Larger asset management institutions are looking into the series trust model as a way to enter the mutual fund business, according to SEI's Phil Masterson, managing director in SEI's Investment Manager Services division.
The Lifeline Program, a Georgia-based life settlement funding company, is courting institutional investors with a life insurance investment product that it claims delivers big returns.
Lee Munder Capital Group has closed its Small Cap Select Core and Small Cap Select Growth funds, following its merger with Independence Investments and acquisition by City National Corp. a year ago.
Knight Capital Group has announced plans to acquire Astor Asset Management, a Chicago-based registered investment advisor, for approximately $20 million in stocks and cash.
State Street Global Markets has launched its Turbulence Indices and is delivering them to its pension and other institutional clients as a way to test how new portfolio mixes and managers would stand up to unstable markets, thereby reducing risk.
Private equity firm Northern Lights Capital Group has invested in international equity manager del Rey Global Investors to fill out its holdings of equity financial managers, said Northern Lights executives Jack Swift and John Zimmerman.
The Hartford has permanently reduced fees on 36 of its mutual funds, including those geared to institutional clients.
BB&T Corporation has bought a majority stake in Sterling Capital Management, and will merge its own asset management arm with Sterling, bringing the combined entity to a total AUM of $31 billion.
Paul Kauffman, partner and senior portfolio manager at Highland Capital Management, sees an investment opportunity for institutional investors in U.S. leveraged loans, and expects to see more institutional investors jump into the space due to the equity-like returns accompanied with the fixed-income-like lower volatility.
U.K.-based Henderson Global Investors has tapped Nancy McNally as director of consultant relations, North America. The position is new.
Financial market volatility was the theme at Old Mutual Asset Management's breakfast press briefing in New York City on June 16.
Asset management firms are putting a shine on hedge fund replication strategies to attract pension funds' and other institutional investors' interest.
AXA Investment Management, which owns a 75% equity interest in AXA Rosenberg, will purchase the remaining 25% from AXA Rosenberg co-founders Barr Rosenberg and Kenneth Reid.
DoubleLine Funds Trust, overseen by adviser DoubleLine Capital LP, has launched its third fund, the DoubleLine Core Fixed-Income Fund, with Jeffrey Gundlach, ceo, serving as lead portfolio manager.
Nichols Asset Management’s domestic small-cap growth strategy reached its three-year track record the end of March, returning 6.01% since inception while its benchmark, the Russell 2000 Growth index, returned -2.42% for the same time period.
ING Investment Management is making its global opportunities strategy available to institutional investors in the U.S.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has removed all TCW fixed-income strategies from its watch list.
Highland Capital Management, which is based in Dallas, Texas, has launched its Highland All Cap Value Fund and has brought on JS Asset Management as a subadvisor.
Stux Capital Management in New York City has hired South Avenue Investment Partners, a third-party marketing firm, to help expand and market its name and products on the West Coast.
Legal & General Investment Management America is using the global firm's decade-long experience creating liability-driven investment strategies in the U.K. and Europe to grow its business in the U.S.
RCM Capital Management is using its relationship with German investment analytics firm Risklab to attract new business in the U.S.
Following its acquisition of Prelude Asset Management earlier this year, Congress Asset Management is now pressing to expand its client base.
Many funds are looking to increase their exposure to commodities ahead of what they believe will inevitably become an inflationary environment.
Quantitative investment shops are seeing signs of renewed investor interest now that the worst of the financial crisis is over, some investment consultants claim.
Canadian pension funds are more willing to define and address risk in their portfolios in the aftermath of the financial downturn, which could lead to further adoption of liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies, according Janet Robovsky, senior investment consultant for Towers Watson, which jointly hosted the "2010 Summit on the Future of Pensions" in Toronto last week with the Conference Board of Canada.
Even as the U.S. equities markets bask in the afterglow of one of their greatest rallies ever, corporate pension plans are moving to sell equities and buy bonds with growing zeal this year in an attempt to reduce volatility and the disparity between assets and liabilities.
DoubleLine Funds Trust plans has launched two open-ended mutual funds, according to Jeffrey Gundlach, ceo of DoubleLine Capital LP, which is the investment advisor to DoubleLine Funds.
Thomas Funds in Armonk, N.Y. has launched a new investment strategy, the Hedge Enhanced Income Fund, that it plans to market initially first to high-net-worth individuals and then to institutional investors over the next several years.1
Michelle Reuter, a researcher on global real estate securities investment managers with Mercer's Research Real Estate Boutique in Chicago, is making the argument that institutional investors should invest in global real estate securities, and advising them to watch for attractive investment opportunities she believes are en route.
Checchi Capital Advisors is marketing its first institutional investment strategy, the Distressed Bond Opportunity.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether to allow registered investment advisers and broker-dealers to continue to be paid for soliciting government business on behalf of other advisers.
Jeffrey Gundlach, ceo of DoubleLine Capital LP, is already devising new ideas for investment strategies in addition to DoubleLine's debut strategies.
The CFA Institute has placed a heavy emphasis on risk disclosure in its revised Global Investment Performance Standards, which it announced late last month.
A year after its inception, GJ Investment Funds, an emerging manager from Flemington, N.J., is ready to go after institutional investors.
Portfolio managers say investors should look to invest in commodities, particularly energy and industrial metals, as market uncertainty remains.
Jeffrey Gundlach, ceo of DoubleLine Capital LP, is planning to liquidate his holdings in TCW’s Special Mortgage Credit Funds I and II and is launching two new funds.
A study released by Bank of America Merrill Lynch defined benefit pension consultants says a higher allocation to fixed income and implementing liability driven investments should be used for well-funded pensions and a higher percentage of equities should be used for less-funded sponsors.
Standard Life Investments' Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund has more than doubled its assets under management over the last 12 months as institutional investors have sought out alternatives to high volatility equity investments.
Alexander Zabik, a former managing director at BlackRock, is launching WestRiver Real Estate Finance Fund, a high yield fund. It is slated to close within the next few days and includes senior mortgage originations, mezzanine loans and other distressed assets across the country.
Quotient Investors, a New York based emerging manager, has launched an equity strategy that focuses on investing in companies with ESG, or environmental, social and governance factors.
Within private equity, secondary strategies had the best fundraising year in 2009, setting a new record of $17.8 billion, up 83% from 2008.
Breckinridge Capital Advisors is rallying pension funds and other institutional investors to invest directly in Build America Bonds through separate accounts.
Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney, & Strauss, Inc. President James Barrow has told clients about plans to convert the Nevada corporation into a Delaware limited liability company. BHMS will merge with its parent company, Old Mutual Asset Management, and then become a newly created subsidiary under Old Mutual, named Barrow, Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss, LLC.
Consultants and plan sponsors expect to use active managers in niche areas such as emerging markets, small-cap or global equities, while domestic large-cap money is expected to continue to move to passive management.
Pension funds have recently started investing in infrastructure and clean energy as they attempt to get ahead of inflation.
Private equity investors expect 2010 to be a great vintage year and also expect an increase in capital calls..
The $116.5 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund became the most recent pension to invest in Hudson Clean Energy Partners' debut fund, giving the firm $100 million and prompting it to close the fund with $1.024 billion, exceeding its $1 billion fund target.
Executives and decision makers at pension funds have expressed dissatisfaction with monthly and quarterly reports they receive from their money managers, saying the biggest concerns are the lack of frequency of communication and errors in reports, according to a recent Chatham Partners survey.
Highland Capital, which has approximately $25 billion under management, is preparing to launch a new credit strategy which will begin trading early next year.
King’s Crossing Capital, the quantitative hedge fund firm led by former Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Portfolio Manager Richard Whelan, is likely to add more strategies to its range.
Pension plans are expected to put more money into hedge funds, specifically distressed, long/short equity, and macro strategies, according to a Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch research report.
The number of pension plans implementing liability-driven investing has nearly tripled in the past three years.
FX Concepts, the $7.8 billion New York currency manager, is launching a fixed-income fund internally last week--the firm's first single-strategy fund outside of its traditional area of expertise.
Amalgamated Bank plans to partner with Nuveen Investments to offer a Build America Bonds strategy to institutional clients beginning next month.
TCW has reportedly been in talks over issuing an initial public offering, as opposed to selling the business, according to money managers and investment bankers.
Yachtz Radcliff, formerly of Oppenheimer & Co. and the Maxim Group, is preparing to launch a long/short hedge fund with the majority of its holdings in U.S. alternative energy and infrastructure companies.
Michael Ruscetta, former co-head of Goldman Sachs' special-situations group in Toronto and senior staffer at Amaranth Advisors, has founded RCM Partners and launched its maiden hedge fund.
The Canadian finance ministry is planning to ease restrictions on how much federally-regulated businesses can contribute to their pension plans, Bloomberg reports.
Long/short hedge funds posted the highest returns in four years, according to the Credit Suisse Alternative Index Replication Indices.
Arrowhead Credit Research, an independent credit research firm that launched this month, will move into consulting soon.