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Brief : In the annals of financial crises, perhaps there is no better predictor of impending doom than when financial regulators start loosening regulations. Throughout history, they have shown a remarkably consistent tendency to ease up during economic booms, facilitating reckless lending and asset bubbles. Then they crack down after the inevitable crises ensue, starving households and businesses of credit when they need it the most. Last year, in response to the economic devastation wrought by COVID-19, regulators wisely broke that mold. As the economy went into freefall, they gave banks flexibility to deal with distressed borrowers and allowed them to dip into capital buffers to expand lending capacity. But now, with recovery at hand, the economy is flashing warning signs of over-heating: accelerating consumer price inflation; ever-rising equity, commodity, and home prices; and irrational speculation (Dogecoin, meme stocks). In this environment, one would hope regulators would see the wisdom of tightening standards. Unfortunately, the Fed’s leadership seems to be headed in the opposite direction.
Brief: After more than a year of near-empty skyscrapers and virtual conferences, the City of London is hoping the U.K. government’s latest lockdown guidance next week will help kickstart a more widespread return to the office. Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have told U.K.-based staff that workers should ready themselves for a gradual return to office from later this month. Those plans could change if Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces an extension of the remaining lockdown restrictions in England on Monday. Even if Johnson unlocks, those hoping for a speedy return to pre-pandemic norms may be disappointed. The scale of any return is unlikely to be consistent across the same firm, let alone the broader industry, according to estimates of foot traffic levels since the onset of the pandemic by data platform Orbital Insight. If you’re a trader or an investment banker, you’re more likely to soon find yourself commuting in -- if you haven’t already returned. But other areas of finance may stay quieter. Foot traffic levels in the main London offices of Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, which have a substantial proportion of traders and investment bankers among their headcount, were estimated on average to be about a fifth of the pre-pandemic norm as of May 24, according to Orbital’s analysis, which monitors activity levels through satellites and mobile phone data.
Brief: A positive repercussion of Covid-19 has been the massive uptick in the interest in healthy activities and healthy living. Exercise equipment sales in the UK have spiked 5,800 percent during the pandemic, while corporate wellbeing investments, ranging from free gym memberships through to mental health and general wellness services, are on the rise too. It’s not all been positive though. The NHS and private practitioners found themselves unprepared for remote and digital servicing when the lockdown restrictions were first introduced. As the vaccine roll out continues and the light at the end of the tunnel shines just that little bit brighter, it’s never been more important to consider what’s driving demand in healthcare and what a sustainable, winning approach may be. Whether it is focusing on preventative care as the preferred prescription, or the changing needs of an ever-increasing elderly population, investors need to be aware. National lockdowns, health panics and homeworking created an overnight shift in demand for remote and digital servicing. The healthcare sector, however, was one of the least prepared, with both the NHS and private care providers rushing to find workable digital solutions.
Brief: Brokers’ satisfaction with their mortgage lenders has grown 2.5 percentage points since the end of last year. Satisfaction now sits at 80.3 per cent, compared with 77.8 per cent six months ago. The last 12 months have seen the broker-lender market endeavour to recover from the strain put on its relationships by the pandemic. “Lenders were making significant changes to their product criteria and taking far longer than usual to process cases because of the need to tackle the application backlog that had emerged,” Craig Hall, Legal & General Mortgage Club’s broker relationships head, told FTAdviser. Pre-pandemic, broker-lender satisfaction levels were at 82.70 per cent, according to data from Smart Money People. The research is based on 597 mortgage brokers’ responses concerning 44 mortgage lenders. “I don’t think anyone was happy with lenders early in the pandemic,” said Chris Sykes, associate director and mortgage consultant at Private Finance.
Brief: For at least a year even before the pandemic, investors were alarmed about a possible bubble forming in private credit, an asset class that barely existed until a decade ago when banks stepped back from lending to smaller and riskier businesses. They were right to be concerned: In the years after the financial crisis, investors committed billions to private credit, scores of new asset managers entered the business to meet the demand, and competition for deals became manic. With the pandemic, the asset class got its first real test. While there were bumps in the road, including a big downdraft in publicly traded business development companies, the sector emerged in good shape. “All through 2019, there was lots of chatter about private debt. Everyone was piling on, saying, ‘Wait until the first credit event and then we’ll see what happens.’ But the industry held up well,” said Art Penn, founder of PennantPark Investment Advisers. Before founding PennantPark, Penn was, among other things, chief operating officer of Apollo Investment Corp, Apollo’s business development company, and was managing partner of Apollo Value Fund, a distressed fund.
Brief: Most hedge fund managers have taken action to protect their firm’s data from external attacks. However, there is a growing recognition of the importance of shielding the firm from risks which can breed within the firm itself, and also protecting data in transit particularly in the hybrid working environment most of the world currently finds itself in. “In a hybrid working environment it is important to use tools not only to protect users and data, but also to ultimately safeguard the firm,” highlights George Ralph, Global Managing Director & CRO at RFA. “Understanding the way data is being used by people within a firm is critical to protect against potential internal bad actors.” For example, when the data arrives at the endpoint, firms need to know how that data is being used and kept secure by the user. “There are several questions managers need to consider, such as – Should the user be able to send the data on? Is there is two factor authentication process in place to access the data? Should the data be sent as a read only file or so that the document expires after a certain amount of time?” Having a detailed understanding of the answers to these questions will help outline a robust data management strategy.
Brief : Goldman Sachs Group Inc. set a deadline of noon Thursday for employees to report their vaccination status. The requirement, detailed in a memo sent to employees and seen by Bloomberg News, is the latest in a series of steps Wall Street is taking to return operations to normal after most of the industry’s employees spent more than a year working from home because of the pandemic. Banks reaped record profits even as top executives fretted over the shift. Goldman Chief Executive Officer David Solomon has for months signaled his eagerness to end the arrangement. “This is not ideal for us and it’s not a new normal,” Solomon said at a conference in February. “It’s an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.” Private equity firms Carlyle Group Inc. and Warburg Pincus have already told employees they’ll require Covid-19 vaccinations to return to the office in September. Employers may demand vaccines under federal law, according to guidance provided last month by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Workers can ask for exceptions for religious or medical reasons.
Brief: Despite a year of economic uncertainty, financial assets, including stocks, bonds, and other investment funds, globally reached a record $250 trillion in 2020, according to a report by BCG released on Thursday. An additional $235 trillion was in real assets, led by real estate ownership, making up 48 percent of total global wealth. Contrary to analysts’ projections, the total all-time high of financial wealth rose by 8.3 percent over the previous year, due largely to robust stock market performance and increased savings by individuals. The result: More wealth directed toward investment funds, private equity, private debt and real estate, among others. The capital into equities and investment funds rose 11.5% in 2020, according to BCG. Real assets tend to make up the bulk of wealth in developing countries, where capital markets are still in their infancy. “Over the next five years, however, a combination of greater financial inclusion and growing capital market sophistication will change the wealth composition in growth markets,” according to the report. “In Asia, for example, financial asset growth is likely to exceed real asset growth (7.9 percent versus 6.7 percent).
Brief: The economy represented by the Group of 20 leading industrial and developing nations returned to its pre-pandemic level in the first quarter albeit with differences across the bloc. The G-20 area’s gross domestic product grew 0.8% from the previous quarter, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported on Thursday. India, Turkey, China, Australia, South Korea and Brazil are now all back at the levels of output seen before the coronavirus struck. But, the U.S., Italy and South Africa were among those still falling short, with the U.K. and Italy recording the largest gaps. The analysis suggests most economies still have a way to go in recovering the ground lost to last year’s recession even though the recovery in demand has been stronger than most economists anticipated. The World Bank this week raised its outlook for global growth, while warning emerging and developing nations will continue to struggle.
Brief: U.S. Representative Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) warns the trillions of dollars spent to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic will add to the U.S. national debt and threaten the country's economic future. "You've got to take all this emergency spending and take it out of the regular budget," Brady told Yahoo Finance Live. President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law in March. Then in April, he proposed a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill called the American Jobs Plan along with another bill, the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan Biden's proposed federal budget would make some of the COVID-19 pandemic era spending permanent. That would increase government expenditures $6 trillion dollars over 10 years. Biden proposes to pay for it by raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. The budget proposal posted online by the White House says the increased spending and increased taxes would pay off. "The American Families Plan makes permanent the American Rescue Plan’s expansion of premium tax credits and makes a historic investment to improve maternal health and mortality."
Brief: Clean balance sheets and higher commodity prices could help EM companies become the biggest beneficiaries of the recovery when "cities reopen and aeroplanes fill up again", say Frank Carroll and Janet Wang, portfolio managers at Oaktree Capital Management. We believe global stock markets have reached an inflection point: value may finally be dethroning growth. Record-low interest rates and a surge in passive investing helped high-growth stocks outperform equities in traditional value sectors for much of the past decade. And the Covid-19 pandemic only widened this performance gap. But in the last few months, investors have begun rotating away from stocks trading at high multiples toward cheaper, value-oriented names that are more sensitive to the economy’s health. We believe emerging markets offer an attractive entry point for those looking to join this shift toward value. This rotation stems from investors’ expectations of a broad global economic rebound. While the pandemic is far from over, the rollout of vaccines has injected optimism into the world economy. We believe inflation, reflation and a rebound in economic activity are likely as lockdowns lift, cities fully reopen, planes fill up, and more workers return to offices.
Brief: Private equity investors pumped a record $62 billion into Indian companies last year, according to Bain & Company’s India Private Equity Report 2021. Nearly 40 percent of this inflow came through $26.5 billion worth of investments made in Reliance Industries’ subsidiaries Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail. Excluding the Reliance transactions, the total deal value fell by 20 percent in 2020 (YoY). That’s because large volume deals of more than $100 million slumped by 25 percent. As the pandemic put a stop to all economic activity in the first half of the year, private equity investments too tapered off. However, the second half of the year saw a surge in investments as investor confidence returned. Thus, the number of deals went up by 5 percent from 1,053 in 2019 to 1,106 in 2020. Last year, healthcare saw the highest growth of 60 percent (YoY). However, consumer tech and IT/ITES were the clear favourites, becoming the largest sectors in terms of investment value, according to the report. The virus outbreak moved the world from offline to online and created a large base of digital-friendly and health-conscious users. This led to a deal surge in business for edtech, fintech, verticalized e-commerce and foodtech with big-ticket investments in Byju’s, Zomato, and FirstCry and many more.
Brief : Projected spending by U.S. financial institutions on financial crime compliance shot up by one-third to $35.2 billion in 2020 compared to the previous year, in part due to "increased due diligence times and costs" brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report that surveyed more than 1,000 compliance professionals globally. The $8.8 billion jump from 2019's $26.4 billion projected figure was the second-highest increase of any country, behind only Germany, which added $9.6 billion to its expected tally for the year, according to the report from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The report shows that virtually all regions of the world experienced sizable year-over-year percentage increases, with the global total across all financial institutions jumping to $213.9 billion in 2020 from $180.9 billion in 2019. "In large part what we're seeing is the effects of COVID-19 and what that's done to shape the regulatory environment and the desire [of companies] to have the right amount of scrutiny in a timely manner," Leslie Bailey, vice president of financial crime compliance for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, told Law360. Labor costs in the U.S. were a main driver of the upticks, accounting for 60% of the total spend in 2020 compared to 54% in 2019. The surge in labor costs could be attributed to additional contracting or entry-level hiring to address increased alert volumes and risks during COVID-19, the report notes.
Brief: Fund inflows slowed in May after the flood of new capital that poured in during March and April, according to the latest Fund Flow Index (FFI) from Calastone, the world’s largest funds network. Even so, inflows to equity funds reached GBP2.2 billion, their eighth best in any month on Calastone’s record, and more than twice the monthly average over the last year. Investors are showing a particular preference for emerging market funds. They saw the second-highest inflow on record in May (GBP256 million), worth roughly one percent of the segment’s funds under management in a single month. By value, global funds saw the biggest inflows (GBP1.25 billion), their fourth-best month, but as the largest fund category this was a much smaller addition relative to funds under management than for emerging markets. Nervousness about a third Covid wave and about potential delays to lockdown easing in the UK dampened enthusiasm for UK-focused equity funds, however. Flows for the month overall were still positive to the tune of GBP147 million, but this was a sharp reduction compared to March and April (+GBP907 million between them). From 11th May onwards, net flows even turned negative as the UK news darkened with an acceleration in infection levels. European funds remained in the doghouse too with just GBP31m of inflows, a rounding error in the context of GBP1.7 billion of combined buy and sell orders.
Brief: The European Central Bank is expected to leave its stimulus efforts running at full steam Thursday — even as the economy shows signs of recovery thanks to the easing of pandemic restrictions. And that could present a challenge for ECB head Christine Lagarde. She faces a balancing act: acknowledging improving economic data without triggering a premature market reaction that anticipates the eventual reduction in central bank support for the economy. Any talk of a stimulus taper could mean higher borrowing costs for companies — the last thing the ECB wants right now. “Even if economic developments would in our view clearly justify at least having a first tapering discussion, the sheer mention of such a discussion could push up bond yields further and consequently undermine the economic recovery before it has actually started,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING bank. The central bank for the 19 countries that use the shared euro currency has been purchasing around 85 billion euros per month in government and corporate bonds as part of a 1.85 trillion euro ($2.25 trillion) effort slated to run at least through early next year. The purchases drive up the prices of bonds and drives down their interest yields, since price and yield move in opposite directions. That influences longer-term borrowing costs throughout the economy, sending them lower.
Brief: Investors have withdrawn £800m from M&G’s property portfolio and feeder fund since they re-opened for dealing on May 10. According to data from Morningstar, £789m was withdrawn from the main fund in the past four weeks. This was met by the fund's liquidity, which has been supported by some recent sales. The property fund’s value was around £2.1bn before the re-opening. At the time, the fund’s authorised corporate director and its depositary said the fund’s cash weighting was 33 per cent, which translates to about £709m. The fund had a further £253m of assets which were exchanged or under offer, which have all now sold, and it can generate a further £73m from investments held in a REIT, which can be sold down quickly to generate further cash. During the fund’s gating, around 38 properties were unloaded at a combined -0.1 per cent discount to net asset value, which reduced the portfolio’s exposure to retail from 38.4 per cent to 28.1 per cent and pushed it overweight industrials. The fund continues to target 20 per cent liquidity. M&G Investments did not want to comment on fund flows outside of reporting periods but said they have been consistent with expectations.
Brief: During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, one asset proved to be a better safe haven than gold: green bonds. Climate-friendly debt served as a better protection against large market fluctuations than gold, as well as performing better than other environmental, social, and governance investments, according to new research from Imran Yousaf of Pakistan’s Air University, Muhammed Tahir Suleman of the University of Otago in New Zealand, and Riza Demirer of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. In the paper, the trio argued that green bonds were the “preferable safe haven” investment for passive investors hoping to defend their portfolios against the “uncertainty” of the pandemic. Conventional stock portfolios that included green bonds saw the highest risk-adjusted returns during the pandemic when compared against equity portfolios supplemented by gold and other ESG assets, the researchers found. In a market downturn like the one seen at the onset of the pandemic, non-risky assets are few and far between. Investors often turn to gold as a familiar, if weak, safe haven asset — but green investments may be able to fill that role, according to the study.
Brief : Hedge funds are stacking up gains this year as shuttered economies continue to unlock, with the industry navigating volatility and inflation to score its best January-to-May performance in two-and-a-half decades. Hedge Fund Research’s main Fund Weighted Composite index – which tracks the investment performance of more than 1400 single-manager hedge funds across all strategy types – grew 1.7 per cent in May. That rise – which brought year-to-date returns up to the end of May to almost 10 per cent – was the eighth successive monthly gain for the index. In the trailing eight-month period, the FWC grouping surged 21.9 per cent, the third strongest such period on record. It was also the biggest January-to-May advance since 1996, when the benchmark gained more than 12 per cent over the same five-month period. The across-the-board gains for strategies of all stripes and sizes comes despite rising volatility in stock markets and increased inflationary pressures, said HFR president Kenneth Heinz. Managers are currently navigating this environment with an emphasis and focus on inflation/interest rate sensitivity and equity volatility management. Equity hedge funds’ overall performance has edged into double-digit territory on a year-to-date basis, with May’s 1.48 per cent gain putting the sector up 11.26 per cent in 2021. Energy and commodities-focused managers led the way, with successful oil market calls bringing monthly gains of some 3 per cent, and year-to-date returns up more than 18 per cent.
Brief: The World Bank is upgrading the outlook for global growth this year, predicting that COVID-19 vaccinations and massive government stimulus in rich countries will power the fastest worldwide expansion in nearly five decades. In its latest Global Economic Prospects report, out Tuesday, the 189-country anti-poverty agency forecasts that the world economy will grow 5.6% this year, up from the 4.1% it forecast in January. The global economy last year shrank 3.5% as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted trade and forced businesses to close and people to stay home. The projected expansion would make 2021 the fastest year of growth since 1973’s 6.6%. But the 2021 rebound will be uneven, the bank predicts, led by rich countries such as the United States that could afford to spend vast amounts of taxpayer money to support their economies: 90% of advanced economies are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels next year -- measured by income per person -- versus just a third of developing countries. The World Bank is calling for wider distribution of COVID vaccines to low-income countries, where inoculations have gone slowly.
Brief: As Manhattan slowly springs to life again, with Wall Street’s biggest firms pushing traders and bankers back into the office, the scene some 350 miles to the northwest, where North America’s No. 2 financial center lies, is vastly different. Toronto’s Bay Street is quiet, laid low by successive waves of COVID-19. Union Station, normally one of the continent’s busiest commuter hubs, is largely deserted, even in rush hour. It will get busier as the crisis eases but the financial district, most here agree, has undergone a change that is likely permanent. Unlike on Wall Street, where the likes of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s David Solomon talk excitedly about filling offices back up, top Bay Street executives seem to be in no hurry to end remote work. If anything, they rave about how surprisingly efficient and profitable the arrangement has been. And some acknowledge that their employees have little desire to return to the office five days a week. In one recent comment that captured the mindset in C-suites across the city, James O’Sullivan, the head of fund manager IGM Financial Inc., spoke of a “new normal” where many employees spend part of their workweek at home. Manulife Financial Corp. Chief Executive Officer Roy Gori says remote work has been “incredibly” effective and the global insurer will continue to allow some of it when the pandemic is over.
Brief: The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted just over half of advised UK adults to move into the sustainable investing space, according to a report by Prudential. While the trend is common across generations, millennials led the way, with 60% taking up sustainable investing, followed by 44% of generation X and 35% of the baby boom generation. Catriona McInally, investment expert at Prudential UK, said: “With £5.5 trillion (€6.4 trillion) in personal wealth due to be passed to the next generation by 2047, the role intergenerational planning advice played, prior to the pandemic, was already a significant one. Yet the crisis has reframed financial priorities. Not just for those later in life with IHT [inheritance tax] liabilities, but for all generations.” Research for the report was carried out by Opinium, which surveyed 1,000 advised families across the UK. The study looked at intergenerational planning and wealth transfer between advised families amid the financial volatility and insecurity of the pandemic. It found that over 60% now care more about the environment and the planet than they did pre-pandemic.
Brief: After a tumultuous year brought on by the pandemic, the real estate market is showing some signs of recovery — albeit slowly, with sharp contrasts between sectors. On the whole: In 2020, the aggregate capital raised by North America-focused private real estate funds fell 26 percent from 2019, according to a Preqin U.S. real estate markets report published on Monday. For 2021, data gathered to April showed the total value of private equity real estate deals was equivalent to nearly 30 percent of last year’s total; though there may be an uptick during the latter half of the year, according to the report. The country’s residential real estate sector has seen the most activity so far this year, totaling $17 billion in deals during the first four months of 2021 — partly due to the shift to remote working with people migrating to warmer and less expensive cities. The new homeworking trends, including the shift to less urban areas, are “already shaping investor demand and city rankings in terms of invested capital.” Some pension funds have already raised their target real estate allocation in the past year. As companies introduce hybrid working options — where employees can work from home for part of the week — flexible working could continue to drive location decisions. The eventual return to the office will require less space and therefore produce a smaller demand for office real estate, according to the report.
Brief : Carlyle Group Inc. and Warburg Pincus told employees they’ll require Covid-19 vaccinations to return to the office in September. Carlyle, a private-equity firm that oversees $260 billion of assets, and Warburg, with $60 billion, told U.S. employees of the policy in recent days, according to people familiar with the plans. They’re among the first financial-services companies to demand that employees get vaccinated in order to work in the office. A Carlyle spokeswoman confirmed the information, announced last week at a town hall meeting, and Warburg declined to comment. Warburg has told employees that accommodations can be made for those who don’t get the shots, said a person familiar with internal communications. Carlyle said at its town hall that getting the vaccine was not a condition for remaining employed. Employers may demand vaccines and request proof under federal law, according to guidance provided last week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Workers can ask for exceptions for religious or medical reasons. Most companies have opted to encourage rather than demand that staff get vaccines, offering to lift mask or testing requirements. About 20% of employers are mandating them in order to return to the office, according to a Morning Consult poll of 1,070 working adults conducted for Bloomberg News at the end of May.
Brief: The hedge fund and alternative investment sectors now have a vital role to play in boosting UK growth and innovation as the country recovers from the economic impact from Covid-19 and readjusts to life outside the EU, the Alternative Investment Management Association and Alternative Credit Council have said. AIMA, the global hedge fund industry trade body, and its private credit affiliate the ACC, have published a new policy paper setting out how, in practical terms, the industry can support the UK government’s goals in increasing economic growth, boosting productivity and levelling up across the UK. The policy objectives, which cover regulation, tax, pensions and real economy financing, are aimed at freeing up capital and creating new jobs, AIMA said. The industry trade group believes that maintaining the UK’s attractiveness for investment managers and their investors in a post-Brexit and Covid-19 landscape would support the UK’s economic prosperity.
Brief: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas entered an order granting the CFTC’s motion for default judgment against defendant James Frederick Walsh of Boca Raton, Florida. The order finds that Walsh failed to answer the CFTC’s complaint charging him with fraud and failure to register with the CFTC. Walsh’s fraudulent solicitations include falsely claiming to generate increased forex trading profits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the first enforcement action brought by the CFTC alleging misconduct tied directly to the COVID-19 pandemic. The order requires Walsh to pay a civil monetary penalty of $555,726 and permanently enjoins him from engaging in conduct that violates the Commodity Exchange Act, from registering with the CFTC, and from trading in any CFTC-regulated markets. The complaint alleged that from at least September 2019 to the July 2020, Walsh fraudulently solicited members of the public for the purported purpose of trading retail foreign currency (forex) on their behalves.
Brief: The Covid-19 pandemic brought digital health and wellness into the mainstream — and it’s made the retail health and wellness tech industry an increasingly attractive target for venture capitalists. Digitized health and wellness investment activity hit a peak in 2020, generating $7.3 billion in venture capital deal value across 449 deals, according to PitchBook. The industry started off the new year strong, as well: In the first quarter of 2021, industry deal value hit a quarterly record of $4.2 billion across 153 deals, PitchBook said in a first quarter report on emerging technology investments. PitchBook researchers attributed the strong 2020 dealmaking to the pandemic and the increased development and usage of telemedicine products. By 2025, the research firm expects the mobile and digital segment of the health and wellness tech market to reach between $350 billion and $400 billion, a meteoric projection from a less than $50 billion market size in 2019. “Virtual health companies benefited from the pandemic as rules hindering the use of telemedicine were repealed, payers increased telehealth coverage, and laws preventing ‘noncritical’ in-person appointments forced providers to conduct appointments remotely,” PitchBook said in the report.
Brief: Most advisers are positive about business prospects over the next 12 months with the majority (81%) predicting their level of net assets under management will increase over the coming year, according to a survey from Quilter Financial Planning. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed (62%) said they expected their gross turnover to increase during the next 12 months compared to the year just gone, and the research found 5% were fearful it would decrease "significantly". Advisers were also bullish on new client business with 63% predicting a rise in new fee-paying clients and a further quarter (23%) saying they expect client numbers to remain stable. In addition, advisers were fairly confident on the outlook for the British economy with a weighted average score of 7.0 out of 10, Quilter FP said, with those surveyed believing it would encourage clients to seek advice and make investments. Quilter FP managing director Gemma Harle said: "After a difficult year and a half the outlook is looking much brighter for the UK and the economy, so it's pleasing to see this now being reflected in advisers' predictions for the future. "Although the threat of variants still looms, the successful vaccine programme has revealed a future we had not dared to dream about just a few months ago."
Brief: As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, alternative asset managers are seeing strong growth across key metrics — including fundraising, assets, and fee-related earnings — with the trend expected to continue. According to Moody’s first quarter report on U.S. alternative asset managers, released this week, total fundraising for the four largest publicly traded managers — Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR — during the quarter rose to $67.3 billion, a 22 percent increase from the same time a year ago, while total assets under management climbed 36 percent over the same period. Of these, KKR had the strongest growth, more than doubling its capital raising to $14.6 billion, followed by Apollo, which saw a jump of 84 percent, raising $13.4 billion. It also added $73 billion in assets due to acquisitions by its insurance partners Athene and Athora. Net performance revenues increased by about 82 percent for the four firms, due to strong financial markets and improved economic conditions. A large part of the revenue growth is linked to the industry gravitating more toward a recurring fee structure, including partnerships with insurance companies, as opposed to realized performance fees, which are less predictable.
Brief : One of the big themes of the last year has been that almost everyone has been too pessimistic about the economy and corporate fundamentals. The easiest way to see this is by looking at an economic “surprise index” which attempts to gauge the degree to which the data is beating or missing economists’ forecasts. It’s not a gauge of absolute strength but of relative strength. For about a year now, the Citi Economic Surprise Index for the U.S. has been in positive territory. That means this whole time, despite all the stories about the rebound, and the strength of the recovery and the powerful impact of the fiscal response, economists have been too pessimistic. Only very recently in the middle of May did the white line drop ever so slightly below zero, indicating reality more or less meeting expectations. But now it’s already on the rise again as you can see at the end of the chart. Just today we got better-than-expected ADP labor data, initial jobless claims, Markit PMI, and ISM services. They all beat. Not by huge amounts, but it was across the board.
Brief: LeapFrog Investments, a with Purpose investment firm, reached 221 million people in 35 countries with essential services during the pandemic, according to its Annual Impact Results. Together, LeapFrog’s investee companies were able to reach 16 million more people compared to 2019, at a time when support was profoundly needed. They provided underserved communities with access to a range of healthcare and financial services, including insurance, remittances, diagnostics and telemedicine. At the same time, LeapFrog achieved a 22 per cent uptick in the value of its portfolios over 2020. Across the past decade, LeapFrog companies have grown revenue on average at 26 per cent a year, consistently delivering on the firm’s strategy of Profit with Purpose. Eight in ten, or 174 million, of those reached by LeapFrog companies across Asia and Africa are emerging consumers, defined by The World Bank as living on less than USD10 per day. Over half, or 119 million, are women and girls. Financial services proved a lifeline during the pandemic for families and businesses. LeapFrog’s insurance companies, for example, paid claims totalling USD629 million, an increase of 37 per cent.
Brief: The wave of U.S. municipal-bond distress set off by the pandemic is still spreading even as the economy recovers from the devastation of the outbreak. Eight muni borrowers became distressed last week, lifting this year’s tally to 76, according to Municipal Market Analytics. That puts 2021 on track to exceed almost every year since 2012 in terms of impairments. Only 2020, when the coronavirus caused some of the worst market turmoil on record, was worse. The isolated cases of deterioration in certain smaller, typically lower-rated or unrated issuers stand at odds with the optimism in statehouses nationwide, which have been buoyed by strong tax revenue and federal stimulus. It’s been a banner year for munis, with tax-exempt yields near record lows relative to those on Treasuries. Any defaults have mostly been confined to a corner of the market where businesses borrow through government agencies. “While credit conditions are clearly better than at this time last year, they are by no means fully corrected,” Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics, wrote in a Wednesday note.
Brief: A year after the Covid-19 market crash, endowments, foundations, and aggressive risk takers have experienced the strongest recoveries, according to outsourced chief investment officers whose clients include major investors across fund types. Out of all outsourced investments tracked by the Alpha Nasdaq OCIO Broad Market Index, endowment and foundation portfolios “came roaring back” with a trailing one-year average net-of-fee returns at 35.8 percent, said Brad Alford, founder of Alpha Capital Management. The “aggressive asset allocation index,” an index that factors in OCIO strategies with a 0 to 20 percent allocation to risk-mitigating asset classes, touted the strongest performance with a 46.3 percent trailing one-year return. The Alpha-Nasdaq indices started in 2019 and aggregate responses from anonymous OCIOs that “represent the broad OCIO market” and “appropriately reflect the nuances across sub-categories, such as plan type and risk profile,” according to this quarter’s report. Index numbers are calculated using reported data from OCIO respondents. In order to be included in the indices, respondents must work with a fund that manages $50 million or more in assets under management. OCIO contributors include J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Verger Capital Management, and NEPC, among others.
Brief: Hedge funds saw USD19.1 billion in new assets flow into the industry in March. Coupled with a USD28.5 billion monthly trading profit, total hedge fund industry assets rose to more than USD4.07 trillion as March ended, a new record high, according to data released by BarclayHedge. Most hedge fund sectors experienced net inflows in March. Fixed Income funds set the pace adding USD6.9 billion to assets, while Sector Specific funds brought in USD5.8 billion, Emerging Markets – Asia funds saw USD5.6 billion in inflows, Event Driven funds took in USD3.0 billion and Multi-Strategy funds added USD2.9 billion. Notable among sectors shedding assets during the month were Emerging Markets Global funds with USD3.8 billion in redemptions, Equity Long Bias funds with USD3.3 billion in outflows and Macro Funds with USD1.7 billion in redemptions. “Easing of lockdown restrictions, optimistic economic forecasts, rising equity and commodity prices and President Biden’s USD1.9 trillion pandemic recovery plan buoyed investors’ optimism,” said Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge. “The last time that hedge funds had a losing month was October 2020 when the Barclay Hedge Fund Index declined -0.11 per cent.”
Brief: Most hedge funds plan to let their employees work remotely at least one day a week starting in September -- a more flexible approach than Wall Street banks that are already summoning staff back to the office. What many senior managers aren’t saying openly is that such accommodations may not last. A May survey from the Managed Funds Association, whose members include mostly hedge funds with at least $1 billion of assets, found that 80% of firms would offer some sort of hybrid model starting in September. The most popular schedule is three days a week in the office, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays, the trade group said, without providing the percentage of firms signaling a preference for that arrangement. The schedule reflects that “firms understand their workforce wants and needs more flexibility as they migrate back to the office,” said Brooke Harlow, the association’s chief commercial officer. Yet a more nuanced picture emerges from conversations with hedge fund managers, many of whom declined to discuss their plans publicly.
Brief : BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said that investors may be underestimating the potential for a spike in inflation. “Most people haven’t had a forty-plus year career, and they’ve only seen declining inflation over the last 30-plus years,” Fink said at a virtual event hosted by Deutsche Bank AG on Wednesday. “So this is going to be a pretty big shock.” Concern about higher inflation has already seeped into U.S. markets with the cost of goods including lumber and steel rising this year. Fink began his career at First Boston Corp. in 1976, in a period of elevated inflation. The U.S. Consumer Price Index touched a high of 14.8% in March 1980. Fink, who now runs the world’s biggest asset manager, added that central banks may have to reassess their policies if higher prices become a concern. The Federal Reserve has committed to keep rates near zero in the near term and has indicated it will tolerate inflation above its 2% target to make up for the period where it dipped below that level. If the Fed were to reconsider that, it could seem discordant with separate fiscal stimulus, Fink said. President Joe Biden has proposed additional measures to stimulate the U.S. economy, including a $1.7 trillion infrastructure spending plan.
Brief: Even as the remote-work era clouds the future for offices, one segment of the business is drawing cash from investors including Blackstone Group Inc. and KKR & Co. More than $10 billion has gone toward buying buildings used for life sciences and other research this year, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc. That accounted for approximately 4% of all global commercial real estate transactions through May, double the share from last year. That estimate doesn’t count new construction, and fresh buildings are breaking ground in U.S. cities including Boston, San Diego and San Francisco -- many without having signed major tenants. Unlike workers in conventional offices, many scientists don’t work remotely. And as vaccines help fuel the economic rebound, funding for medical innovations is expected to drive the need for more space, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. “The pandemic only amplified the demand growth, but it’s a trend we think will continue for years,” Nadeem Meghji, Blackstone’s head of real estate Americas, said in an interview. “This is about, broadly, advances in drug discovery, advances in biology and a greater need given an aging population.” Last year, as social-distancing emptied out office buildings and damped investor interest in malls and hotels, life science building sales and refinancing totaled about $25 billion, up from roughly $9 billion in 2019, according to Eastdil Secured.
Brief: “The Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) highlighted the importance of GPs having deep sector knowledge, expertise and awareness in the sectors they invest in,” Alice Langley, Partner, Investor Relations, IK Investment Partners comments. “With significant uncertainty around the long-term effects of the pandemic on the global economy and businesses alike, having a comprehensive understanding of what recovery might look like for businesses within a specific sector, will stand GPs in good stead. “Having this level of data and insight enables firms to utilise any opportunities as well as mitigate risks by building this into their value creation plans. At IK, we invest across four main sectors; Business Services, Healthcare, Consumer and Industrials. Having deemed this as a sensible approach for many years, Covid-19 simply supported our thesis of investing in businesses within non-cyclical industries.” The pandemic also forced an acceleration of digitisation as the new normal saw GPs and LPs move to remote working and virtual due diligence. Langley notes: “I anticipate digitalisation to be high on the priority list for PE firms with the aim of harnessing technology to streamline operations for themselves and their portfolio companies.
Brief: European Union countries will continue to benefit from an economic safety net through next year to help their economies recover from the damage inflicted by coronavirus restrictions, the EU’s executive branch said Wednesday. As COVID-19 spread throughout Europe and sent the EU spiraling toward its deepest recession, the European Commission activated a “general escape clause” in March 2020 that allowed member nations to deviate from normal budgetary rules. But with vaccination programs now taking hold and the number of new coronavirus cases dropping, the commission predicts the EU economy will expand by 4.2% in 2021 and by 4.4% in 2022. Given the positive trend, Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said that “we are prolonging the general escape clause in 2022, with a view to deactivating it in 2023.” Dombrovskis said the decision comes “with our recovery around the corner but with the road ahead still paved with unknowns. We will therefore continue to use all tools to get our economies back on track.”
Brief: The Covid-19 pandemic will cause a “sustained and pronounced increase in unemployment” with low- and middle-income countries that have lagged behind in vaccinations suffering the biggest blow, according to the International Labor Organization. The ILO fears not enough jobs will be created to accommodate those who lost employment as a result of Covid-19, plus new labor-market entrants. The global shortfall is estimated to be 75 million this year, and 23 million in 2022. “Projected employment growth will be too weak to provide sufficient employment opportunities for those who became inactive or unemployed during the pandemic and for younger cohorts entering the labor market,” the ILO said. “Many previously inactive workers will enter the labor force but will not be able to find employment.” The Geneva-based body’s prediction is the latest evidence that the pandemic has reversed years of progressive gains to welfare around the world. Not only has unemployment risen in many countries despite furlough programs to help firms retain staff, but the headline rate masks the extent of the damage. Many people, particularly women and the young, have left the labor market and aren’t being counted. In addition, schooling has been disrupted in many places due to the need to stem spread of the disease. The ILO estimated that those jobs that are created are likely to be lower quality, with the problem most severe in poorer countries with large informal economies.
Brief: Across the globe, consumers’ desires are shifting — and that has implications for investors. A decrease in the consumption of basic goods, like food and personal hygiene products, may present new opportunities for investors in emerging markets, according to a recent paper from investment firm Polen Capital. “We believe the investment opportunities in emerging markets are hard to overstate,” portfolio manager Damian Bird and analyst Pamela Macedo wrote in the paper. “A McKinsey study estimates that by 2025 consumers in emerging markets will spend an estimated USD 30 trillion annually, a future it calls ‘the biggest opportunity in the history of capitalism.’”For their study, Bird and Macedo compiled macroeconomic and industry-specific data from global industries over the past 20 years. They first noted a shift away from the “classic consumer product S-curve,” a visualization that illustrates historical trends of consumers in early-stage developing economies. According to that model, consumers at first tend to purchase low levels of consumer products. However, as a country’s economy grows and individuals acquire more wealth, consumption of consumer products starts to slowly increase, gaining speed as the country’s economy expands.
Brief : Once ideas about how to manage the economy become entrenched, it can take generations to dislodge them. Something big usually has to happen to jolt policy onto a different track. Something like Covid-19. In 2020, when the pandemic hit and economies around the world went into lockdown, policymakers effectively short-circuited the business cycle without thinking twice. In the U.S. in particular, a blitz of public spending pulled the economy out of the deepest slump on record—faster than almost anyone expected—and put it on the verge of a boom. The result could be a tectonic transformation of economic theory and practice. The Great Recession that followed the crash of 2008 had already triggered a rethink. But the overall approach—the framework in place since President Ronald Reagan and Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker steered U.S. economic policy in the 1980s—emerged relatively intact. Roughly speaking, that approach placed a priority on curbing inflation and managing the pace of economic growth by adjusting the cost of private borrowing rather than by spending public money. The pandemic cast those conventions aside around the world. In the new economics, fiscal policy took over from monetary policy. Governments channeled cash directly to households and businesses and ran up record budget deficits.
Brief: Investment professionals think equities have recovered too quickly – possibly due to a disconnect between capital markets and economics. Monetary stimulus measures could be the cause of the disconnect, a senior CFA Institute figure said. The findings were from a CFA Institute survey of members. However, members believed that a correction could be up to three years away. The survey found that 45% of over 6,000 global respondents expressed the view that equities in their respective markets had recovered too quickly and that they expected a correction within the next one to three years. CFA Institute will present its finding in an upcoming report called ‘Covid-19, One Year Later – Capital Markets Entering Uncharted Waters’. Paul Andrews, managing director of research, advocacy and standards at CFA Institute, said: “It is interesting to see the survey results telling us that respondents believe that equities have recovered too quickly, as it could show that CFA Institute members believe there is a disconnect between economic growth fundamentals and capital markets caused in part by monetary stimulus, which could be corrected in a not-too-distant future of less than three years.
Brief: With the U.S. labor market likely to bounce back strongly this summer from a surprisingly tepid April showing, the risks of an overheating economy remain on the rise. "I do think there is a very good chance it [economy] will overheat," said Jefferies Chief Financial Economist Aneta Markowska on Yahoo Finance Live. "I expect us to reach a roughly 3% unemployment rate by the end of next year." As Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung explains in the latest edition of Yahoo U, there is no official economic definition for economic overheating. But one oft-cited indicator of overheating is inflation, or rising prices. To be sure, there are numerous telltale signs of that happening in the economy currently. The core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index increased faster than expected, up 3.1% in April, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Federal Reserve officials view the index as among the best indicators of pricing pressure in the economy. The Fed believes 2% inflation is a healthy level. On the other hand, the April Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose at the fastest pace since September 2008, clocking in with a 4.2% increase versus a year ago. And as Yahoo Finance's Sam Ro notes in the Morning Brief newsletter, consumer expectations on inflation are on an upswing.
Brief: The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a circular today urging licensed corporations to review their business continuity plan and consider Covid-19 vaccination as a critical part of operational risk management. In this connection, they should identify functions that are critical to their business operations and client interests and to encourage staff performing such critical functions to get vaccinated. “A higher vaccination rate in the community will accelerate a return to normality and strengthen the resiliency of the financial services industry. Licensed corporations should strongly encourage their staff, especially critical support staff and those who are client-facing to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” the SFC’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ashley Alder said. The SFC also advised licensed corporations to consider suitable arrangements for critical staff who have not yet been vaccinated or are unfit for vaccination due to medical conditions to undergo periodic Covid-19 testing.
Brief: Manhattan’s supply of office space has reached a fresh record even as leasing picks up. The availability rate rose for a 12th consecutive month in May to 17%, according to Colliers. Since the pandemic started last March, the amount of space up for grabs jumped 70% to a total of 92 million square feet (8.5 million square meters). There are signs that demand is turning a corner. Leasing climbed 8% from last May, while average asking rents ticked up 0.4% to $73.26 a square foot. After more than a year of empty skyscrapers, Manhattan’s office market is slowly coming back to life as social-distancing restrictions ease. Roughly 18% of office workers in the New York metro area were back at their desks as of May 26, according to data from Kastle Systems. Companies including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Facebook Inc. are preparing for a broader return this summer. Offices listed for subleasing represented 23% of total availability, the lowest share since July, according to Colliers. Even so, the amount of sublease space is 75% more than in March 2020.
Brief : The global economic rebound from the pandemic has picked up speed but remains uneven across countries and faces multiple headwinds. Most worrisome: the lack of vaccines in poorer nations, which could lead to new virus variants and more stop-and-go lockdowns. Those were key points from the latest economic outlook published Monday by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD said that relief and stimulus measures in the more developed world had done much to get the economy through the pandemic recession and back on the path of growth. It forecast global output would rise 5.8%, raising its forecast from 4.8% during its previous outlook in December. This year's predicted rebound follows last year's contraction of 3.5%, and would be the fastest since 1973. The U.S. economy was expected to grow 6.9%, upgraded from a previously forecast 6.5%. The OECD cited wide-ranging support from government spending on additional unemployment benefits, financial assistance for local governments and support for low-income households.
Brief: Even as the coronavirus knocked markets and sent most money managers' assets under management sliding in March and April of 2020, the industry bounced back quickly. In 2020, growth managers came out on top in a big way, U.S. passive strategies continued to pull in assets, outcome-oriented investing fared well as factor investing floundered and ESG continued to grow at an impressive clip. Pensions & Investments annual survey of the largest managers found that global institutional assets under management of nearly 500 money managers grew 10.8% over the year ended Dec. 31 to $54.17 trillion. Overall, total worldwide assets for surveyed managers was $82.45 trillion, up 10.1% for the year and 53% for the five-year period ended Dec. 31. The gains for the year include a dismal first quarter — P&I previously reported that the AUM of 89 of the 100 largest managers declined by 10.4% during the quarter ended March 31, 2020. In terms of the big winners, BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. remained the largest managers in terms of total global AUM, but Fidelity Investments Inc. and State Street Global Advisors swapped positions from the prior year, with Fidelity moving up to third place and SSGA moving down to fourth.
Brief: In April, the Biden administration announced plans to share millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses with the world by the end of June. Five weeks later, nations around the globe are still waiting — with growing impatience — to learn where the vaccines will go and how they will be distributed. To President Joe Biden, the doses represent a modern-day “arsenal of democracy,” serving as the ultimate carrot for America’s partners abroad, but also as a necessary tool for global health, capable of saving millions of lives and returning a semblance of normalcy to friends and foes alike. The central question for Biden: What share of doses should be provided to those who need it most, and how many should be reserved for U.S. partners? The answer, so far at least, appears to be that the administration will provide the bulk of the doses to COVAX, the U.N.-backed global vaccine sharing program meant to meet the needs of lower income countries. While the percentage is not yet finalized, it would mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging COVAX effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries. The Biden administration is considering reserving about a fourth of the doses for the U.S. to dispense directly to individual nations of its choice.
Brief: India’s economy expanded faster than expected last quarter before a resurgent coronavirus pandemic unleashed a new wave of challenges. Gross domestic product rose 1.6% from a year earlier in the three months ended March, the Statistics Ministry said Monday. That was faster than the 1% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The number marks the second straight quarter of expansion following a rare recession, which tipped the economy into an unprecedented 7.3% contraction for the full fiscal year ended March. That compares with a median 7.5% decline estimated in a Bloomberg survey. Stocks jumped 1%, the biggest advance in 10 days, before the GDP numbers were published. The yield on the benchmark 10-year government bond rose two basis points to 6.02%, while the rupee slipped 0.2% ahead of the data. While pent-up demand for everything from mobile phones to cars revived consumption in Asia’s third-largest economy after it reopened last year from one of the strictest lockdowns that lasted more than two months, India’s status now as the global virus hotspot could hurt those prospects. It could temper what will be the fastest pace of growth among major economies this year.
Brief: The pandemic has made cryptocurrencies more attractive, according to a recent survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit . As more people stayed indoors to curb the spread of the virus, they found themselves with more time on their hands, while flush with multiple rounds of stimulus money from the government. Data from the Economist Intelligence Unit showed 46% of people surveyed found the case for owing cryptocurrencies more compelling due to covid-19. "It's a function of continued demand across both retail and institutions," Mathew McDermott, managing director and global head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, was quoted saying in the study. He added: "Given the huge amount of stimulus we're seeing across countries because of covid-19 and low-interest rates, it's the right place at the right time for companies to offer the ability for people to buy, hold, and use digital currencies and have digital wallets." The first part of the study surveyed 3,053 people in February and March from developed economies - US, UK, France, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore - as well as developing countries including Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, South Africa, and the Philippines.
Brief: Canadian private equity giant Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is set to buy two properties in and around the City of London, the Times reported. Plantation Place, an 18-story building that houses the offices of Accenture UK Ltd. and Aspen Insurance UK Ltd, is being sold for 635 million pounds ($901 million), and Milton Gate, a glass-fronted office block, for 215 million pounds, according to the Times. The U.K. government’s work-from-home guidance is still in force, which has kept footfall in central London to only a fraction of pre-pandemic levels. That in turn has depressed investment in London offices by 53% in the first four months of 2021, the Times says citing real-estate agent Savills.
Brief : Credit Suisse Group AG is temporarily barring clients from withdrawing all their cash from a fund that invests with Renaissance Technologies after the strategy tanked and investors rushed to exit. The bank has invoked a so-called hold back clause, after assets in the CS Renaissance Alternative Access Fund slumped to about $250 million this month from approximately $700 million at the start of 2020, according to people with knowledge of the matter. While investors will receive 95% of their redemption requests after two months, the remaining 5% is expected to be paid out in January, after the fund’s year-end audit, the people said. The fund lost about 32% last year, in line with the decline in the Renaissance Institutional Diversified Alpha Fund International fund that it invests into, the people said. Renaissance, regarded as one of the most successful quant investing firms in the world, was rocked by billions of dollars in redemptions earlier this year after unprecedented losses in 2020. Three of its funds open to external investors fell by double digits last year. Credit Suisse and Renaissance declined to comment.
Brief: As COVID-19 ravaged the world last year, CEOs’ big pay packages seemed to be under as much threat as everything else.Fortunately for those CEOs, many had boards of directors willing to see the pandemic as an extraordinary event beyond their control. Across the country, boards made changes to the intricate formulas that determine their CEOs’ pay — and other moves — that helped make up for losses created by the crisis. As a result, pay packages rose yet again last year for the CEOs of the biggest companies, even though the pandemic sent the economy to its worst quarter on record and slashed corporate profits around the world. The median pay package for a CEO at an S&P 500 company hit $12.7 million in 2020, according to data analyzed by Equilar for The Associated Press. That means half the CEOs in the survey made more, and half made less. It’s 5% more than the median pay for that same group of CEOs in 2019 and an acceleration from the 4.1% climb in last year’s survey. At Advance Auto Parts, CEO Tom Greco’s pay for 2020 was in line to take a hit because of a mountain of pandemic-related costs. Extended sick-pay benefits and expenses for hand sanitizer and other safety equipment totaling $60 million dragged on two key measurements that help set his performance pay.
Brief: Most of the women running the biggest U.S. companies saw their pay increase last year, even as the pandemic hammered the economy and many of their businesses. Despite those gains, however, the median pay for female chief executives actually fell in 2020. Already a small group, they saw several high-profile women leave their ranks last year. That means changes in pay for only a few helped skew the overall figures, highlighting just how slow diversity has been to catch on in Corporate America’s corner offices. Of the 342 CEOs in the AP’s and Equilar’s compensation survey of S&P 500 companies, only 16 were women. That’s down from 20 a year earlier, as CEOs like IBM’s Virginia Rometty left their posts. The survey includes only CEOs who have served at least two full fiscal years at their companies, in order to avoid the distortions of big sign-on bonuses. The companies must have filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30. The majority of female CEOs in this year’s survey saw a raise in compensation: 81% of them (13 of 16), versus 60% of all male CEOs in the survey. But Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good saw a nearly 3% decline in compensation to $14.3 million. She’s right in the middle of the pay scale among the survey’s women CEOs, so that helped set the median pay for them last year at $13.6 million. Median means half made more than that level, and half made less.
Brief: Investors poured another +USD12.47 billion into hedge funds in April, bringing year to date (YTD) inflows to +USD28.81 billion, according to the just-released April 2021 eVestment Hedge Fund Asset Flows Report. Overall hedge fund business AUM stood at USD3.525 trillion at the end of April, according to the new report. “There were several strong underlying metrics behind the net inflow number in April,” says eVestment Global Head of Research and report author Peter Laurelli. “While net inflows alone would seem to be a positive sign, that is not always the case. In April, however, the data just looked good.” Laurelli notes there was a high proportion of reporting managers with net inflows (57 per cent) and the proportion of managers who lost large amounts of AUM during the month – 2 per cent or 5 per cent of AUM – was relatively small at just 15 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. Additionally, the overall volume of net asset movement was relatively low, just 1.9 per cent of AUM. “This means money wasn’t swirling around wildly during the month, but rather it was just a fairly steady allocation period,” he says. Multi-Strategy hedge funds were big asset winners in April, pulling in +USD4.34 billion, bringing YTD inflows to +USD15.55 billion. April marked the sixth month in the last seven these funds have seen positive flow figures.
Brief: Britain and the rest of the world's largest nations are on the verge of agreeing to the biggest global tax reforms for a century, the UK's Daily Mail is reporting today (28 May). An agreement from the G7 group of nations - which also includes the US, Japan and Germany - could be reached as early as 4 June when finance ministers meet in London. The rate of corporation tax in the UK is 19% but this is set to rise to 25% by 2023. The countries are also expected to agree to keep business tax rates above 15%. The deal will force companies to pay tax in the countries where their consumers spend their money, rather than shift them overseas, with some claiming the changes could shift £70bn of tax globally.
Brief: The Covid-19 pandemic impacted every area of our lives, forcing investment professionals to react to ever-changing circumstances. Much has been written about the volatile financial markets and the hectic days of trading over the past 14 months, but now we’re heading into the post-pandemic world. With people across the globe getting vaccinated against this deadly virus, we are wondering, What is the new normal for asset allocators? In particular, how will due diligence evolve? Will it return to its 2019 state — or did the pandemic permanently alter how asset managers get hired? Like everyone else, asset allocators have spent countless hours using Zoom and other videoconferencing tools since the pandemic began. Adapting to the extra screen time proved challenging and definitely caused more than a few impediments to comprehensively completing due diligence. “Pre-pandemic the allocator really drove the meetings,” says Shana Orczyk Sissel, CIO of registered investment adviser Spotlight Asset Group. “In a Zoom setting the manager has much more control in access and creating the image they want.”
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