move to a more variable operational cost model – an especially attractive feature in the current cost-constrained environment. Hedge Fund Middle Office services are available to funds operating in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
With the addition of Hedge Fund Middle Office, Citi’s Global Transaction Services now offers an end-to-end hedge fund servicing platform. The solutions include administration, custody and OpenPrime, a portfolio management and order management system that is prime broker agnostic.
Global Transaction Services, a division of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group, offers integrated cash management, trade, and securities and fund services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations around the world. With a network that spans more than 100 countries, Citi’s Global Transaction Services supports over 65,000 clients. As of the first quarter of 2009, it held on average $278 billion in liability balances and $10.3 trillion in assets under custody.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund tech. and brokerage provider, Merlin Securities, formed a new equity sales coverage and content division, the Merlin Institutional Group.
Headed by Jesse Cole and Bryan Miller in New York, the group will focus on delivering traditional institutional equity sales coverage and content to medium and large hedge funds. The group will provide clients with services such as corporate access, company modeling and trading ideas.
“Merlin Institutional Group represents an important development for Merlin,” said Stephan Vermut, founder and managing partner of Merlin. “We have built our reputation on providing excellence in prime brokerage, reporting, trading, and operational support for our clients. With the addition of this new team, we will now be in a position to provide clients with investment ideas, research and modeling. Jesse and Bryan ….are recognized in the industry for their expertise, and we are delighted to welcome them to Merlin.”
Jesse W. Cole joins Merlin from Schonfeld IBS, where he was a member of the institutional sales and trading group since its inception in 2004. Bryan Miller was most recently with the institutional research sales and trading group at Collins Stewart.
Merlin Secutities was recognized as the #1 prime broker for funds less than $1 billion by Alpha magazine’s 2008 hedge fund service provider survey for the second year running.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge funds of varying sizes report being given notice by prime brokers that OTC derivative give up arrangements will end – quickly. Funds ranging in size from $25M to $2.5B are being told new derivative trades "done away" will no longer be accepted near the end of the first quarter and that give up relationships will end completely in April.
‘Give up arrangements’ are where the executing broker writes trade tickets on behalf of both counterparties to the trade – provided hedge funds with three advantages: easier post-trade operations, cross margining and credit intermediation.
“Challenged by investors to provide increasing levels of transparency, independent validation and reporting frequency, funds would also have to find the operational bandwidth and capability to efficiently manage the complexities of OTC trade processing involving multiple instruments, high volumes and multiple counterparties." Hans Hufschmid, CEO of GlobeOp Financial Services commented, "And the February 28 deadline after which major dealers will not accept novation consents by email looms.”
GlobeOp also noted that during the Lehman Brothers crisis in September 2008, hedge funds began diversifying counterparty risk by abandoning the practice of single prime broker give ups and converting to multiple direct counterparty relationships.
Now, Hufschmid observes, “Intense revenue pressure on banks and on credit risk overall is forcing banks with prime broking activities to take a very tough approach to profitability. Give ups were, for many, never a core business, used to support the profitable business of lending securities to hedge funds. As risk tolerances and the lending business have become less attractive, the reasons for providing low or non- profitable support services like give ups are falling away."
“If the initial signals become a trend as financial markets and the hedge fund sector restructure, out sourcing will increase in appeal as hedge funds simultaneously face increased investor demand for independent administration and robust infrastructure declining fund performance and management fees to fund or ramp up the required technology and people resources continued attractive opportunities for strategies involving OTC derivatives.”
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