AMP adds hedge fund specialists to alts team (FinancialStandard)
AMP Capital has appointed Dr Alistair Rew and Celine Nguyen as portfolio managers to its alternatives investment team. Prior to joining AMP last week, Rew worked for more than eight years at XL Group in New York, London and Sydney reaching the position of managing director. He developed and managed the company’s internal hedge fund program. Nguyen has over six years’ experience working as a research analyst at EIM Management in the US where she conducted investment hedge fund due diligence on a range of strategies including long/short equity, convertible arbitrage, global macro, credit and event-driven.
GAM taking 30% stake in QFS (PIOnline)
GAM Group will acquire a 30% ownership stake in systematic hedge fund manager QFS Asset Management, confirmed Stacey Coglan, a GAM spokeswoman, in an interview. Terms and the likely timing of the deal’s closure are not being disclosed, Ms. Coglan said. GAM, a hedge funds-of-funds manager with principal investment operations located in Zurich, Switzerland, and London, is acquiring the minority stake in QFS to provide distribution of the hedge fund manager’s investment strategies. For example, GAM will introduce a UCITS fund based on QFS’ flagship currency strategy in the U.K. soon after the deal is closed, according to a GAM news release.
Roubini: No Need to Panic Over Debt Ceiling, Yet (CNBC)
Gloomy economic diktats and predicting the financial crisis have earned economist Nouriel Roubini the title Dr. Doom, but in his latest interview the economics professor said the United States had little to fear, despite ongoing fiscal negotiations and the looming debt ceiling. “In absolute terms, the United States has significant fiscal, growth and unemployment problems,” he said at a Reuters conference in New York on Monday. “[But] paradoxically, if we don’t reach an agreement in March on the fiscal debt ceiling and we get another downgrade, yields are going to fall, they’re not going to go up. Everywhere else, if a country gets a downgrade, the yields go up, in the U.S. it is the opposite.”
Soros talks policy reform with Thein Sein, Suu Kyi (MMTimes)
American billionaire George Soros could provide technical support to assist the government with policy reform in a number of areas, a government spokesman said last week. Mr Soros, whose Open Society Institute (OSI) is active in promoting democracy, arrived in Myanmar this month for his second visit since the current government came to power.
Why Marc Faber Will Never Stop Buying Gold (ETFDailyNews)
Marc Faber, author of the famed “Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” is a respected name in the investing world. If ever there was a perma-bear, it would be Faber. He tends to focus on areas of the world that he sees problems in and allow that information to influence his investing decisions. But no matter what segment Faber has an eye on, his focus always circles back to one asset: gold. The precious metal has long been an important part of his holdings, and he has not been shy about vocalizing his love for the commodity.
Hedge funds nurse heavy losses after UPS-TNT deal collapses (Reuters)
United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS)‘s decision to abandon its 5.2 billion euro bid for TNT Express has left hedge funds nursing potential losses of more than $700 million, as the Dutch delivery firm’s shares slid. So-called merger arbitrage funds – which make money betting on the outcomes of corporate events including takeovers – are estimated to have owned around 30 percent of TNT shares before Monday’s news European anti-trust regulators would veto it, several sources familiar with the sector said.
Alibaba’s Jack Ma to stand down as CEO, move to chairman role (Reuters)
One of China’s best known corporate leaders, billionaire Jack Ma, will step down as CEO of Alibaba Group, the e-commerce empire he founded to tap the nation’s enormous online shopping potential, passing the reins to “a younger, better equipped” generation. Ma, a former tour guide and English teacher and self-styled “China’s Forrest Gump”, said he would name a successor by May 10, when he switches to the role of executive chairman. He said most of Alibaba’s leaders “born in the 1960s” would also pass their leadership responsibilities to younger colleagues.
U.S. SEC settlements reach highest level since 2007 (Reuters)
U.S. securities regulators reached 714 settlements with defendants in civil cases in the 2012 fiscal year – the highest number since 2007, a report released on Monday showed. The biannual report by NERA Economic Consulting found that the overall number of Securities and Exchange Commission settlements increased by 6.6 percent in fiscal 2012 over fiscal 2011.
