The Investing and Savings Alliance (TISA) today announced the launch of TISA Universal Reporting Network (TURN), a platform aimed at easing regulatory reporting requirements of MiFID II that is now available across Europe.

TISA also announced that Pete Davies had been appointed chair of the TURN governance board, which has held its first meeting. A consultant, Davies is also a non-executive director of Omnis Investments and chair of the UBS Asset Management Funds Ltd Board, among other positions.

A blockchain solution, TURN is the result of TISA’s MIFID II project under the oversight of a governance steering committee.

TISA said that all relevant parties in a transaction now had access to European MiFID II Template (EMT) data on a real-time basis, with the templates of high and consistent quality. Before TURN, this exchange of information was inconsistent, it said, and firms reported obtain all the data they required from other firms to enable disclosure of all costs in an investment.

According to TISA, TURN substantially reduces participating firms’ data management costs.

Although the initial scope is EMT data in the UK market, TISA and the MiFID II committee have plans to build additional functionality to the platform over time, such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) data, and increase geographical scope.

Gary Bond, CEO of TURN, said: “This is an industry-led and run, not-for-profit initiative that will ultimately ensure that consumers are offered the best and most suitable products while lowering costs and time spent on admin for asset managers.

“The impact TURN will have for asset managers, distributors, IT firms and other platforms across Europe is huge. Finally, the technology is catching up with the needs of the investors and their asset managers.”

Kempen introduces diversified distressed debt pool

Kempen Capital Management has introduced a pool of distressed debt funds to facilitate greater investor access to the market.

Kempen, which has invested in distressed debt since 2005, has teamed up with five specialists for the pool, which has an open-end structure allowing monthly entry and quarterly exits.

Michiel Meeuwissen, co-head of alternative strategies at Kempen, said the asset manager was seeing “great interest” in the market for the pool.

Remko van der Erf, co-head of alternative strategies at Kempen, added: “As distressed debt is a cyclical phenomenon, funds that specialise in distressed debt often perform very well after a crisis. These funds form a safety net for companies with too much debt.”

He said the best way to invest in distressed debt was through experienced specialists.

“Our clients benefit from the fact that Kempen takes care of the selection, due diligence and monitoring, and also supervises the ESG policies of the funds,” Van der Erf added. “In addition, the pool offers access to best-in-class specialists as well as active portfolio management and comparatively good liquidity.”

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MJ Hudson acquires private markets performance analytics firm

MJ Hudson, the asset management consultancy, has acquired fund and portfolio performance specialist PERACS.

Founded in 2005 by Oliver Gottschalg, a professor at business school HEC Paris, PERACS provides performance metrics using tools created during more than 20 years of research on proprietary data, aiding fund selection by institutional investors and competitive differentiation for fund managers.

MJ Hudson said the PERACS team, including Gottschalg, would remain fully active in the business, which will trade under the name of MJ Hudson Fund Performance Analytics. A number of additional products and services are reportedly in the pipeline, including cash flow forecasting and value-at-risk tools.

The acquisition is the fourth into MJ Hudson’s data and analytics division in two years. One of these was the acquisition of Dutch ESG consultant and reporting business Spring Associates Responsible Investor Services in July 2019.

Odi Lahav, chief operating officer and head of MJ Hudson’s Data & Analytics division, said the PERACS acquisition supported the consultancy’s ambition “to bring greater transparency to the expanding alternatives industry”.

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