Category: Articles

Islamic banking leaders and dignitaries from across Africa and the Middle East gathered today at the 2nd annual International Forum on Islamic Finance (IFIF 2016). Held under the patronage of the Government of the Republic of the Sudan, the Central Bank of Sudan and the Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning – and in strategic partnership with the Bank of Khartoum - IFIF 2016 hosted 200 dignitaries, central bank representatives, Ministers, C-level bankers, thought leaders and experts who gathered at the Al Salam Rotana Hotel in Khartoum to deliberate on strategies to enable Islamic finance gain prominence and spur economic growth across Africa.

Over £2 billion has been collected from users of tax avoidance schemes as a result of new government measures to collect disputed tax upfront.

Ethika Investments is a renowned real estate investment firm that provides investors access to a unique platform by tactically investing in opportunistic real estate assets primarily in the United States. We spoke to Andres Szita, Chairman at Ethika Investments, to find out more about his firm and to talk us through their highly innovative fund strategy.

The European Commission says that the Portuguese government's 2016 Draft Budgetary Plan is at risk of non-compliance with the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact.

Three quarters of high-net-worth individuals plan to increase contributions to their investment portfolios in the first half of 2016, reveals a new global poll.

Golding Capital Partners is one of Europe’s leading independent investment managers and advisors for investments in private equity, private debt and infrastructure. We spoke to Jeremy Golding, Founder and Managing Director of Golding Capital Partners, to find out more about the company and how they orchestrated the largest diversified infrastructure fund of funds ever raised in the German-speaking area.

LookingGlass can assist by providing intelligence across the fund and its portfolio companies to provide proper guidance on risks and threats that may be impacting the business or future portfolio companies.

PwC Cyprus is one of the main market players in the provision of professional services to Funds and Fund Managers. Through a team of experts, PwC stands ready to offer a complete spectrum of services for the funds market

Jammal Trust Bank SAL (JTB) is a rapidly growing medium sized retail Bank in Lebanon that has been serving the local market and a niche market in Western Africa for over five decades.

Eiffel Investment Group is an independent group, owned by the team alongside former Louis Dreyfus group Chairman & CEO Jacques Veyrat (the company started end 2008 as an asset management division of the Louis Dreyfus group and spun-off mid-2011).

Founded in 2008, Barak is a niche fund management company whose main purpose is to provide investors with unique commodity-focused investment opportunities via trade finance assets across more than 30 African countries. We spoke to them to find out more about their company, and how their flagship fund, The Barak Structured Trade Finance Fund, consistently achieves returns.

QW Capital LLP is an investment management firm based in London (UK). They manage equity portfolios following a non-discretionary quantitative approach and offer investors access to their strategies either through managed accounts or a UCITS fund structure with daily liquidity. They also have the ability to provide a variety of tailor made products such as swaps, options and capital protected notes on their strategy.

Chilton Investment Company has been managing long/short equity portfolios for institutional clients since the firm’s inception in 1992. Today, Chilton has offices in both the US and the UK, focusing on managing classic hedged equity strategies that seek to generate consistent and superior risk-adjusted returns.

With 225,000 employees worldwide, Deloitte is a leading professional services provider on a Spanish and international scale. Deloitte’s wide range of services include audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management as well as tax and legal services.

Since the formative transaction that created C-III Capital Partners in 2010, C-III has grown into a fully-diversified commercial real estate services and investment management company; this full-service platform has a competitive advantage in sourcing, underwriting and managing real estate debt and equity investments.

James Berry & Associates is one of the longest established legal practices in Dubai, offering an overall solution for the highly diverse needs of their clients. We spoke to them to find out more about their region, and how they assist businesses in the UAE.

Statistics announced today by Scotland’s Chief Statistician in the latest Retail Sales Index for Scotland release, covering the period October to December 2015, show that the volume of Retail Sales in Scotland increased by 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and grew by 2.2% annually.

More than a billion pounds is to be invested by the Ministry of Defence to continue the modernisation of military flying training in the UK.

Banc of California, Inc. today reported net income of $19.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2015, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.39 for the quarter and $1.34 for the full year.

Saltus is an independently owned investment management and financial planning company.

Betto seraglini is a boutique dispute resolution law firm specialising in international arbitration and commercial litigation. They launched in 2013 with Professor Christophe Seraglini, in order to provide tailored high-quality legal services to sophisticated clients. They work for high profile clients, mostly in the defence, energy, civil aviation, construction and investment sectors in disputes requiring very particular technical and legal expertise.

Jacques Werner is a senior arbitrator for Werner & Associés.

M&A Property Investors is a Pan European Private Equity Investment Boutique with a current investment portfolio of over €350 million.

Birmingham Airport is an international transport hub in the centre of the UK

Andrew Bailey will become Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), succeeding Tracey McDermott, who has acted as interim CEO since Martin Wheatley stepped down from the post in September 2015. Mr Bailey is being appointed for a five-year term, and will take up his new role once his successor at the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has been found.

Hedge funds finished last year up 2.42%, beating equities and bonds on an absolute and risk-adjusted basis, analysis of performance data by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), reveals.

Emerging Global Advisors' survey finds neutral investor sentiment dominant in emerging markets.

EnTrust, a leading hedge fund investor, to be combined with Permal to create one of the largest global alternative asset management firms

Sterling Capital Management LLC (Sterling) announced that several of its mutual funds have ranked near the top of their respective Lipper Peer Categories.

Basel III reforms have fundamentally changed how asset managers are connected to the financial system, with hedge funds challenged to understand expense, usage and access to the financing power grid, according to a joint survey and report by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA).

The Chancellor George Osborne today announced an end to prohibitive charges faced by people looking to access their pension pot as he outlined proposals to place a duty on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to cap excessive early exit charges for those eligible to access the pension freedoms.

Northern Ireland Employment and Learning Minister Dr Stephen Farry today launched the third Financial Services Academy in conjunction with FinTrU, a rapidly expanding financial services outsourcing provider with a Centre of Excellence based in Belfast.

Armed Forces personnel posted overseas will be able to rent out their homes without facing higher mortgage costs or having to change their mortgage the UK Government said today.

The latest figures reveal the European Investment Bank lent €7.77 billion to UK projects last year, an increase of 10% on 2014 investment.

Mervyn Storey MLA has been appointed as the new Finance and Personnel Minister. Mr Storey was previously Minister for Social Development from September 2014 to January 2016 and also served as Chair of the Education Committee.

Notz Stucki has over fifty years’ experience of selecting external portfolio managers, many of whom are among the best-known managers of their time. This experience has influenced the way the firm selects managers, employing deep knowledge of the industry as a whole, combined with an accumulation of data on many hundreds of individual managers. The emphasis is on diversifying risk across a range of managers using complementary styles, which include long/short equities, fixed income and macro strategies.