Few hedge funds applying for AIFMD authorisation (Risk)
Research from BNY Mellon has found that, with less than six months to go until full implementation of the alternative investment fund managers directive (AIFMD) on July 22, fewer than a fifth of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) have submitted an application to their local regulator for authorisation to continue managing funds affected by the directive. The findings will come as little surprise to a hedge fund industry left scratching its collective head over the requirements in the directive. Indeed, in October more than two-thirds of respondents to an Alternative Investment Management Association survey said they needed outside help with AIFMD authorisation.
Bottleneck in buy-side reporting feared (Risk)
With the deadline for reporting derivatives trades for some hedge funds only a matter of weeks away under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (Emir), there are serious concerns that hedge funds have taken too long to decide whether to delegate reporting and this will be compounded by the ability of trade repositories to onboard new clients in time. Six trade repositories are currently registered in Europe. Spain-based Regis-TR launched its system in January 2013 which has been tested by nearly 1,000 entities of which about 10% are hedge funds. David Retana, managing director of Regis-TR, says: “We are experiencing that final rush. We are seeing many small entities still struggling to define who is going to report the data. They are still going through the decision-making process of deciding if they are going to report or delegate.”
As the West Dries Up, This Hedge-Fund Pioneer Stands to Make a Killing (MotherJones)
Most writings on climate are tedious or polemical. Windfall, journalist McKenzie Funk’s fabulous new book on the business of climate change, is neither. Funk’s reporting takes him all over the globe. We meet investors who are buying up land in Africa and water rights in Australia and the American West, and are wagering hundreds of millions of dollars that climate-related drought and food shortages will earn them a fortune. Funk visits Greenland secessionists who imagine the mineral wealth made accessible by a thawing tundra will bankroll their cause, as well as Israeli snow makers, Dutch seawall developers, geoengineering patent trolls, private firefighters, Big Oil scenario planners, and the scientists deploying mutant mosquitos against dengue fever—a horrific tropical disease that’s crept into Florida of late.
South African pensions now allowed to invest 10% in hedge funds and up to 30% in international equities (Opalesque)
South Africa’s market regulator, the Financial Services Board recently extended the limit in of the amount of money pension funds can invest in hedge funds, thus creating more opportunities in the local hedge funds space. Ian Hamilton, head of a leading hedge fund administrator in Africa, the IDS Group, said during the latest Opalesque South Africa Roundtable that South Africa’s regulations for pension funds, particularly as to how much these institutional investors’ could invest in alternative investment and international equities, had been revised over the last few years.
Icahn Is Wrong on Apple and Right on eBay (DailyFinance)
Weekly jobless claims rose to 326,000 last week, in line with economists’ estimate in a Reuters poll. Stocks opened lower this morning, with the S&P 500 and the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) down % and down %, respectively, at a.m. EST. Legendary investor Carl Icahn has been busy lately, adding to his position of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), while lambasting management. Yesterday, he tweeted:… While Icahn has dropped his initial proposal for a $150 billion share buyback, he continues to push for Apple to execute an immediate $50 billion buyback. However, the idea is impracticable and the company is already engaged in a (multiyear) $100 billion capital return operation through buybacks and dividends — the largest such operation in corporate history.
George Soros, atheist, funds American youth evangelical trips to Israel (Examiner)
Despite being a known atheist, billionaire George Soros has taken quite an interest in Christian Evangelicals, as revealed yesterday on media mogul Glenn Beck’s radio show by Pastor John Hagee, founder and national chairman of Christians United for Israel. In introducing Hagee, Beck said that Hagee, “…is bringing to our attention a new George Soros plan banded by the Open Society Institute to go into our evangelical churches and convince the youth that Israel is the problem in the Middle East. It is highly coordinated and, well, evil.”
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