Iron Capital Wealth Management to offer financial advisory services
Headquartered in San Fransisco, Iron Capital Holdings, a venture focused private equity services firm, has launched Iron Capital Wealth Management, a new division that will offer financial advisory services to high net worth individuals.
In association with Iron Capital Liquidity Desk, this new division will help individuals seeking liquidity from shares and options in privately held companies, to chart a clear path toward successful capital preservation and venture reinvestment strategies.
Also, Iron Capital has partnered with an institutional wealth services firm to offer independent wealth advisors access for their clients to shares in private companies, which are typically unavailable to this investor class. Also, clients registered with the wealth services firm can see deal flow and access private shares from Iron Capital’s inventory.
Jason Blum, CEO of Iron Capital Holdings says, “Our clients face a unique challenge - they require sophisticated investment strategies but rarely have the time to be able to manage a complex set of investment needs. By combining our venture and private offerings along with more traditional investment strategies we are able to offer clients an end-to-end solution that removes the heavy lifting.”
Iron Capital is a comprehensive venture focused private equity services firm that provides the traditional services of venture capital combined with the flexibility of capital resources provided with a fully licensed investment bank.
Subscribe to the comments for this postHerschel to use Aqumin’s AlphaVision 2.0
Herschel Asset Management Ltd is the latest addition to list of Aqumin LLC’s customers as Herschel will now use AlphaVision 2.0, Aqumin`s latest version of their market interpretation software, which connects to Bloomberg client terminals. This will help Herschel enhance their market research and investment strategies.
“We are delighted to have discovered Aqumin technology at a time when more and more data clouds what we need to see in charts, graphs and spreadsheets. AlphaVision is helping us to see more, faster and make better investment decisions on behalf of our clients. We are particularly excited about the powerful connection between AlphaVision and our Bloomberg terminal increasing the value of the data we have already purchased. We look forward to the next updates in this rapidly evolving technology,” says Saxon Nicholls, Principal, Herschel.
“Aqumin is very pleased to have Herschel Asset Management Ltd as a new customer.
At Aqumin we seek to change the way financial professionals “see” their data so that they can spot opportunities quickly and act and manage client portfolios more efficiently with better results. Herschel now has an edge in the market with our powerful landscape tools to help them see all of the data they need to see,” said Michael Zeitlin, CEO, Aqumin.
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Aqumin LLC is a new financial services company specializing in the integration of large and diverse data sets into a seamless interpretive environment for individuals, professionals and enterprise organizations. On the other hand, Herschel is a privately held investment firm based in Melbourne, Australia.
Morgan Stanley to sell its retail businesses to Invesco Ltd.
With the aim of focusing on institutional clients, Morgan Stanley has decided to sell its retail asset management business, including the Van Kampen division, to money manager Invesco Ltd. in a $1.5 billion deal which will include $500 million in cash and 44.1 million shares. The transaction is expected to close in mid- 2010.
“By taking a minority interest in Invesco, Morgan Stanley will be able to realize significant value in partnership with a world-class player,” said Morgan Stanley Co-President James Gorman. “In addition, this transaction will mitigate certain affiliated product sales restrictions faced by Van Kampen portfolio managers since the closing of the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture.”
Morgan Stanley also said its investment management group will include several institutional-focused businesses, including a long-only business (equity and fixed income), a direct hedge fund business, and a fund of funds business. It also will include a liquidity business and a merchant banking business, with the bank’s real estate, private equity and infrastructure units.
In Japan, Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s (MSIM) equity management operations will be sold to Invesco as part of the transaction, but the bank will retain its fixed income investment team and a sales and client service team to serve Japanese investors.
This is the latest addition to the array of deals which include money manager takeovers of bank assets. Bank of America Corp. last month sold the long-term asset management business of its Columbia Management unit to Ameriprise Financial Inc., a financial planning services firm based in Minneapolis, for up to $1.2 billion in cash. And in June, British bank Barclays PLC agreed to a $13.5 billion offer from U.S. investment manager BlackRock Inc. for its asset management arm, Barclays Global Investors.
Five new funds launched by MFC Global Investment Management
MFC Global Investment Management has announced the launch of five new funds in order to develop its business in South East Asia. The fund range includes local money market, bond, balanced and equity funds and a greater China equity fund and is open to institutional investors and can also be accessed by retail investors via Manulife Singapore’s unit trust service.
The five funds being launched in Singapore are: Manulife Singapore Equity Fund, Manulife Singapore Balanced Fund, Manulife Singapore Bond Fund, Manulife Singapore Money Market Fund, and Manulife Greater China Opportunities Fund.
Manulife Greater China Opportunities Fund is managed by Matthew Lee and Terrace Chum in Hong Kong and aims to invest primarily in companies listed in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
Manulife Singapore Equity Fund is managed by Amy Low in Singapore and seeks to achieve capital appreciation in the medium to long term by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of Singapore equity and equity-related securities.
Manulife Singapore Balanced Fund is managed by Ms Low and Akira Okada in Singapore and aims to maximize total return in the medium to long term by investing in a portfolio comprising equities and fixed income instruments.
Manulife Singapore Bond Fund is managed by Mr Okada in Singapore and aims to provide investors with stable medium- to long-term returns with capital preservation, through investing in primarily investment-grade Singapore dollar-denominated fixed income and money markets instruments.
Manulife Singapore Money Market Fund is managed by Mr Okada in Singapore and aims to manage liquidity, preserve principal capital and provide a return comparable to that of Singapore dollar short-term deposits, by investing primarily in short-term money market instruments and debt securities.
Thomas & Coffey to implement the latest release of Mainpac Enterprise
The enterprise asset management (EAM) software company Mainpac Industrial services has been commissioned by Thomas & Coffey Limited to implement advanced resource scheduling and work order management functionality in the latest release of Mainpac Enterprise. According to a press release made by the company, this move was taken so as to enable the company become the number one in asset management for its clients in the mining, heavy industry, manufacturing, defence, utilities, energy and healthcare sectors.
At present, Thomas & Coffey uses an ERP system called Timberline which manages financials and job costing and also has several small niche software applications which manage certification of its staff, scheduling and the management of customer assets.
“We are aiming to lift the bar in asset management and to deliver the sort of information and services that our clients have a right to expect,” said Thomas & Coffey managing director, Martin Whittaker, adding, “Until we partnered with Mainpac to implement this advanced functionality, we were not able to communicate very well to our clients information about the things that really matter in managing major assets.
There are many ways of monitoring and reporting on asset costs. But crucial information concerns things like unplanned downtime, re-works, start-up time after shutdowns and the savings that can be achieved by addressing down time.
Mainpac Enterprise represents a huge advance towards retaining detailed knowledge of complex and difficult to maintain client assets and therefore to communicating to the client the important things about the management of that asset.”
An interface between Timberline and Mainpac ensures a transparent flow of information between Mainpac and the ERP system’s payroll application, Mainpac said.
Standard and Poor to maintain NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index
By an agreement, Standard and Poor’s Custom Indices has been assigned by the Asset Management Group at National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index. This index was incepted by NBAD in August 2006 and is designed to measure the overall performance of Shariah-compliant securities listed on Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM).
The NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index tracks securities that have been qualitatively and quantitatively filtered and conform to Shariah-compliance requirements. To be eligible for inclusion in the index, stocks must have an average daily traded value of more than one hundred thousand (100,000) US Dollars over a three month period from review date.
Constituents of the index are reviewed quarterly and rebalanced in the event of securities becoming no longer compliant. As per the agreement, Price Return Index levels will be calculated daily at approximately 11:00 PM GMT (2:00 am next day UAE Timing) and will be made available at Reuters Ric: .NBIS and Bloomberg Ticker: NULIIP.
Dr Giyas Gokkent, NBAD’s Chief Economist, said, “NBAD’s Asset Management Group (AMG) has decided to engage an internationally recognized third party firm for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index to further ensure independence and greater transparency to one of its benchmarks.”
“As the leading asset management group in the UAE, we are very keen on working in partnership with the best in class and we are delighted to assign Standard & Poor’s Custom Indices for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index as it has proven its mettle in running local, regional, and global indices,” he added.
Charbel Azzi, Regional Head-Business Development of Standard & Poor’s Index Services, expressed his pleasure on this assignment saying, “Standard & Poor’s is proud to partner with NBAD to provide the data, tools and support needed to calculate Shariah-compliant indices for the bank’s clients. As a global leader in custom index design and calculation, Standard & Poor’s strong brand name, expertise and independence as a third party index provider are widely recognised and valued by investors across the Gulf’s fast growing financial markets.”
Benefits of Portfolio Management
Since the time Portfolio management was introduced in the 1990s, it has benefited the insurance industry as a whole leading to more business for both the carriers and the producers. Portfolio management allows insurance producers to obtain capital in exchange for the sale of certain obligations of existing policyholders’ accounts. In this arrangement, client relationships remain unchanged and the policies unaffected, while producers are provided investment capital based on fair market value of all or part of their oldest policies. They can then use the capital to either reinforce their business or to invest in less risk-averse products.
Portfolio Management is helpful even more during a volatile market as it allows producers to manage a serious future tax bite. Cash that is raised can be earmarked for investment in recession-proof products such as CDs or annuities, products that producers have already been offering their own clients over the years. Capital can also be utilized for a variety of other uses, including:
-Acquisitions
-Lead generation
-Management software and upgrades
-Diversification of new products and services
-Reduce and service existing debt
-Lifestyle changes
Thus, portfolio management has been welcomed with open arms by the insurance industry as it is a win-win situation for every identity involved.
Australia’s Central Bank may raise interest rates
Mizuho Asset Management Co., a unit of Japan’s second-largest bank has intentions to add to its Australian bond holdings. According to Merrill Lynch & Co., Australian government bonds are set for their first annual loss since 1999 and there are speculations that the country’s central bank will lead the Group of 20 nations in raising interest rates. The futures market is pricing in a 40 percent chance the Reserve Bank of Australia will increase its benchmark rate at 2:30 p.m. in Sydney after Australia avoided recession this year.
However, Akira Takei, a Tokyo-based manager in Mizuho Asset’s international bond investment department said, “There are rumors that they will raise rates, but I don’t think they will. Any rise in interest rates after the decision will be just a knee-jerk reaction. Aussie bonds look cheap.” Akira helps oversee 250 billion yen ($2.8 billion) assets.
The Australian economy expanded 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 0.6 percent in the three months ended June 30. As said by Governor Glenn Stevens on Sept. 28 in testimony to the senate economics references committee, “Interest rates will have to “move off their current unusually low levels.”
Higher interest rates in Australia, compared with 0.1 percent in Japan and as low as zero percent in the U.S., attract investors to the South Pacific nation’s assets. Australia’s two-year government securities offer a 3.5 percentage point premium over similar maturity U.S. Treasuries and a 4.13 point advantage over Japanese government debt. , Bloomberg data show that for 10-year notes, the premiums stand at 1.97 and 3.92 percentage points, respectively.
Problems associated with asset management
There are various issues or problems which have to be faced by an asset manager while performing his job. Some of the common problems relating to asset management are:
It is difficult to update the evaluation of assets especially when there is a bog team of asset management because lack of proper communication and difficulty in assignment of specific tasks makes it difficult to establish the updates.
If the members of the asset management team are not properly trained to use the equipments and techniques, the incompetence will lead to inventory problems and management issues. So, it is always better to have few high quality people than many below average ones.
Again, if your staff members are adequately competent but you do not have the technology that matches their qualifications for doing to job, you may still get a below average performance from your asset management team.
Lack of support and co-operation among departments may not be conducive for positive change and objective or honest inventory of assets. As such there is a need for strengthening the ties of the team members via enriching activities.
Lack of balance in the different categories and the figures that represent them in the charts are detrimental to good management of assets in an organization.
Sometimes, there may be a tendency to eliminate the risk altogether in asset management without considering this fact that risks are contributory to the company’s growth and yield good returns.
The above mentioned problems are inherent to asset management business and have been there and will be there in existence. A good team needs to address these problems for successful output.
Ameriprise to acquire Columbia management from Bank of America
Bank of America Corp. has decided to sell the long-term asset management business of one of its units to Ameriprise Financial Inc., Minneapolis, for which the company will pay between $900 million and $1.2 billion in cash. This Columbia Management’s long-term asset management division has $165 billion in equity and fixed-income assets under management. The deal is expected to close in the spring of 2010.
When, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America was hit by the recession and mounting loan losses, analysts had predicted Bank of America could shed Columbia Management as part of its capital-raising efforts. However, the bank managed to raise the necessary money through other asset sales, stock offers and debt conversions.
Ameriprise said the acquisition will boost its earnings within one year, excluding integration costs. The financial also added that the acquisition will generate between $130 million and $150 million in annual cost savings, with about half of the savings being realized in the first year after the purchase is completed.
Combined with its current operations, Ameriprise will manage about $400 billion in assets after this deal which is expected to close in the spring of 2010.