Weekly UCITS News (Friday)

Aquila Capital’s AC Risk Parity 7 Fund has reached a four year track record of consistently positive year-on-year returns. »

GAM and Barclays Capital have received approval from the Irish regulator to launch the GAM Star Barclays Dynamic Multi-Index Allocation Fund. This fund of quantitative indices is a UCITS IV vehicle. As such, it will be passported into various European jurisdictions, subject to the approval of the respective host state regulators. »

EFAMA has welcomed the publication by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) of its Consultation Paper setting out future guidelines on UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds (UCITS ETFs) and other UCITS issues. »

EDHEC-Risk has welcomed the broadened focus of the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) consultation paper on ETFs and other UCITS issues (ESMA/2012/44), which approaches important issues in a horizontal way across all UCITS rather than in a vertical way limited to UCITS ETFs. »

SEI has been selected by Monsoon Capital, a US-based alternative asset manager focusing on emerging markets, to provide full fund administration and trustee and custodial services for the firm's UCITS IV fund. »

Renaissance Asset Managers (RAM) has acquired the investment management mandate for two further Emerging European funds within Griffin Umbrella Fund plc with assets totalling USD116m. This development follows the acquisition of the Griffin Eastern European Fund with assets of USD252m, one of the oldest and best established funds in the emerging markets universe, announced in December 2011. Following this final transaction, total RAM assets under management will rise from USD2.4bn to USD2.8bn. »

Long/short equity is the most popular strategy pursued by Alternative UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) funds, and overall, funds invested in emerging markets have posted the best performance from January 2002 through October 2011, according to PerTrac.  »

KNEIP has become the first service provider to offer automated dissemination of UCITS IV written notices to accompanying Key Investor Information Documents (KIIDs) on behalf of clients. KNEIP’s system is sanctioned by Luxembourg-regulator CSSF and is capable of managing the dissemination and monitoring of regulatory documents to 30 European Economic Area countries.

 »

Allocations to CTA’s and Global Macro strategies will be popular choices for investors in this quarter, according to the fifth edition of the quarterly ML Alternative UCITS Barometer (ML Barometer). Some 54% of respondents are looking to increase their exposure to Global Macro-Discretionary, making this the most popular strategy. »

CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management Sdn Bhd (CIMB-Principal Islamic), a joint-venture Malaysian-based Islamic global asset management company between CIMB Group and Principal Global Investors, has recently obtained approval from the Central Bank of Ireland for the establishment of CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management (Ireland) Public Limited. »