Jaguar Growth Partners, a private equity firm focused exclusively on real assets in growth markets globally, announced the opening of its office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Jaguar Growth Investimentos do Brasil Ltda, will be headed by Christian Klotz and Ricardo Costa, two recent additions to the firm’s growing team. The new office establishes Jaguar’s presence in Latin America with investment and asset management activities in Brazil and throughout the region.
“We understand the importance of a local presence, strengthening our relationships with entrepreneurs, private equity firms and others in the region,” said Jaguar´s managing partner Thomas McDonald. “Our presence in Brazil is the first of several strategic office locations, highly-important and distinguishing for Jaguar Growth Partners,” added managing partner Gary Garrabrant.
Prior to joining Jaguar, Mr. Klotz co-founded UJAY Capital, an investment fund focused on Brazilian and Latin American listed equity and macro securities. At UJAY, he was the portfolio manager of the long-short equity fund with investments in various sectors including real estate, while based in Sao Paulo. Prior to UJAY Capital, Mr. Klotz was a portfolio analyst at Pollux Capital, a Brazilian based asset manager. He has served as a director for several publicly-listed real estate and industrial companies in Brazil including Abyara and Portobello. Mr. Klotz holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Instituto Maua de Tecnologia in Brazil and received his MBA from the Columbia Business School, University of Columbia, and Walter Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
Prior to joining Jaguar, Mr. Costa was a Partner at Gavea Investimentos, one of the largest alternative investment managers in Brazil with over US$ 7 billion in assets under management, controlled by JP Morgan Asset Management. Mr. Costa joined the private equity division of Gavea in December 2010 as a principal, becoming a partner in January 2013. At Gavea, Mr. Costa led several investments in the retail, logistics, services and telecom sectors, and was a board member of Camisaria Colombo, Cell Site Solutions (CSS), Rumo Logistica and Simpress. In October 2013, Mr. Costa assumed the CFO role and interim management of CSS, a co-investment of Gavea and Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking capitalizing on the opportunity to explore the growing telecom towers market in Brazil. From 2005 to 2010, Mr. Costa worked as an associate at Votorantim Novos Negocios (VNN), the private equity and venture capital arm of Votorantim Group, one of the largest Latin American industrial conglomerates, where he was responsible for the investments in IT/BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and services sectors. Mr. Costa graduated from Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo (FGV-EAESP), where he received a BA in Business Administration, and is currently pursuing an MBA.
Alvin E. Roth, Nobel Laureate, 2012. 'Nobel Perspectives' abre las puertas a la vida y mente de los Premios Nobel de Economía
Ever wondered how the greatest economic minds of our time live? Or what is their stance on current developments? This week UBS, along with German broadcasters Frank and Thomas Elstner, announced the launch of ‘Nobel Perspectives‘, a digital platform that, over the next 2 years, will feature around 40 filmed interviews with Nobel Laureates in Economics.
In Frank Elstner’s words: “Having interviewed Nobel Laureates since the 1980s, I realize how much these extraordinary people have in common: infinite patience, great curiosity, reliable determination and most of all modesty. They are not only progressive thinkers but also role models for a life in a tolerant society. I am happy that we found UBS as our partner guaranteeing a long future for this project.”
Among others, the featured Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences will include: Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan Jr., Gérard Debreu, Lawrence R. Klein, Finn Kydland, Wassily Leontief, Sir Arthur Lewis, James E. Meade, Merton H. Miller, Christopher Pissarides, Alvin E. Roth, Paul A. Samuelson, Theodore W. Schultz, William F. Sharpe, Herbert A. Simon and Robert M. Solow.
The first profile explores the work of the game theorist Alvin E. Roth. The game theorist discusses topics such as rules market need to work freely and what kidney transplants can teach us about trading.
Over the next two years and at least once a month, further interviews and material will be added to the site along with accompanying commentary and analysis from ‘Undercover Economist’ Tim Harford and UBS’s Global Economist, Paul Donovan.
Next one in line is Finn E. Kydland, Nobel Laureate, 2004 who will be featured speaking of what makes good policy.
You can watch Roth’s interview in the following link.
Foto: Youtube. La SEC marca nuevos récords en el número de expedientes y en su importe
In the fiscal year that ended in September, the SEC filed 807 enforcement actions covering a wide range of misconduct, and obtained orders totaling approximately $4.2 billion in disgorgement and penalties. Of the 807 enforcement actions filed in fiscal year 2015, a record 507 were independent actions for violations of the federal securities laws and 300 were either actions against issuers who were delinquent in making required filings with the SEC or administrative proceedings seeking bars against individuals based on criminal convictions, civil injunctions, or other orders.
In fiscal year 2014, the SEC filed 755 enforcement actions and obtained orders totaling $4.16 billion in disgorgement and penalties.
The agency’s first-of-their-kind cases included the first action involving: a private equity adviser for misallocating broken deal expenses; an underwriter for pricing-related fraud in the primary market for municipal securities; a “Big Three” credit rating agency; violations arising from a dark pool´s disclosure of order types to its subscribers; an FCPA action against a financial institution; an admissions settlement with an auditing firm; and an SEC rule prohibiting the use of confidentiality agreements to impede whistleblower communiction with the SEC.
“Vigorous and comprehensive enforcement protects investors and reassures them that our financial markets operate with integrity and transparency, and the Commission continues that enforcement approach by bringing innovative cases holding executives and companies accountable for their wrongdoing sending clear warnings to would-be violators,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “The Enforcement Division’s leveraging of data, quantitative analytics and the expertise of our other divisions contributed significantly to this year’s very strong results.”
“The Division’s hard work, tremendous energy, and efficiency uncovered significant misconduct during the past fiscal year, and helped bring a significant number of high-impact, first-of-their-kind actions,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “I continue to be proud of the Division’s record of accomplishments, and we have already continued to pave new ground in the new fiscal year.”
The following table breaks down the SEC’s enforcement results for FY 2013 through 2015:
Foto: Thomas8047
. Los hedge funds van camino de registrar su peor ejercicio desde 2011, aunque superan al S&P 500
The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark returned -1.44% in September, marking another difficult month for hedge funds as relative value funds were the only top-level strategy to see positive performance. This is the fourth consecutive month of negative returns for hedge funds, the longest negative period since Jun – Nov 2008. Overall returns for 2015 YTD now stand at only 0.18%, with the year on course to have the lowest returns since 2011. However, with the S&P 500 currently returning -3.14% for the year so far, hedge funds are still outperforming public markets.
On Monday October 19th, the Government of Uruguay, following the line used by other emerging countries, sought after external funding prior to the US Federal Reserve decides to raiseinterest rates. Uruguay, which has investment grade ratings of Baa2 / BBB / BBB-, launched a global bond US dollar denominated maturing at 2027, and it also offered to buy back government bonds maturing at 2017, 2022, 2024 and 2025; whose outstanding amount is around 2,800 million dollars, according to Reuters.
Uruguay launched its new 2027 maturing US dollar denominated bonds at a spread of Treasuries plus 245bp, according to one of the lead managers of the transaction. The launch spread is at the tight end of guidance of 250bp area and inside initial price thoughts of 265bp area. The amortizing bond has an average life of around 11 years and is part of a broader liability management operation.
The deal is being done in conjunction with a one-day cash tender for outstanding 9.25% 2017s, 8% 2022s, 4.5% 2024s and 6.875% 2025s, for which Uruguay is offering a purchase price of 114, 127.50, 106.00 and 119, respectively.
The new money component of the trade is around US$ 1.2 billion, the lead manager said. Citigroup, HSBC and Itau BBA are the lead managers on the transaction.
According to Axa IM, you can add risky assets in the short term “but beware of 2016”. The asset manager believes that after a sharp slowdown in the first half of the year, the global economy is stabilizing. “Yet, sluggish demand, -especially in China, led us to trim our global GDP forecast for 2016 from 3.3% to 3.1%.”
They believe that while US consumers remain on a strong footing, weaker global demand will weigh on the manufacturing sector, thus they see US growth at 2.2% in 2016, down from the previous 2.5%. In regards to China, because of a construction overhang, their estimate is 6.3%. In Europe and on the back of the VW scandal, they believe growth will be of 1.4%.
Considering the softer environment lived in the first half of 2015, Axa thinks growth will prevail. “If anything, the next quarters might see a gentle improvement in growth momentum” they say, adding that they do not believe that the later-than- expected Fed hike is a negative, that valuations have corrected sufficiently and that equity markets “are simply oversold”.
Nevertheless they warn that “While we remain overweight in the near term, we reckon that clouds are gathering over our longer term equity view. Today we suggest reducing our long-held overweight. First, 2016 is expected to see mildly weaker overall growth around the globe and the risks for 2017 are presumably skewed to the downside.”
Foto: August Brill
. Londres supera a Nueva York y lidera el Global Financial Centers Index
London has moved ahead of New York to reclaim the number one position in the eighteenth Global Financial Centres Index, published by Z/Yen Group and sponsored by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority. This year edition of the Index (GFCI 18) rates 84 financial centers.
This are the top 10
London climbed 12 points in the ratings to lead New York by eight points. The GFCI is on a scale of 1,000 points and a lead of eight is thus fairly insignificant. “We prefer to see London and New York as complimentary rather than purely competitive” says the company. It is noticeable that assessments for London have been higher since the general election in May 2015.
London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore remain the four leading global financial centers. New York, in second place is now 33 points ahead of Hong Kong in third. Tokyo, in fifth place, is 25 points behind the leaders.
Western European centersshow signs of recovery. The leading centers in Europe are London, Zurich and Geneva as in GFCI 17 and Frankfurt has moved up into fourth place just ahead of Luxembourg. Of the 29 centers in this region, 23 centers rose in the ratings with Dublin doing particularly well. Liechtenstein appears in the GFCI for the first time and is ranked 60th. Reykjavik continues to reverse some of its recent decline.
Eastern European and Central Asian centers prosper. The leading center in this region is now Warsaw in 38th place, just ahead of Istanbul. The top seven centers all saw an increase in their ratings but the largest decline in this region was St Petersburg.
Twelve of the top 15 Asia/Pacific centers see a rise in their ratings. With the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore, the top Asia/Pacific financial centers have all seen their ratings increase in GFCI 18. Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul remain in the GFCI Top 10.
All North American centers are up in the ratings. However, due to continuing rise of some Asian centers, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver and Calgary and suffered small declines in the ranks. Toronto remains the leading Canadian center and is now the second North American center behind only New York.
Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro rise strongly. Sao Paulo remains the top Latin American center in GFCI 18, and along with Rio de Janeiro, made significant progress n the ratings and rankings. Mexico was the only center that fell in the GFCI ratings. The Cayman Islands and the Bahamas also showed good improvements.
Mark Yeandle, Associate Director at the Z/Yen Group and the author of the GFCI said “Whilst London and New York still lead the field, the next four centers are all Asian.”
Even though the rapid decline in oil prices is coming to an end, for many oil producers -like those in the shale market in the US and offshore oil fields-, the current oil price is a problem. According to Chris Iggo, CIO Fixed Income Europe and Asia at AXA Investment Managers, “lower prices are pushing commodity-reliant countries to devalue their currencies and Saudi Arabia recently announced that the current oil price has forced them to sell some foreign investments to cover a fund deficit.”
Nick Hayes, manager of the AXA WF Global Strategic Bonds, believes that“The declining oil price has also impacted high yield markets… We favour nominal bonds over inflation-linked bonds given the outlook for inflation. The main concern for us now is where oil prices will settle, and it’s important for fixed income investors to lower their expectations of inflation given the chance that falling commodity prices will continue to impact the level of inflation.”
During the last year, the managers have been decreasing the amount of high yield and emerging market debt exposure and they believe that we will see a rise in government bond yields once the current risk-off environment subsides. “A bear market in credit has created opportunities for us – especially with the increase in the number of negative credit ‘events’ which means we can increase credit allocations at higher spreads and yields,” says Hayes.
In regards to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) policy, they believe that “the US economy will continue to prosper, which will periodically get people excited about the potential for a rate hike, but the global economic environment is likely to stay weak. The domestic US labour market is still very tight, but wages are picking up, as they are in the UK. However, higher wages don’t immediately translate into inflation. Core inflation has so far stayed low, removing oil from the calculation. It’s difficult to have a view on 1-2 year inflation figures, but central banks will continue to set rates to reach inflation targets. What I would like to see is the Fed being more decisive – raise the rates and be confident about the state of the US economy.” Considering this, Hayes prefers the Eurozone over US interest rate risk. “Given attractive valuations, we have increased our allocation to investment grade corporate bonds, which has started to offer interesting yield levels for high quality credit, ” he comments.
Schroders was awarded the coveted ‘Best International Fund Group’ award at The Incisive Media International Fund & Product Awards 2015 held in London on October 7th. The award recognises Schroders for the excellence of its digital strategy and strength of its product proposition, as well as outstanding fund performance over three years.
In a highly competitive category, Schroders scooped first place above other well-known players in international asset management, which included the likes of GAM, BlackRock, Fidelity and more.
Additionally, Schroders’ Chief Executive, Michael Dobson, has been awarded the 2015 ‘Financial News Decade of Excellence’award, which recognises his leadership in the strong growth of Schroders’ profits and assets under management since 2001.
Of the award, Carla Bergareche, Head at Schroders Spain and Portugal commented “We have a strong local distribution presence around the globe and in all the major global financial centres, stretching back over 50 years. Through this we have nurtured long-standing relationships with our clients, maintaining an open dialogue based on professionalism and trust.” Adding that “We believe that digital is a key area of development to enhance our approach to servicing, engaging and communicating with our clients. We have put this into effect via the recent launch of the Schroders incomeIQ initiative, a knowledge centre which features investment guides and tools. People can also take the incomeIQ test designed to reveal investors’ behavioural biases and provide useful tips to empower advisers and investors in their decision making. We are pleased to have won the awards in recognition of our drive for excellence in delivering added value to our clients and wider society. We will continue to innovate across all aspects of our business to help meet the needs of our clients.”
You can review the list of winners and Finalist in the following link
Bob Thomas - Foto cedida. Henderson Global Investors amplía su equipo de renta variable inmobiliaria global
Following an announcement made to clients in May this year, Henderson Global Investors has further expanded its global property equities team with the addition of a dedicated North American property equities team.
Bob Thomas was appointed head of North American property equities, joining the global asset manager in August. Bob is based in Henderson’s Chicago office. His previous role was co-head of North American listed real estate at AMP Capital. Bob brings over 13 years’ experience in real estate securities, having previously worked for BNP Paribas Asset Management and Nuveen Asset Management.
Greg Kuhl has also joined the team in Chicago as portfolio manager and will work with Bob to build out the offering. He joins from Brookfield Investment Management where he worked on North American and global long only and long-short real estate funds. Finally, this month, Mike Engels joined as an analyst. He previously worked at Brookfield Investment Management.
Bob, Greg and Mike, will work with existing global fund managers, Guy Barnard and Tim Gibson, to manage the team’s existing global mandates. This transition will take place on the 1 November. As a result of this decision, management of the North American sleeves of Henderson’s global property equities funds will be brought in-house. Since 2007, Harrison Street Securities, the US-based real estate investment firm, was mandated to manage this part of the portfolio.
Graham Kitchen, head of equities at Henderson, comments: “As a truly global business, and with recent acquisitions in the US developing our in-house equity expertise, it is a logical step to bring the management of North American property equities in-house. Not only do we believe this best serves clients in the existing global funds, but it also enables us to further develop the franchise and product offering in the future.”
Guy Barnard, co-head of global property equities based in London, says: “We’ve worked with Harrison Street for eight years and thank them for the service they have provided. Looking ahead, a strengthened property securities team, with dedicated portfolio managers in all of our key regions, will enable us to pursue a more integrated global investment process that will best serve our clients’ needs. The integration process has been carefully managed over a number of months, meaning we expect a seamless transition next month.
The build-out of the global property equities team reflects Henderson’s drive to provide quality products with consistent superior performance to our clients across the world.”
Tim Gibson, co-head of global property equities based in Singapore, adds: “Hiring quality people to help develop our global offering is intrinsic to our success, and we are happy to be in a position to attract high caliber managers such as Bob and Greg. They both have strong reputations, excellent track records and high conviction, bottom-up driven investment processes that are aligned to our own. ”
