Crosby Asset Management recruits
multi-asset specialists to boost team
BY DANIEL JUDGE
Crosby Asset Management,
formerly Crosby Forsyth,
has hired two multi-asset
fund of funds specialists
to run new and existing
portfolios.
Tom McGrath and
Steve Brann, formerly
of MitonOptimal Asset
Management, will share the
role of joint chief investment
officer and will run
multi-asset portfolios similar
to those they managed
previously.
Crosby has also hired
Craig Wetton, a former
director of UK-based
UK distributor
status for RWC
Partners Asia
Ascent Fund
London-based RWC Partners
is to launch the Luxembourgbased
Asia Ascent Fund,
which will have distributor
status in the UK.
The fund will be managed
by Carmel Peters and
Kirsty McLaren, who are
joining RWC from Sofaer
Capital. They have managed
both long only and
absolute return funds.
Peters has been the lead
portfolio manager of the
Sofaer Capital Asia Hedge
fund. Previous posts include
director of Asian equities
and emerging markets at
Putnam Investments, and
CIO of Rothschild Asset
Management in Hong Kong.
McLaren was the joint portfolio
manager of the Sofaer
Asia Hedge fund. She has
also worked for Rothschild
Asset Management before
joining JPMorgan Securities’
Asian desks.
The RWC Asian Ascent
fund will be able to short
indices and stocks to protect
capital during periods
of market weakness.
Miton Arcturus vs FTSE World
% 4
12
8
0
-4
Dec ’06 Mar ’07 Jun
Sep
1 Dec ’06 – 1 Mar ’08. Source: Lipper
Chartwell Investment
Management. Wetton has
been tasked with devel-
Glanmore announces further redemptions delay
The Guernsey-based
Glanmore Property Fund
has extended the period for
which investors will have to
wait for redemptions by up
to another six months.
On 28 Dec, 2007, the
fund announced that investors
would have to wait six
months before receiving
their redemptions because
of the level of requests for
withdrawals, the illiquid-
oping a multi-asset multimanager
fund for the international
market.
Pioneer Asia-focused Ucits-compliant
hedge fund follows long/short strategy
Pioneer Alternative
Investments has launched
an Asia-focused hedge
fund for private investors
which aims to make positive
absolute returns with
low correlation to the equities
markets.
Like Pioneer’s first
hedge fund, unveiled last
year, the Pioneer Absolute
Return Equity Asia Fund
is a collaboration with
the fund administrator,
Luxembourg-based
Structured Invest SA.
Manuele Moi, Pioneer’s
principal fund manager,
is managing the fund out
CF Miton Arcturus
of Dublin, assisted by
Adrian Doyle. The two are
responsible for the underlying
investment strategy
at Pioneer, and have experience
in the long/short
arena, Pioneer said.
FUND FACTS
Domicile: Luxembourg
Currencies: € and $
Initial charge: 0% to 5%
Annual charge: 2.37%
Performance fee: none
FTSE World CR £
Dec
ity of the UK commercial
property market and the
limited availability of borrowing
facilities from the
company’s bankers.
On 30 June, 2008,
Glanmore said the sixmonth
redemption notice
period on the fund had
been superseded by a temporary
postponement of six
months. It said this means
the redemption date for
Minimum investment: €5,000
retail, €500,000 institutional
AUGUST 2008 [www.international-adviser.com] INTERNATIONAL ADVISER 9
Mar ’08
Among Brann’s and
McGrath’s core portfolios
was the Arcturus fund,
which in addition to mainstream
asset classes such as
equities, fixed income and
cash, holds hedge funds,
commodities, structured
products and undertakes
currency hedging.
Steve Coxshall, managing
director of Crosby Asset
Management, said it was
likely a Dublin-domiciled
Global Balanced Fund, currently
managed by Henry
Freeman, would be handed
to McGrath and Brann to
which they will apply their
multi-asset strategy.
anyone who wants to withdraw
money this year will
be extended by six months,
to enable it to secure “fair
market value” for any properties
the fund sells.
Investors will not necessarily
have to wait the full
six months to redeem their
money as they will be paid
as soon as deals are completed
and the money is
available.
The Ucits III-compliant
fund will seek to achieve
its objective through what
the firm calls “a predominantly
Asian equity long/
short approach based on
a thematic and fundamental
bottom-up method”
rather than a quantitative
approach.
Pioneer single manager
CIO Luca Megoni said the
cyclicality and diversity of
returns across Asia’s markets
contribute to the appeal of
the long/short strategy. He
added: “It is an optimal
strategy to capture these
different opportunities.”
Beevers: ‘high standards’
BY HELEN BURGGRAF
NEWS
IMF plans to
drop ‘offshore’
label get the
thumbs-up
Jersey, Guernsey and the
Isle of Man have welcomed
the International Monetary
Fund’s announcement that
it plans to stop distinguishing
between offshore and
onshore financial centres
in its regulatory and supervisory
assessments of its
activities in these entities.
The move will help to
remove any lingering suspicions
that their standards
are lower than their onshore
rivals’, officials said.
But a Guernsey-based
PricewaterhouseCoopers
executive said the change,
which takes effect by 2010,
is unlikely to be “a major
driver” of new business for
the Channel Islands. “Our
clients have long understood
that these are wellregulated
jurisdictions,” said
PwC partner Simon Perry.
“So while it is nice to have
[the distinction] removed, it
is not going to do much for
existing business.”
Jim Gilligan, chairman
of Guernsey Finance, was
“delighted” by the IMF’s
decision: “This reinforces
our long-held view that
what is important is not
whether a jurisdiction is
onshore or offshore, but the
quality of its regulation.”
Steven Beevers, deputy
head of Isle of Man Finance,
added: “The removal of the
label ‘offshore’ in this context
is important, as it does
little to convey the reality
of our high international
standards of regulation.”
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