Gone are the days when the middle office is maligned as being strictly a cost-center dragging down investment performance. Today more fund managers are concluding that more effective management of their middle office can not only reduce operating expenses, but also give them a competitive edge with investors and keep regulators at bay. Fund management […]
Northern Trust Minds the Corporate Actions Gap
A successful investment strategy is about more than just buying and selling the right stocks at the right price at the right time. It also depends on picking the best option when it comes to voluntary corporate actions or being able to recognize a bad decision after the fact. Northern Trust is helping its asset […]
SEC to Fund Administrators: You Are Liable for Client Fraud (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: On July 25, 2016 Apex Fund Services announced two hires for compliance. It appointed Nitin Khanapurkar as global head of risk and compliance oversight. Apex’s Luxembourg unit tapped Sonja-Maria Hilkhuijsen as head of European compliance and data protection. Khanapurkar was previously senior partner at KPMG while Hilkhuijsen was chief compliance and data protection […]
Hedge Funds to Prime Brokers: Getting to Yes
Once in the catbird’s seat when picking prime brokers, hedge fund managers are now faced with doing their own sales jobs. They have to persuade prime brokers to accept them as clients with expectations that align. With prime brokers becoming far more selective, hedge fund managers might not get their first choice of prime brokers or […]
RIAs: Hail to the Chief Valuation Officer?
Chief valuation officers could become just as important as chief compliance officers for registered investment fund managers. They also might discover that, like chief compliance officers, the position may carry personal risk of bruising regulatory penalties. The emergence of this new C-class executive was predicted by panelists at a recent global fund valuation forum co-hosted in New […]
Panama Papers Fallout: Heavier KYC/AML Burden(Updated)
(Editor’s Note: After this article went to press, the US Treasury said it had adopted a rule requiring banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds, futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities to collect and verify information on beneficial owners. The Treasury also sent to Congress legislation to approve requiring that companies formed in the US file […]
Hedge Fund Managers: Five Areas of SEC Exam Focus
We have nothing to fear as much as the Securities and Exchange Commission itself. That is what hedge fund managers should be thinking about the US regulatory agency, warn legal experts. “A little paranoia will go a long way to ensuring they are prepared for a grueling round of exams this year,” says Ron Geffner, […]
Custodian Banks: New Landscape, New Strategies
A new research report authored by Morgan Stanley and consultancy Oliver Wyman has resurrected the debate over how some of the world’s largest custodian banks will need to rethink their time-honored strategy. Gathering more assets from more clients won’t be enough to sustain profitability. Earnings are under pressure from low interest rates and a historical […]
Johannesburg in Final Sprint to T+3 Settlement (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: This article was updated on February 29 to reflect the JSE’s announcement on February 26 that it had selected July 11 as the go-live day for T+3.) South Africa is in the last lap of a longstanding project to shave two days off its current five day settlement cycle, even though the […]
Securities Finance Data: Useful or Not for European Regulators?
In asking market players to shed more light on their securities finance transactions, European regulators have unintentionally opened an operational and legal can of worms. The newly passed European Securities Financing Transactions (SFT) legislation includes a requirement that managers of new European traditional and alternative investment funds disclose their policies involving securities finance transactions in […]