Investment – Page 43
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Interviews
Enjoying a Renaissance
Renaissance Asset Managers (RAM) has had a great run since it was founded as part of Renaissance Group, the Moscow-based financial services firm, in 2003.
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Interviews
Focus and flexibility
One can tell from the name ‘Alternative Investment Group’ that this is a more venerable fund of hedge funds, pre-dating the post-dot-com stampede: it’s not exactly ‘Google-search optimised’.
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Features
Shaking up high yield
Considering the trend to combine loans and high-yield bonds in the same products, Martin Steward finds the sub-investment grade landscape changing and new opportunities becoming apparent – especially in senior secured
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Features
An equity substitute
David Newman argues that equities have a similar credit profile to high-yield bonds but offer less protection, worse returns and higher volatility. Add in low correlation, and there is a strong case for replacing some equity exposure with high yield
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FeaturesVolatility regimes and risk drivers
Using factor model to break down two similar-looking periods of declining implied volatility in Europe and the US, Rachael Smith uncovers surprising differences in the actual sources of risk
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Interviews
Boutique ambition
Natixis Asset Management (NAM) might be less well known than other firms in the Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM) empire, such as Boston’s Loomis Sayles or Chicago’s Harris Associates. But the Paris firm is by far the largest asset manager in its parent’s multi-affiliate structure in asset terms, in part thanks to its historic ties with France’s Caisse d’Epargne and Banque Populaire network, and its strong local roots.
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Features
Bolt-on growth
As a fast-track route to growth with a focus on efficiency gains, buy-and-build seems perfectly-suited to our low-growth world, writes Jennifer Bollen
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Features
On the road again
The convertible bond market finally woke up in September. But Martin Steward finds that there is a long way to go before portfolio managers are out of the woods
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FeaturesWhat makes a skilful portfolio manager?
Ignore the sales pitches, advises Rick Di Mascio. Successful managers simply get more decisions right than wrong, and make sure their hits make more money than their misses lose
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Interviews
Cutting through the noise
“There is almost universal agreement that the world needs long-term investors and, indeed, that short-termism is bad,” says Keith Skeoch, CEO of Standard Life Investments (SLI), addressing a room of European finance journalists at its Edinburgh offices. “And the reason short-termism is perceived as bad is that the charge sheet is long and serious.”
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Interviews
Institutional ambition
It probably wasn’t planned this way, but Four Capital Partners was set up by Derrick Dunne and ex-Schroders UK equities managers Tom Carroll, Ted Williams and Chris Rodgers on the precipice of the financial crisis. Established in 2006, its first UK equities fund was launched in April 2007, on the very day that New Century Financial went Chapter 11.
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FeaturesGo with the flows
Dividends really do pay off in emerging markets. Martin Steward asks why, and what the theories tell us about how far investors should tilt towards higher yields.
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Features
If the euro breaks up
Declan O’Sullivan and Lindsay Trapp outline some of the operational challenges that fund managers could face in the event of a break-up of the single currency
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Interviews
Life on planet TOBAM
Quantitative asset managers aren’t particularly noted for prioritising ESG matters.
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Features
Who turned out the lights?
Dark liquidity, which started as a way to hide big trades,now mostly offers liquidity in bitty, small packages. But Martin Steward finds signs that the pendulum is swinging back again
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Features
Speed is good
Richard Olsen argues that, far from slowing down, transaction volumes need to increase by a factor of thousands, and that pension funds should benefit from its uncorrelated alpha
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Features
Lost horizons
The growing gap between trading and investing is changing the face of equity markets, argues Per Lovén
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Features
World Bank rates green bonds
Nina Röhrbein looks at instruments that aim to combine solid SRI credentials with precious yield and a high standard of transparency and stability
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Interviews
Holding hedge funds to account
Bond yields sit at historic lows, growth is sparse and equities aren’t cheap. The result: a search for yield in credit assets and for alpha in liquid alternative investments.
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Features
Toxic assets, or toxic prices?
Charlotte Moore finds that the anticipated flow of bank assets is more likely to be a trickle – thanks to the very regulation that was supposed to open the floodgates
