Posts Tagged ‘ alternative investment ’
The Wright Stuff
Dec 17th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, What about beta?, The Global Economy & Currencies, Alternative Investments in Context, Economics, Macroeconomics, Allocating to A.I., Finance & EconomicsBy Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association One hundred and fifteen years ago today two Wrights tried to make it right when it came time to ponder the prospect of flying the friendly skies. On that day in an open field in a place called Kill Devil Hills, the first recorded airplane flight took off and safelyRead More
Pensions and Real Estate: CEM Benchmarking
Oct 11th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Real Estate, The A.I. Industry, Institutional Investing, Asset allocation, Asset Allocation Models, Operationally Intensive Real Assets, Institutional Asset Management, Real Assets, Allocating to A.I.A new paper by Alexander D. Beath and Chris Flynn examines the significance of real estate investing within the portfolios of large European institutional investors from 2005 to 2016. Beath is a senior research analyst with CEM Benchmarking, with a PHD. from McGill University on condensed matter and materials physics.Read More
European Private Equity Activity Increases in Q218
Aug 7th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Private Equity, The A.I. Industry, Industry Size & Managers, Equity Types of Private Equity, Private InvestmentsPitchbook has a new report out about private equity activity in Europe. It indicates that, despite a slow start to the year, PE deal activity picked up notably in the second quarter. Across the continent there were 804 deals 2Q with a total valuation of €88.5 billion. Deals above the Read More
Eurekahedge: 2018 YTD Growth Positive but Unimpressive
Jun 24th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, CTA, The A.I. Industry, Industry Size & Managers, Equity Hedge Funds, Indexes, Hedge Funds, Event-Driven Hedge Funds, Macro and Managed Futures Funds, Relative Value Hedge FundsThe newest Eurekahedge report says that total hedge fund assets have grown by $26.4 billion in the year to date (through May). The gain is the result of inflow, not of positive performance. Assets flowing in to the industry’s coffers YTD equal $30 billion, and one gets the net growthRead More
‘You Kick It’ and the Alternative Investment Industry
Apr 15th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, The A.I. Industry, Regulatory, Regulatory Environment, UCITsThe Alternative Investment Management Association, the London-based organization representing the interests of the world’s alternative investment industry, has issued a new whitepaper about the impact of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This ongoing event, known popularly as Brexit, has occupied armies of reporters, planners, andRead More
Urgent vs. Important: Barriers to Digitization in Alternative Investing
Feb 15th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Alpha & Beta, Operations, Risk Management & Operations, Allocating to A.I.KPMG International and CREATE-Research have jointly prepared a report about the digitization imperative for alternative investment management. The report includes within that term both hedge funds and private equity. Early on, its authors list eight key digital innovations that are reconstructing the industry: Application programming interfaces; cognitive technology and machineRead More
A Proposal for a Monthly Art Market Index
Jan 9th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Emerging Alternative Investments, Real Assets, Other Topics in A.I.It has long been understood that ownership of works of art isn’t just a collection or a hobby, or a way to brighten up the walls of one’s home. It’s a portfolio decision. But it is a portfolio decision that involves non-fungible and very infrequently traded assets. So: how doesRead More
The Transformation of the Global Reinsurance Industry
Dec 14th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Emerging Alternative Investments, Other Issues in Private Investments, Other Topics in A.I.A new paper from Milliman, a consultant to the insurance and financial services industries, discusses the ongoing transformation in and of the global reinsurance industry that alternative investment has created. About 20 years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake, catastrophe bonds caught on as aRead More
PwC Charge: Asset Managers are Digital Tech ‘Laggards’
Nov 30th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Hedge Fund Industry Trends, The A.I. Industry, Industry Size & Managers, TechnologyA new paper from PricewaterhouseCoopers on the coming transformations in the asset and wealth management industries says that firms in this market must adapt or die. And the adaptation the authors have in mind isn’t just the usual Darwinian metaphor – managers must “become business revolutionaries, even disruptors” in orderRead More
AIMA’s New Due Diligence Template
Oct 22nd, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Service Providers, Due Diligence Process, Technology, Operations, Partner accounting, Risk Management & OperationsIt has been 20 years since the Alternative Investment Management Association published its first due diligence questionnaire, a template designed to standardize the diligence process by which investors decide if a particular management is right for them. Now it has published a new questionnaire/template, covering a broader range of entities/strategies.Read More
Real Estate Tops the Willis Alternative Investment League Table
Aug 10th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, The A.I. Industry, Industry Size & Managers, Hedge FundsWillis Towers Watson (NASDAQ: WLTW) recently posted its Global Alternatives Survey. WLTW is a consultancy with a long history, roots going back to 1828, and that now has 40,000 employees serving clients in 140 countries. The gist of its new report is that the alternatives asset industry has grown toRead More
DC Sponsors and PE General Partners: A Good Marriage?
Feb 7th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Institutional Investing, Other Issues in Private Investments, Institutional Asset Management, Private Investments, Allocating to A.I.The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, in a new paper, contends that private equity has a valuable part to play in the portfolios of defined contribution schemes, for the simple reason that the PE world offers high returns in an era of low interest rates. To make thatRead More
EY on Real Estate Private Equity Trends
Feb 5th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Real Estate, Equity Types of Private Equity, Other Issues in Private Investments, Private Investments, Real Estate Equity Investments, Real AssetsThe global real estate division of financial consultancy Ernst & Young recently published a report on the private equity outlook in the real estate space. As the head of the division, Mark Grinis, says in an introduction, the premise of the report is that success in this space requires managerialRead More
Cash Management Strategies for Private Equity
Jan 10th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Private Equity, Asset allocation, Asset Allocation Models, Other Issues in Private Investments, Private Investments, Allocating to A.I.Private equity investors have a distinctive cash management question: what do they do with the money that has yet to be drawn or called? Keeping cash in pillow cases is, here as always, less than the optimal solution. One of the defining features of a PE firm is that anRead More
Banks (PBs): Turning Cash Away
Jan 21st, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Hedge Fund Regulation, The A.I. Industry, Regulatory Environment, Hedge Funds, Structure of the Hedge Funds IndustryThe Alternative Investment Management Association and S3 Partners jointly sponsored a new survey and report on the consequences of the Basel III reforms on the alternative-investment world. Basel III, a voluntary set of banking-supervisory standards for capital adequacy, stress testing, and market liquidity, published in its final form by theRead More
Alternative Investments By the Numbers: Top 5 2015 YTD Takeaways
Jul 23rd, 2015 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Performance, Analytics & Metrics, Private Equity, Hedge Fund Strategies, Alpha Strategies, Liquid AltsGuest columnist Andre Boreas takes a look at the alternative investment universe year-to-date 2015 by the numbers.Read More
What hath CalPERS Wrought? And Why?
Sep 30th, 2014 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, FeesShould investors, especially institutional investors, push back (or push back harder than they have so far) against the fee structure preferred by those whom they pay to manage their money? And is the recent announcement from CalPERS such a push? Read More
Looking at the Next Generation of Institutional Investing
Sep 25th, 2014 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Institutional Investing, Asset allocationGuest columnist Andrew Beer looks at the changes in institutional investing.Read More
The Skorina Report: Another try at herding Gotham’s five-headed fund
Sep 21st, 2014 | Filed under: Institutional InvestingGuest columnist Charles Skorina looks at the five-headed NYC pension system with its new leader, Scott Evans.Read More
Investing in the Investor
Sep 4th, 2014 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Retail Investing, Institutional Investing, Alpha StrategiesGuest columnist Diane Harrison looks at what advisors think of hedge funds.Read More
IEA Says Investment In Clean Energy Will Keep Growing, Slowly
Sep 2nd, 2014 | Filed under: Alpha Hunters, Alpha Strategies, Alternative energyGuest columnist Andy Tully looks at the future of renewable energy investment and finds a future so bright, you might need to wear shades.Read More
The Delusions a Boom Can Bring and the Perils of Chasing Hedge Fund Winners
Aug 28th, 2014 | Filed under: Portable Alpha & Alpha/Beta Separation, Institutional Investing, Alpha Hunters, Alpha Strategies, Risk managementFor an investor allocating slots in its portfolio to hedge funds, the draw of recent outsized performance can be powerful. Thus, the temptation to chase winners. But two members of the Hedge Fund Strategies Group at Commonfund caution against it. Read More
Eurekahedge: Europe-Focused Managers Took Hits in July
Aug 20th, 2014 | Filed under: Performance, Analytics & Metrics, Emerging marketsBanco Espirito Santo, and its CEO Salgado, had emerged from an earlier round of crisis (way back in 2012) with a roseate smell. Their latest smell ... not so good. Read More
Hedge Fund Branding Continues to Drive a Majority Of Asset Flows
Aug 14th, 2014 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry TrendsGuest columnist Don Steinbrugge looks at why the same hedge fund firms consistently bring in the assets.Read More
Advancing the Infrastructure Investment Narrative
Aug 11th, 2014 | Filed under: Infrastructure, Alpha Strategies, InsolvencyIntuitively, the problem with valuing the debt issued by an private SPE in an illiquid infrastructure project is this: the free cash flows of the SPE aren't easily observed. So how does one go about deriving their present value? Read More
GFIA: June is ‘Listless’ for Many Asia Managers
Aug 10th, 2014 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Strategies, Alpha Strategies, IndexesFor many fund managers working in Southeast Asia, and/or China, June 2014 was “listless,” with numbers that suggest a flat tire. The booms on the ASEAN bourses are concentrated where the fund managers aren’t, in “high beta cyclical sectors.” Read More
Improving the Health of Healthcare Endowments
Feb 24th, 2013 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Alpha Strategies, Asset allocationThe obvious reason for the allocation preferences of healthcare endowments is that they believe they need to remain very liquid. Jarvis, in this white paper, points out that the liquidity preference comes at a cost in performance. Read More
People as Market Makers Were Never Crash Insurance Either
Aug 30th, 2012 | Filed under: Algorithmic and high-frequency trading, Alpha StrategiesThe new technologies make less difference than some might think. "Even back in the days of physical market makers, when things went bad, as for example in the crash of '87, the market makers would head for the hills," said James Angel. Nowadays the computers go dark. Or (worse) they don't.Read More
McKinsey: Allocations Will Rise Despite Sticky Fees
Jul 31st, 2012 | Filed under: Real Estate, Private Equity, Alpha Strategies, Asset allocationThe reason for the increased interest in alternatives, McKinsey says, isn’t that the alternatives’ managers are slashing the price of their services. It is, rather, a discontent with the return to be gained from traditional investment. “Even with downward pressure likely over the next few years, revenue yields for institutional alternative products should remain well above the 35 bps average earned on today’s traditional institutional products.” Read More
Mark Casella on the Future of Hedge Fund Industry: Part One
Jul 30th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Alpha StrategiesMark Casella, leader of the U.S. alternatives group at PwC, tells us why he thinks funds of funds still have a role to play in the future of the hedge fund industry, although "we have seen more and more institutions invest directly in hedge funds rather than through funds of funds." This is the first part of a two-part transcript of a broader discussion.Read More
More than $3 Trillion AUM for Top 100 Alternative Investment Managers
Jul 25th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Real Estate, Private Equity, Hedge Fund Strategies, Infrastructure, Institutional Investing, Alpha StrategiesThe survey also asked that the asset managers state where their total assets are invested, using four geographical categories: Europe; Central/North America; Asia Pacific; Other. Commodity funds were easily the most heavily invested in C/NA, to the extent of 94 percent of their portfolios. Private equity funds are 61 percent invested in C/NA, and PE FoFs also have the majority of their portfolios there, at 54 percent.Read More
Citi Says: Second Big Wave of Allocations on the Way
Jul 10th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Institutional InvestingIn the introduction to their report, the authors quote one of their interviewees, a leader at a European pension fund, who said: “To me, investing is about going back to the basics. Why do I want to be in this asset class? Why do I want this product? Where does it fit in my portfolio?” Much of the report is structured as a discussion of two distinct shifts in the answers that have been given and are being given to those old queries.Read More
Preqin to Hedge Funds: Wooing Institutions May Require Patience
Jun 27th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Institutional Investing, Alpha Strategies, Asset allocationInstitutions aren’t to be rushed into committing to a hedge fund. The process can take more than a year. Preqin asked institutions: once a fund has caught their attention, specifically once they have first seen a fund proposal, how much time typically passes before they actually make an investment, if they do?Read More
PwC: Open Books Will Rebuild Trust for Hedge Funds
Jun 26th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Institutional InvestingThe return of assets to the realm of hedge funds comes with enhanced scrutiny. As Todd Groome, chairman of AIMA, says: “Following 2008, a much greater investor focus on liquidity, portfolio transparency, control and fund governance was clearly evident.” In common with legislative/regulatory changes, this requires transformation.Read More
What does it take to get investment consultants and managers together?
Jun 14th, 2012 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Alpha StrategiesVeteran consultant Charles French, CAIA, discusses how to properly forge relationships with investment consultants.Read More
Alpha Hunters: Looking at Alternative Investments From the Inside Out
Jun 7th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Real Estate, Private Equity, Hedge Fund Strategies, CTA, Derivatives, Institutional Investing, Alpha Hunters, Alpha Strategies, Venture capital, ForexA deeper look at alternatives with Dr. Bob Swarup, a world-renowned expert and commentator on alternatives and financial markets as well as being a visiting fellow at London School of Economics.Read More
Selling Options: Strategies and Results
Jun 6th, 2012 | Filed under: Alpha Strategies, Risk managementA dollar invested in the PutWrite Index in 1986 would have been worth $12.53 in January 2011. That represents annualized growth of 10.4 percent. ACG concluded that such option writing strategy-based indexes “could appeal to investors who are concerned about low interest rates, increased volatility, illiquid investments, or sluggish stock market returns.”Read More
Sound Alternatives Practices in the Great White North
May 29th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund RegulationThe meat of the guide addresses what AIMA Canada considers sound practice in marketing and promotion, such as in the calculation and presentation of returns, in selecting a benchmark relevant to a specific strategy, and in explaining the various ratios used for the same purpose. It notes that the Association for Investment Management and Research’s Performance Presentation Standards (AIMR-PPS) recommend using a time-weighted method for the calculation of returns, a model otherwise known as the Modified Dietz method.Read More
Alpha Hunters: A Conversation with Peter Stein
May 13th, 2012 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Alpha Hunters, Alpha StrategiesNew columnist Charles Skorina interviews Peter Stein, veteran alternative investments professional.Read More
Not Just Fire Sales: Contrarian Hedge Funds Find Alpha
Apr 16th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Strategies, Alpha Hunters, Alpha StrategiesAlthough distressed“fire sales” are fewer in some periods than in others, it is true all around the business cycle that mutual fund managers face constraints related to the need “to cater to investors by investing in the hot stocks and by having a strong positive correlation between their flow and the value of the assets in which they invest,” as a new academic paper explains. Hedge funds, with their more professional investors, their deliberate opacity, and their constraints upon withdrawal, aren’t subject to those constraints. Thus, when mutual funds are constrained to follow a trend, hedge funds are in a position to be contrarians.Read More
EDHEC: SWFs and Their Implicit Liabilities
Apr 15th, 2012 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Alpha Strategies, ForexSWFs are distinct from pension funds at least in this sense, there are broadly speaking no explicit liabilities. There is no ongoing schedule of payments an SWF is responsible for making, for example. Nonetheless, there are clearly implicit liabilities. On this the point nearly all (92 percent) of survey respondents concurred, saying that implicit liabilities, arising from the objectives of the fund, must be taken into account in managers’ plans.Read More
How Institutional Investors Can Make Money in Private Equity
Apr 10th, 2012 | Filed under: Private Equity, Institutional Investing, Alpha StrategiesIt looks like the pension funds are worse off than if they had stuck to vanilla bonds and stocks, not least because of the management fees they pay to alternative investment managers.Read More
A Paradox: Avoid Correlation by Following the Trends
Apr 2nd, 2012 | Filed under: Commodities, CTA, Institutional InvestingAccording to its advocates, trend following as a strategy works from the premise that price trends represent a process of consensus building. As a new idea takes hold, "the earliest adopters of this idea place their trades in accordance with it" and they get to watch in satisfaction as "a growing mass of market participants adopts the same thesis. Early adopters can surf the wave to the beach.Read More
Alpha Hunter Lauren Templeton on Generating Alpha from Value Investing
Mar 29th, 2012 | Filed under: Alpha Hunters, Alpha StrategiesAllAboutAlpha catches up with Lauren Templeton, great niece of Sir John Templeton to discuss value investing and its alpha potential.Read More
Pension Funds and Blair’s PFI Legacy
Mar 21st, 2012 | Filed under: Infrastructure, Social investing, Institutional InvestingBritain’s Private Finance Initiative has continued through the administrations since Blair’s, and indeed has inspired emulation across the Channel. At the same time, it has stirred up a good deal of criticism, and in November 2011 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a plan to reform the PFI. One of the reform proposals is to seek broader participation by pension funds, or in pale bureaucratic jargon, “access a wider range of financing sources.”Read More
What Do Day-One/Early-Stage Investors Want?
Mar 12th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Institutional Investing, Alpha Strategies, Seeding/early-stageFunds of funds dominate the world of institutional investors in Day 1 or early stage (D1/ES) hedge funds, and they do so for a simple reason. That is their business model. They exist to invest in hedge funds, and their goal is to be fully invested at all times, not to have a lot of money sitting around as cash. Read More
PwC on Public Pension Managers Who ‘Do’ Hedge Funds
Mar 5th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Institutional Investing, Alpha Strategies, FeesThe question in 2012 is not whether hedge funds (and other alternative investment vehicles) can attract pension funds, but how they should go about it. Alternatives managers will benefit most from the heightened interest of pension funds if they address the continuing concerns of their pension fund colleagues. For example, pension fund managers are well aware that investment in exotic and illiquid products is something hedge funds do, and they know that these products can help make a quick exit impossible. Read More
Conviction Versus Clarity—A Difference With a Distinction
Mar 4th, 2012 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry TrendsEmerging managers want and need investors and investors reputedly are sitting on cash looking for opportunities. So why aren't the two managing to get together?Read More
Alpha Hunter Louis-Vincent Gave on Opportunities in China
Mar 1st, 2012 | Filed under: Alpha Hunters, Alpha Strategies"We're seeing a cycle where China is now a leader, and experiences the biggest rates of marginal growth in the world. That is already a game-changer which has had a disproportionate impact on emerging markets than developed ones."--Louis-Vincent GaveRead More
Alix Capital: Market Neutral Up, Fixed Income Down
Feb 29th, 2012 | Filed under:After a survey of recipients of the UCITS Alternative Index, the UAI Industry Survey Q1 2012, Alix Capital reports that majorities expressed satisfaction with the current level of allocation for certain strategies: commodities, emerging markets, forex, and macro global strategies. But there was a lot of interest in increasing allocations to CTAs, equity market neutral, and volatility-based strategies. The strategy that receives the largest negative response (largest intended reduction in portfolio allocation) is fixed income. Read More