Purnur Schneider from InschQuantrend Ltd. has forwarded this note for our blog readers:

I would like to bring to your attention our most recent publication, entitled “PIBS or PUBS? Permanent Interest Bearing Shares or Probably Uninteresting Building Societies?”.

Following our study of bonds and structured notes, we now turn our attention to the risks and returns pertaining to PIBS – Permanent Interest Bearing Shares. PIBS are a niche high yield instrument issued by UK building societies. In the research paper we cover their advantages and risks and assess their suitability for investor portfolios.

We hope you will enjoy reading it.

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In a contested bake-off with Larch Lane Advisors, Protege Partners was picked to manage the City of Richmond’s Hedge Fund Seeding Program.

More info is here http://bit.ly/oBW6nn

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More experienced and sophisticated Pension Funds  are frequently investing in hedge fund strategies directly rather than through Funds of Funds.  Consulting players like Albourne  Partners, Aksia and Cliffwater are winning a bevy of new business through projects requiring sophisticated analytical knowledge of the hedge fund market.  More here, http://bit.ly/nlQM9J

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This article, first published in March 2011 in International Alternative Investment Review (IAIReview), focuses on the importance of deep research and its value in investment management, with several investment outlooks for anticipated market developments in 2011.  At this mid-point of the year, it is worthwhile taking a closer look at both the article’s thesis and market projections.  For a full review of the article, please go to the link below, or see the executive summary here.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46807825/A-GPS-for-Navigating-the-Markets-in-2011

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 In this article Insch Invest make a detailed analysis of the performance and risks taken by asset managers in terms of their clients’ capital and their own revenues. Insch introduces two simple measures for evaluating managers’ performance: the Insch Ratio and the Insch Index. The Insch Ratio compares the revenues of clients to those of the manager, while the Insch Index compounds 1% p.a. Insch finds that a large number of traditional funds managed by banks fail to beat the Insch Index, and also to provide clients earnings above the size of management fees. Finally, Insch recommends asset managers to hedge their own revenues from the asset management business, endangered by market risk.

You can find more here, http://bit.ly/lDY4Ib

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It’s a worst kept secret that alpha in hedge funds is frequently realized with smaller "emerging" managers as larger funds outgrow their strategy’s ability to generate non-correlated returns.   More institutional managers are acting on the realization that some of their larger funds have become more asset accumulators than alpha generators and are switching investment to emerging managers.  Calpers, NJ, NY and Illinois all have programs for emerging managers as does Duke University.  

PI Online reports that more institutional quality investors are taking deeper looks at emerging managers and their strategies to generate alpha.  

Albourne’s Richard Quigley says 

"We are seeing broad and significant interest in making increased allocations to emerging managers. Actual activity (i.e. funding) has been light, but we believe we are in the early innings”

Busara Advisors, a New York fund of funds received $150 million from a large California based pension fund.  

You can find out more here - http://bit.ly/jIoXpO

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The Wall Street Journal reports that hedge fund assets under management are nearly surpassing their 2008 highs in AUM.  Many other sources have reported that hedge funds have already passed their 2008 high of $2 trillion or predicted they would this year, the WSJ has jumped on board.  Differences in reporting may depend on how hedge funds are defined or which hedge fund database is being quoted.  More from the WSJ here, http://on.wsj.com/eg8X6r

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by Mark Wiggins, Senior Vice President, Research and Analytics – Europe, WNS Global Services

Outsourcing investment research activities to multi-skilled professionals, capable of generating insights on all elements at play in the market, has emerged as a smart alternative to meeting the challenges faced by investment management firms. Highly educated teams of desktop researchers help monitor trends, opportunities, threats, market-shifts and competitive moves. More importantly, they draw out implications for an investment management firm’s strategic direction, product portfolio, brand and evolution. Read on to find out what this trend can entail.

 http://www.wns.com/Insights/Articles/ArticleDetails/tabid/44237/entryid/440062/default.aspx

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 The Financial Times reports that Goldman Sachs’ last significant proprietary trading team to leave the firm due to the Volcker rule has already raised $300 million for a new fund to be launched in the second quarter of 2011.  

FT reports "The launch will mark the final big set of departures from GSPS, which at its peak traded as much as $11bn of Goldman’s own capital and was one of the bank’s most lucrative operations.

It has not been viable as an internal trading operation since new US regulations, known collectively as the Volcker rule, were passed last year. These prohibit banks risking their own capital in speculative trades."

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