Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
from Reuters Investigates:
BP – Tough to price in the consequences
Two graphs tell an apparently conflicting story: analysts forecast a steady recovery in BP's dividends, but its valuation remains weak. Tom Bergin's close look at the potential costs facing BP as a result of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill helps explain the latter, but less so the former.
from Reuters Investigates:
Morbid money-spinners
If the life settlements market seems ghoulish, here’s a British scandal which isn’t doing the image of the business any favours. It’s one of the worst the country’s seen.
Around 30,000 mainly elderly investors in the UK put their money into a company called Keydata, hoping to make a little extra cash to fund their own retirement with the promise of a healthy return.
1st UK sukuk to herald new phase? Inshallah…
If it was not the holy month of Ramadan, I would confidently predict plenty of Halal cork-popping in UK Islamic finance circles today, following news of the first company in Europe — International Innovative Technologies (ITT) – to raise $10 million through a sukuk deal.
This has been a labour of love… rumours and counter-rumours about which company, government or institution would do the honours have abounded since the UK shelved its plans for a 2 billion pound short-note sukuk programme at the end of 2008. The UK may not be the only theatre of action in Europe – Luxembourg’s sukuk is rumoured to be on its way and France is equally open about its ambitions.
from MacroScope:
The word on Gordon Brown from Cayman
Gordon Brown is truly having a rough time. Rebuffed by the United States, International Monetary Fund and others for floating the idea of a tax on financial transactions at this weekend's G20 meeting, he has now got short shrift from the Cayman Islands.
McKeeva Bush, the veteran Caymanian politican who is now premier of the British Overseas Territory, popped in to the Reuters London headquarters for a chat this week. His main concern was to explain plans for making the islands an easier place for financial services personnel to live in. He would like some of those 8,000 hedge nearly 10,000 funds that are registered there to be more than just brass plaques. But, when asked, he
also had time to dismiss the idea of a transaction tax out of hand.
Morning line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
EU hedge fund law to raise compliance costs - Reuters
Hedge fund August inflows hit $19.6 billion - WSJ
Economies face hedge fund attacks - Telegraph
Babcock & Brown Infrastructure receives offer – Bloomberg
from Commentaries:
Don’t hold your breath for European flotations
A web-based survey of more than 40 European institutional investors by investment bank Jefferies shows most -- 83 percent of those who responded -- are not expecting a re-opening of the IPO market in the UK and Continental Europe before the middle of 2010.
Only 23 percent of the analysts, portfolio managers and dealers surveyed reckon the IPO market will re-open by the end of this year.
Insurance policy
Shorting UK banks, it seems, is so last year.
Having profited from the implosion of the sector in 2008, many funds believe prices have fallen far enough, and in some cases are actually looking good value.
Outspoken star fund manager Crispin Odey this week revealed he’s now buying UK banks, having made money shorting them last year.
from Global Investing:
A dish best served cold
Alain Grisay, the softly spoken CEO of F&C Investments, was in a wry humour at F&C’s annual press seminar for European journalists on Thursday.
Fresh from his bout with the UK’s Treasury Select Committee on the causes of the banking 
crisis, and enjoying a respectable set of fourth quarter figures, Grisay is in the rare position of having come through the storm with his house intact. “We have just gone through an unrequested market stress test that confirms our model works,” he said. “We were able to report resilient results for the year and took the market by surprise."
