The Hawksblog

How do you choose a fund administrator? This decision has important implications for the smooth functioning of your investment management business. We look at some of the key criteria fund managers should consider.

Ireland has become recognised as one of the favoured domiciles for fund managers that wish to distribute into the European Union. With the advent of Brexit, it is also starting to look more attractive for UK fund managers, as well as non-European fund managers who want to take their first steps into the European market.

Hawksmoor Partners has won an award from ETF Express for Best ETF PR and Marketing Firm. The award followed work over the last 12 months with companies in the ETF sector.

Truss Edge, the fintech platform specializing in the automation of critical trading, reporting and data processing tasks within hedge funds, has today released the results of its 2019 white paper on Hedge Fund Portfolio Management Systems.

Welcome to a new series from Hawksmoor Partners where we sit down for a coffee with clients, friends and partners of the firm for a discussion on key issues close to the global fund management industry. This month we sampled a beverage with Attilio Veneziano, founder of Veneziano & Partners.

So the World Economic Forum in Davos is over for another year, and politicians and business leaders alike have returned to the humdrum of their day to day lives running companies and governments. But what were the key takeaways for the international asset management industry from one of the most important international conferences on the calendar?

Several major names in the hedge funds industry were in evidence and were given prime time speaking slots.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations are almost upon us. They come into force on 25 May, but one key marketing platform for fund managers may fall through the cracks of your no doubt detailed preparations for the big day – that is your website.

Hawksmoor Partners recently had the opportunity to sit down with Greg Winterton, the publisher of AlphaWeek, a new daily news site for investors and other participants in the alternative investments market.

Hawksmoor Partners, the full-service communications, marketing and structuring practise, continues to expand its capabilities with the addition of Michael Morton to its marcomms consultancy. Morton joins to manage projects relating to web development, search engine optimisation, social media and digital marketing.

Video has yet to make the impact it deserves in the investor relations process. This is partly due to a lack of the right technical infrastructure, but the success of YouTube and other platforms in the marketing and education process cannot be ignored. Already we are beginning to see video-based solutions that are making their mark in the IR sphere.

Following on from our previous bulletin in this series, we look at the role of the independent fund director. Increasing emphasis on the presence of fully independent directors on the boards of investment funds by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the US Securities and Exchanges Commission means that investment managers must pay more attention to who is appointed to the boards of their funds. This is a sentiment shared by investors, who are also starting to ask that more independent directors sit on fund boards.

Welcome to the first in our series of bulletins on fund governance and the role of fund boards. Over the next few months we will be posting about fund governance and the role played by independent fund directors on the boards of funds.

For alternative asset managers, the pressure to provide better governance has never been more intense. Governance has crept into operational due diligence processes – prospective investors are spending more time and energy scrutinising fund boards and directors. The Madoff fraud and the Weavering case have both been important watersheds in the ongoing development of better governance procedures for fund boards.