Opalesque TV

Flat markets, high volatility force Aussie institutions, superannuation funds and high net-worth investors to research and invest into domestic hedge funds

Thu, 10 May 2012 12:45:59 +0200

Optimal Fund Management Australia runs an Australia/ New Zealand long-short equity fund with a large-cap focus. The fund achieved an average net return of 14.8% p.a. since inception in September 2008 with an average net equity exposure of 15%, average volatility of 3.72% p.a and no leverage used. 15% annualized return, 3 down months out of 44, broad outperformance of the ASX index
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Amundi Alternative Investments: AIFMD to create tailwind for hedge funds, making them more respectable for European investors

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:30:07 +0200
Paris-based Amundi Alternative Investments is the alternative branch of Amundi, the second largest asset manager in Europe with $ 852 Billion in AuM. Founded in 1992, the firm has 100 employees worldwide and manages nearly $12 Billion in alternative investments, including a managed account platform, for institutional clients (public authority and pension funds). Already in 2010 Amundi Alternati....

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The Art of Buying a Hedge Fund: Why more firms are now looking to acquire a hedge fund, but mergers can also fail

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:27:21 +0200
Karl DCunha is the Senior Managing Director of Madison Street Capital, a middle market boutique investment bank. Karls group specializes in M&A, restructuring, and portfolio valuation for asset managers, particularly hedge funds, putting him at the center of the hedge fund M&A market.
In this Opalesque.TV interview, Karl describes in detail:
� Why all types of pl....

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Former Lehman veterans roll out one of the first systematic, innovative volatility funds

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:26:21 +0200
Volvar Asset Management (Volvar AM) is a Paris-based independent asset management company specialized on the volatility asset class. Their first fund is seeded by IMQubator, the seeding fund to which Dutch pensions giant APG has committed 250mln in 2009. Volvar AM will shortly launch the innovative, long/short Volvar Eurozone Volatility Fund which aims at both absolute return and anti-correlat....

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Cloud computing is changing the hedge fund landscape - what drives more and more hedge funds into the cloud?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:33:08 +0200
Vinod Paul is a technology specialist in the hedge fund space, having advised directly on technology infrastructure implementations for over 600 hedge funds during the last 15 years. In this Opalesque.TV interview, Vinod discusses the impact of cloud computing as it re-shapes the global technology landscape in the hedge fund space. Just 2-3 years ago, traditional technology systems such as O....

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Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) market poised for growth, offering enhanced and uncorrelated performance

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:40:01 +0200
Secquaero Advisors is an independent Switzerland-based boutique established in 2007 by two seasoned professionals with over 45 years of combined experience in (re-)insurance business as well as actuarial and risk modelling fields, Dirk Lohmann and Hans Peter Boller. The firm helps investors achieve enhanced and uncorrelated performance by accessing a broader spectrum of Insurance Linked Securi....

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Why Parly Company SA, a family office based in Geneva, has fundamentally changed their attitude towards hedge funds together with structures, operations and arrangements when investing in alternatives

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:00:10 +0100
Peter Fletcher is managing director of Parly Company S.A., Geneva, Switzerland, a family office which invests internationally in alternative investment strategies as well as private and direct equity.  He has over 30 years of international experience covering a broad spectrum of financial management functions in the trust and banking industry. Since the mid 90s Parly has been heavily....

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Eleuthera Capital: How to systematically extract Alpha from FX Markets beyond long term trending or carry models

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:22:05 +0100
Eleuthera Capital runs the Eleuthera Currency Fund, a short-term fully automated trading strategy that primarily trades spot cash currencies of selected OECD countries. Unlike most other FX managers, Eleuthera's trading strategies do not rely on long term trending or carry trades but on systematic short term directional and mean reversion models. With US $4 trillion per day, the currency market....

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AllMountain Capital: Managed Futures now a small, but growing industry in Switzerland

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:05:42 +0100
AllMountain Capital was founded in 2010, as a spin-off of Horizon21's former systematic trading team. AllMountain Capital is located in Pfaeffikon SZ, Switzerland and, backed by a leading Swiss family office, currently manages US$ 105 million. Managed Futures have become a small, but growing industry in Switzerland. AllMountain Capital's systematic long-term trend-following strategy has been tr....

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Uncorrelated Investments Show 3: Players in the MF Global saga tell their stories

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:27:22 +0100
In this third issue of the Uncorrelated Investments Show, hosted by Mark Melin, players in the MF Global saga tell their stories. First up is Stanley Haar, whose efforts in Congress have been gaining traction towards ultimate investigation into MF Global wrong doing. Stanley discusses his personal experience when he first learned of the MF Global issue and then discusses his discretionary ag....

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Laffitte Capital: Unique edge through adding quantitative elements to merger arbitrage strategies

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:19:05 +0100
Laffitte Capital Management is a Paris-based asset management company set up by four former proprietary traders who worked together for almost two decades in a major French banking group. In 2007, after 15 years of profitability, the team decided to offer their expertise to clients and to open their own alternative funds. The team has also a strong experience in Equity Finance and short selling.....

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CIAM: Paris-based pure, concentrated merger arbitrage fund managed by 3 French Power Women

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:31:22 +0100
CIAM is a Paris-based pure, concentrated merger arbitrage fund specialized in stressed transactions. The fund invests solely in officially announced transactions in Europe and in North America using a dynamic and contrarian investment style in pure Merger Arbitrage in different categories of trades : Stressed, Bump, Traditional/Classic. CIAM is seeded by IMQubator, a Dutch platform backe....

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IMQubator Seeding Model: Engineering hedge fund products to be bought, not sold

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:15:33 +0100
IMQubator is a Dutch emerging manager seeding fund that connects institutional investors with emerging asset management talent. The firm was founded by Jeroen Tielman in 2009 with a 250m investment from APG, the asset manager for Dutch pensions giant Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP. In this Opalesque.TV interview, Tielman gives insight into IMQubators seeding model, which seeks to address escalat....

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Opalesque Campus: Top Hedge Fund Academic - Operational Due Diligence as a Source of Alpha

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:11:39 +0100
In this Opalesque.TV interview, Professor Stephen Brown describes how his recent research reports into operational due diligence have shown that operational risk is the disease that plagues hedge funds and funds of funds, and accounts for low market-adjusted returns along with many of the fund failures that occurred in 2008. While financial risk is a symptom of the disease, operational risk is....

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Episode Two of Uncorrelated Investing

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:55:57 +0100
In this issue, key inside aspects of the MF Global saga are revealed: In a private meeting on October 31, a CFTC official is said to have given control of the MF Global liquidation process to the SEC. This was a critical yet overlooked decision that may have put in jeopardy the integrity of the futures markets. For its part, the CFTC architects of the Bankruptcy Code have come out on the rec....

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NEW: The Opalesque Uncorrelated Investments Show

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:30:42 +0100
Opalesque's Uncorrelated Investments Show is a new program that focuses on investments that exhibit a lack of dependence on economic strength and stock market performance. The shows host Mark Melin explains the need for this investment approach: All investors are impacted by the far reaching consequences of the government debt crisis which continues to ....

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Topwater risk-based managed account platform attracts more traders and investors

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:34:38 +0100
Bryan Borgia founded Topwater Capital Partners in 2002 as one of the first risk-based managed account platforms in the hedge fund industry. In this Opalesque.TV interview, we learn about the genesis and advantages of the Topwater model, which allocates pools of capital into managed accounts for portfolio managers or traders to run unique deal terms. Managers bring risk capital to the....

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Chris McGuire: Uncorrelated Returns through unique asset swaps and convertible bonds in Japan

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:27:52 +0100
Chris McGuire is Founder and CIO of Phalanx Capital Management, a Chicago-based Japan and Asia focused multi-strategy investment management company he launched in 2005. The firm specializes in Japanese convertible bonds and the Japanese asset swap market, a highly specialized asset class which provides very low correlation to global markets. In this Opalesque.TV interview, Chris describes
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Andre Steyn: Africa's leading short-seller

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:15:00 +0100
Andre Steyn is the CEO and Portfolio Manager of South-Africa based Steyn Capital Management , which he founded in 2008. From 2004 to 2008, Andre was the CEO of Temujin Fund Management UK, the UK arm of a billion dollar New York based hedge fund. At Temujin, Andre was responsible for all non-US investments comprising a long/short portfolio of approximately USD2 billion. From 2002 to 2004, An....

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South African hedge fund outperforms global peers three years going

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:26:09 +0100
After working for large institutions for many years, Steven Liptz and Cy Jacobs formed 36ONE Asset Management in 2004. The company is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and manages five funds in total: two local South African hedge funds, a Cayman based hedge fund and two mutual funds. Current firm AUM is US-$ 500 million. The long-short hedge funds invest largely in the South African equity....

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