Funds

It’s a great place for bankers and to make new contacts

The Malaysian government is working towards the winding up of state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) under a plan spearheaded by a high-level government unit called the Budiman committee.

The state investment firm, which was established by Prime Minister Najib in 2009, is now being dissolved following allegations that its funds were used for personal reasons by the premier and his close associates, resulting in 1MDB’s debts peaking to $12 billion at one point.

The assets of the state development fund will be transferred in coming months to two companies owned by the Finance Ministry. These valuable assets are two massive plots of land in Kuala Lumpur and one on Penang island.

Luxx London Investment -Luxx – and OpenFunds Investment Services – OpenFunds -, announced today that they have completed a final closing for The London Heritage Fund (the ‘Fund’) with total investor commitments of 33.45m GBP.

The macroeconomic headwinds and elevated volatility currently serving as a cornerstone for much of the prevailing investor uncertainty show little sign of receding. The Brexit vote and the ensuing political and economic uncertainty only amplify the uncertainty.

With traditional assets failing in their capital preservation and portfolio stability purposes, investors need to look for something else to help offset the risk generated by equities. Demand to generate returns which are not beholden to the direction of asset markets has become more pronounced.

The Hungarian financier George Soros would be interested in joining MPS, as reported by the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Besides Soros, also Qatar and US funds would be ready for subscrition of the capital, which in any case should be less than 5 billion initially indicated. The plan and the bank accounts will be approved today by the board and disclosed to the financial community tomorrow.

The scheme, imagined by the MPS financial advisers would be to focus on the anchor investor that could cover the supply in the market with high amounts: some Qatari funds would be interested in investing €1.5 billion to €2.0 billion, while, the newspaper wrote just yesterday, another billion could come from two US large institutional investors: they would be, according to rumors in financial circles, George Soros and one of the kings of the US hedge fund, John Paulson.

In recent years Malta has continued to evolve into an ever-stronger and robust financial domicile, attracting financiers and investors alike
This has been catapulted further by the island’s alluring and favourable tax schemes coupled by new approaches to fund management and investment schemes in its on-going determination to find innovative means to find dynamic, business-friendly solutions for business people.

Credit Suisse faced challenges in the third quarter, as Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam underlined in the last weeks, while the Zurich-based bank planned to axe thousands of jobs within the end of this year.

Credit Suisse expects to shed some 1,200 jobs by the end of this year-which come on top of 4,800 job cuts already; CEO swiss bank intends to de-emphasize its investment banking operations while bolstering wealth management businesses in Asia and Switzerland. The bank will report third-quarter results on November 3.

Launched in 1997, WEREE has been advised by Elbrus beginning October 2013. Over the three years, it has improved its risk-return profile and has significantly outperformed its benchmark and competitors. The Fund is now in the top quartile performance among its peers for the period and ranks highly in industry databases and monitoring services such as Morningstar1 (4 stars) and Quantalys2 (5 stars).

WEREE invests in liquid listed equities in Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia and the former Soviet states. The Fund implements a hybrid investment process that combines fundamental research stock selection with a model-driven macro overlay that determines the appropriate level of equity exposure for a given period or market environment.