Cayman National Bank, together with its sister company Cayman National Trust Company, confirmed that it has experienced a data hack. Responsibility for the data theft was claimed on Sunday 17 November 2019 by the hacker or hackers known as Phineas Fisher, which is offering other hackers $100,000 to carry out politically motivated hacks. The bank reported it as soon as it was made aware and is in the process of notifying their customers of the data breach. It has also set up an email to deal with client inquiries.
“It is known that Cayman National Bank (Isle of Man) Limited was amongst a number of banks targeted and subject to the same hacking activity. A criminal investigation is ongoing and Cayman National is co-operating with the relevant law enforcement authorities to identify the perpetrators of the data theft. Cayman National takes any breach of data security very seriously and a specialist IT forensic investigation is underway, with appropriate actions being taken to ensure that the clients of Cayman National’s Isle of Man bank and trust companies are protected” the bank said in a statement.
The Isle of Man Financial Services Authority and Information Commissioner’s Office, along with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, have been informed and are working with Cayman National in the Isle of Man.
Any customers with questions in the meantime should email dataenquiry@caymannational.im. Periodic updates will also be available at www.caymannational.im
“Cayman National, along with virtually every other international banking group, is not immune from the constant attempts by hackers to gain access to confidential data”, stated Cayman National Bank (Isle of Man) Limited’s Managing Director, Nigel Gautrey. “In this instance, and despite the best efforts of leading data security consultants, this criminal hacking group has breached our system – although to date we have detected no evidence of financial loss to either our customers or Cayman National”.
Cayman National Bank (Isle of Man) Limited is a subsidiary of Cayman National Corporation Ltd (“CNC”). CNC, and its main banking subsidiary, Cayman National Bank Ltd. (“CNB”), are located in and operate from the Cayman Islands. All of Cayman National’s operations within the Cayman Islands, including CNB, are separate and distinct operations from the bank in Isle of Man. The two banks do not share common systems, databases, client information, or email platforms. CNC is confident that the theft is contained within Cayman National Bank (Isle of Man) Limited and Cayman National Trust Company (Isle of Man) Limited only, and does not affect CNB or any other operation in the Cayman Islands.
Pixabay CC0 Public Domain. Neuberger Berman crea un nuevo equipo de renta variable en Japón
Neuberger Berman announced its first Japan-based equities team, to be led by Keita Kubota, who joins as a Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager. The team will manage a “Japan Equity Engagement Strategy” seeking attractive returns through active engagement and constructive dialog with Japanese small/mid-cap companies in which the team invests. The strategy will be offered to both institutional and high-net-worth clients.
Kubota joins from Aberdeen Standard Investments, where he started his career over 13 years ago and most recently served as Deputy Head of Japan Equities. He was the investment director on Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Japan large cap strategy and small cap strategy, both of which were managed with an engagement strategy and offered to large institutional clients across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Two analysts, one of whom will specialize in ESG investing, will support Kubota. Naoto Saito, joined Neuberger Berman in September as a Senior Research Analyst and has a generalist focus. Saito previously served in research roles and covered a broad range of companies across the Japanese equity market at Balyasny Asset Management, CLSA Securities and T. Rowe Price. With diverse experience as well as deep knowledge in ESG engagement, the team will seek to generate additional value by offering insights and knowledge sharing on ESG investing with portfolio companies.
“We look forward to the further expansion of ESG investing in Japan as companies have increased their awareness of corporate governance and other material factors. We think encouraging Japanese companies to improve their ESG factors through our active engagement can generate superior returns. Mr. Kubota and his team are bottom-up stock pickers with a focus on in-depth proprietary research,” said Ryo Ohira, Head of Neuberger Berman East Asia. “They are active, long-term investors who engage deeply and frequently with company management. Most importantly, Mr. Kubota has helped deliver long-term performance for his clients – which is our firm’s mission.”
Neuberger Berman has been in Japan for 15 years and currently manages over $53 billion in client assets locally having grown from $13 billion in 2015. For largely an institutional client base, the firm manages fixed income, alternatives and equity portfolios. Neuberger Berman is recognized in Japan as a leader in the ESG investing space, reflected in the firm winning the first ever Tokyo Financial Award for ESG Investing.
“We’re happy to welcome Mr. Kubota and team and know they are a fit our firm’s culture and core strengths. The group expands our global platform, bringing another long-term market perspective with a focus on active/ESG engagement in Japan, the third largest equity market in the world. We look forward to their capabilities helping client globally,” said Joseph Amato, President and Chief Investment Officer, Neuberger Berman.
Pixabay CC0 Public Domain. J.P. Morgan lanza un fondo sobre terapias genéticas que aprovecha el aprendizaje automático
J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) is pleased to announce the launch of JPMorgan Funds – Thematics – Genetic Therapies in Europe, JPMAM’s first actively managed fund which combines both machine learning and active equity insights. The new fund leverages research carried out by UBS Global Wealth Management’s Chief Investment Office (UBS CIO) within its Longer Term Investments framework, and is being distributed by UBS initially.
Genetic therapies represent a once-in-a-generation breakthrough in the world of medicine. These treatments offer the hope of a cure for patients with serious inherited diseases, by modifying genetic information to address the underlying causes of disease. Today they are at an inflection point, moving from the clinic to commercial reality. This should generate high growth rates for companies operating in the space, and could prove highly disruptive for incumbent companies in the pharmaceutical industry if the technology proves to have wider applications. JPMAM’s Genetic Therapies fund provides the opportunity to investors to gain diversified exposure to this new and exciting theme, and can help to hedge the risk of disruption to existing healthcare portfolios.
The fund will be co-managed by Yazann Romahi, Berkan Sesen and Aijaz Hussein. The portfolio management team sit within JPMAM’s Quantitative Beta Strategies (QBS) team, a team that specializes in quantitative portfolio management and are experts in developing innovative machine learning based technology solutions. Several members of the team hold PhD’s in Artificial Intelligence.
The fund has been designed to combine the strength and reach of JPMAM’s proprietary thematic engine, ThemeBot, with the portfolio management and research capabilities of JPMAM’s global equity platform. ThemeBot can efficiently identify stocks exposed to a range of investment themes including genetic therapies.
Using natural language processing, ThemeBot will screen more than 10,000 stocks globally, rapidly analysing hundreds of millions of data sources, such as news articles, company profiles, research notes and regulatory filings to identify stocks with the highest exposure to the theme and generate a high relevance portfolio, accounting for liquidity, market capitalisation and profitability. The portfolio will invest across the market capitalisation spectrum and provide diversified exposure to both innovative pioneers and established healthcare players. ThemeBot dynamically ensures only the most relevant stocks based on textual and revenue metrics are flagged for inclusion in the portfolio.
Once ThemeBot has selected the stocks it thinks are most applicable to the genetic therapies theme, the QBS team will work with experienced industry career analysts from JPMAM’s global equity platform to vet and validate ThemeBot’s output, to ensure stocks most relevant to the theme secure a spot in the portfolio. The portfolio management team will have access to five dedicated healthcare analysts with an average experience of 19 years. Additionally, the portfolio managers will be able to call upon the expertise of JPMAM’s broader equity analyst community, made up of 51 sector specialists.
Yazann Romahi, Chief Investment Officer of Quantitative Beta Strategies at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said: “In seeking to create data driven portfolios which brings together human and artificial intelligence, we’re able to offer investors thematic solutions which enable them to tap into some of the central investment themes shaping our world today.”
Mark Haefele, Chief Investment Officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said: “Genetic therapies could develop into a profoundly disruptive technology for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Positioning portfolios to capture the economic benefits of disruption, while hedging or mitigating its effects on other assets, supports our goal to help our clients protect and grow their wealth over generations.”
George Gatch, CEO, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said: “We’re delighted to partner with UBS in developing this new fund. We’re deploying our best Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data capabilities combined with our global research expertise for this investment theme. Innovating jointly with our clients is an important priority for us.”
Christian Wiesendanger, Head of Investment Platforms and Solutions at UBS Global Wealth Management, said: “Developing new solutions with our partners is critical to implementing innovative ideas in clients’ portfolios. Machine learning is an exciting new tool for those looking to be at the cutting edge of investment management and will likely play a greater role in the years ahead.”
The fund’s C share class will have a Total Expense Ratio of 56 basis points.
Allfunds, the largest investment fund distribution network in Europe and a leading wealthtech platform, has successfully finalized the acquisition of the Nordic Fund Market (NFM), from Nasdaq. The acquisition was announced in March 2019 and has been pending regulatory approvals and customary procedures.
With this operation, Allfunds total assets under distribution (AUD) increase to more than €530 billion and further strengthens its presence in the Nordic region. The Nordic Fund Market client portfolio will boost Allfunds’ presence in the Nordics at the same time as benefiting existing NFM distributors and fund managers with added value solutions, increased efficiency and advanced technology. Current NFM distributors and fund managers will become part of Allfunds’ distribution network in the region which already compromise more than 20 entities in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Baltic countries.
Allfunds now has an established office in Stockholm which will provide services to the distributors and fund managers throughout the Nordic region. All employees working with NFM at Nasdaq in Stockholm were recruited, one being the former CEO of Nasdaq Broker Services Mattias Hammarqvist who is the Head of Allfunds Sweden.
“I am very excited that we, with new office will be able to leverage on the technology, services and benefits Allfunds global platform provides. It enables us to improve our offerings to current distributors and fund managers as well as to attract additional,“ said Mattias Hammarqvist, Head of Allfunds Sweden.
With the new office, distributors and fund managers are able to leverage the technology and know-how of experts in the region while accessing a cost-efficient way to distribute funds and reducing operational risk. This agreement and access to the global platform will benefit local financial institutions who can take advantage of the global scale and specialisation within Allfunds as well as to benefit from state-of-the-art technology and increased service offering to meet challenges in the industry.
Juan Alcaraz, CEO of Allfunds, said: “We are very excited to close this acquisition that allows us to increase our presence in the Nordics by bringing our leading fund and wealthtech platform to the region while strengthening our global position. The Nordic markets deserve a trusted and global B2B partner to boost and support local financial institutions. The integration of NFM’s business and infrastructure into our company and our solutions further enhances our innovative offering, disruptive and value-added services that will now be made available to Nordic entities and help them achieve their objectives.”
Foto cedidaOlga Kosters, directora de Private Debt Secondaries. Tikehau Capital ficha a Olga Kosters como nueva directora de Private Debt Secondaries
Tikehau Capital, an alternative asset management and investment group, appointed Olga Kosters as Head of Private Debt Secondaries.
Kosters’ role will be to launch the firm’s private debt secondaries business. She will be based in New York and report locally to Tim Grell, Head of Tikehau Capital North America, and to Cécile Mayer-Lévi, Head of Private Debt activity.
Olga Kosters (47) has twenty years of investment and structuring experience in private and public capital markets. Prior to joining Tikehau Capital Kosters advised large institutional investors on the US private credit strategies while at StepStone Global, and led the execution of corporate private debt strategy at Zurich Insurance Group. Prior to this Kosters has held several positions at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London.
“Over the last fifteen years Tikehau Capital has grown to become one of the most well-capitalised asset management firms globally and has developed a deep network of institutional investors and strategic partners. The firm keeps its focus on underwriting, and continues to invest a large portion of its own capital alongside its investors,” said Olga. “In a context of fast growth, the team has successfully maintained its entrepreneurial spirit and a strong set of core values. I am delighted to join the team to build the new private debt strategy.”
Cécile Mayer-Lévi, Head of Private Debt activity, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Olga to our team and expand our offer to the secondaries market in private debt. We see that this market is emerging and we believe it could develop significantly in the coming months.”
Kosters received an MBA in finance from Hofstra University, and is a CFA charterholder.
Pictet Asset Management plans to open an office in New York by mid-2020, according to Mutual Fund Wire, which cited Laurent Ramsey, CIO of the European firm, during an internal meeting. A Pictet spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comments from Funds Society.
In theory, Liz Dillon, Head of Sales for US Sub-Advisory and Intermediaries of Pictet, will leave her current residence in London to head the new office, where about 12 people would be employed.
The office will cover Pictet’s institutional, offshore and subadvisory businesses.
Pictet Asset Management is an independent asset manager, overseeing over USD 192 billion (CHF 191 billion/EUR 176 billion/GBP 156 billion as at 30th September 2019) for their clients across a range of equity, fixed income, alternative and multi asset products. They provide specialist investment services through segregated accounts and investment funds to some of the world’s largest pension funds, financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds, intermediaries and their clients.
Pixabay CC0 Public Domain. Scharf Investments lanza el primer fondo UCITS junto a iM Global Partner
iM Global Partner, a leading investment and development platform focused on acquiring strategic investments, and Scharf Investments, an investment firm providing high quality value investment strategies, have announced the launch of iM Scharf US Quality Value fund, the first collaborative UCITS fund between the two firms. The equity fund will seek to deliver compelling risk-adjusted absolute returns through a value-focused, fundamental, bottom-up approach.
The fund, which launched on September 12, 2019, will give investors outside of the US access to Scharf Investments’ expertise for the first time, facilitated by the unique business model of iM Global Partner who acquired a 40% interest in the California-based US equity value asset manager a few months ago.
iM Scharf US Quality Value Fund will be managed by Scharf’s experienced investment team, with a similar investment strategy to its core equity flagship product which has a proven track record spanning approximately 30 years. The investment team looks for securities trading at significant discounts to estimated fair value as a margin of safety and high earnings predictability. The fund is not publicly offered to all investors in all jurisdictions.
Brian Krawez, President of Scharf Investments, said: “We are delighted with the launch of our first UCITS fund with iM Global Partner. It is a great opportunity for Scharf Investments to reach new markets and new investors. We look forward to working with iM Global Partner as we continue to develop and refine our worldwide presence.”
Jose Castellano, Deputy CEO and Head of International Distribution at iM Global Partner, added: “Scharf Investments is a proven leader in value-oriented equity asset management and has an exceptional track-record. Their core equity flagship strategy outperformed the Russell 1000 Value and the S&P500 by 3.5%, with lower volatility*. Their entry into the UCITS fund market will allow broader access to Scharf Investments products for institutional investors and we are thrilled to support their expansion internationally.”
Scharf Investments is a California-based investment firm founded in 1983. Managed by Brian Krawez, President and Investment Committee Chairman, the company has grown from 5 people and under $700m of assets under management in 2007 to 22 people and $3.3bn of assets under management today.
Scharf Investments currently manages four distinct strategies:
A long-only US equity strategy, the firm’s core equity strategy on which the three other strategies are based
A long-only multi-asset strategy
A long/short hedged US equity strategy
A long-only global equity strategy
iM Global Partner, with its unique business model in Europe, has become a leading investment and development platform focused on acquiring strategic investments in best-in-class traditional and alternative investment firms in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Through the launch of this new UCITS fund, iM Global Partner continues its development as it pursues its dual objectives to both support its Partners with its management and distribution expertise and ensure investors have access to unique strategies that were not previously available.
iM Global Partner currently has strategic minority investments in five partners, including two outstanding complementary US large-cap equity managers with proven track records and a focus on downside protection.
Randall Caruso-Reynoso has joined Bolton Global Capital. Caruso was formerly with Morgan Stanley as a Senior Vice President since 2011 where he covered primarily Latin American clients. During his 17 years at Merrill Lynch International, he oversaw a book of ultra-high net worth clients, family offices, middle markets, and institutional clients in LatAm, MENA, and Western Europe. Caruso’s business plan is to transition his global book of clients to BNY Mellon Pershing as custodian on behalf of Bolton.
Prior to joining Merrill Lynch in 1994, his career focused on international commercial banking, corporate finance, and capital markets. Beginning in 1981, he worked at Citibank‘s operations in New York, London, Italy, and Spain. From 1989 to 1994 he worked at Bankers Trust in New York and Miami.
At Citibank he participated in various projects including a proprietary acquisition in Italy, the opening of the capital markets and currency exchange operations in Spain, the restructuring of a 75 branch bank in Italy purchased by Citibank, the establishment of the Southern European Fixed Income trading desk at Citicorp Investment Bank Ltd. in London. At the Bankers Trust International Private Bank, he covered markets in Mexico and was promoted to Manager of the Southern Cone Region. He was also the 1st Derivative Coordinator for Bankers Trust’s LATAM Private Bank.
In a phone interview, Caruso commented, “I have always been exposed to the management of capital, either for Central Banks at Citibank as a Cash Management Officer, for Pension Funds as an Advisor to their Investment Committees, or to Families as their Financial Planner. My team and I bring all these years of resources, experience and knowledge to our Global Client base by establishing our business here at Bolton.”
Caruso completed his degree in Economics at New York University, where he studied under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief. He has three children and now lives between Miami and his native New York City.
Pixabay CC0 Public Domain. Invertir en bonos globales en una época de tipos de interés negativos
What once would have been considered a strange anomaly may now be becoming the norm as yields on a growing proportion of the global bond markets turned negative throughout 2019. The escalating US-China trade conflict, fears of a global economic slowdown and the aggressive accommodative monetary policy response by central banks to those developments have accelerated this trend in the middle of 2019, according to Colchester Global Investors.
This environment has resulted in the market yield on approximately US$11 trillion of government debt falling below zero percent as at the end of August, 2019. This accounted for approximately 37% of the universe of outstanding government debt at that time. Some 40% of this amount was issued by the Government of Japan, and a further 14% and 12% by the French and German Governments respectively.
As a result of the extensive quantitative easing programs undertaken by central banks, collectively it is estimated that they now hold approximately 80% of all negative yielding debt. Whilst negative central bank policy rates and negative bond yields on sovereign debt had been observed for some time, this phenomenon has not been restricted to government bonds alone. In recent months yields on an increasing number of corporate bonds have also turned negative, new corporate debt has been issued at those levels and even negative rate mortgages have been offered in Denmark. While not as prevalent, such declines have resulted in the yield on approximately 7% (US$1 trillion) of the universe of global corporate investment grade debt also falling below zero percent.
Should investors hold negative-yielding bonds?
Given that negative yields imply an investor holding such a security to maturity will incur a loss (at least in nominal terms) does this imply that the ‘safe-haven’ characteristics of sovereign fixed income have been compromised? The evidence of the recent past would suggest not.
At Colchester they have observed that negative yields can become more negative in response to economic and political events and shifts in perceived risk levels. In other words, over the short term the returns to investors from ‘falling’ negative-yielding bonds may be positive as bond prices continue to appreciate. Indeed, many investors were surprised at the strength of the demand for safe-haven assets and the resulting size of the yield decline of already negatively yielding bonds during the most recent bout of risk aversion in the middle of 2019. For example, 10-year German Bund yields fell from -0.2% to -0.7% from mid-July to mid-August, returning +4.5% in USD hedged terms. Similarly, over the same period, 10-year Swedish bond yields fell from 0.1% to -0.4%, returning +3.0% in USD hedged terms.
This is not to argue that negative yielding bonds will always deliver positive returns, but simply highlights that the diversifying return characteristics of sovereign bonds still holds true in a negative interest rate world. Returns on a negative yielding bond may be positive or negative over the short term, just as they may be on a positive nominal yielding bond.
How is Colchester managing portfolios in the current environment?
Colchester continues to see the sovereign fixed income asset class as providing desirable diversification characteristics and specifically a negative correlation to risk assets. They believe that the events of mid 2019 suggest that despite the increasing prevalence of negative yields, this characteristic remains intact in the face of rising uncertainty and increased risk aversion. “The slowdown in global money and credit growth through 2017 and 2018 is likely to contain inflation in the near term and limit any large increase in bond yields. This benign environment is likely to be broadly supportive of bond prices and minimise the ‘cost’ of diversification insurance that may prove useful if the global economy, trade disputes or risk assets take a turn for the worse”.
Nonetheless at Colchester they are trying to limit their exposure to negative nominal yielding markets. “Instead we are skewing our portfolios towards markets that are offering positive real yields, that preferably also offer a positive nominal yield. Such markets are currently limited within the G10 or ‘traditional’ bond markets. It is tempting in such an environment to reach for yield by moving down the credit curve into subordinated or high yield debt, increasing exposure to emerging markets, or supplementing returns with an array of structured products. However, as all have a higher correlation with equity and other growth assets, this reduces the diversification benefit of holding bonds. Accordingly, we seek to build bond portfolios that not only offer higher relative real yields and attractive risk characteristics, but also maintain the diversifying integrity of a traditional bond market allocation. Therefore, while we are willing to add limited exposure to some non-traditional markets such as Singapore or Mexico, to benefit from their potentially higher real yields on offer and to offset some of the ‘insurance premium cost’, such exposure is limited to protect the diversification characteristics that most investors are looking for from their traditional sovereign bond allocations”.
Today their global bond portfolios are materially overweight versus benchmark those markets where they observe the most attractive prospective real yields. “Markets such as Norway, Singapore and Mexico, where both real and nominal yields are positive, feature in our portfolios. In contrast, the strategy is very underweight the euro area where both real and nominal yields are negative and our portfolios hold no exposure to German, French or Dutch bonds where yields are lowest. The strategy does however hold some exposure to negative nominal-yielding bonds, mostly in Japan. The Japanese market offers materially more attractive relative real yields than the core of Europe once we factor in the low level of projected inflation. Furthermore, the market exhibits very low levels of volatility. As we are looking to construct portfolios that in aggregate offer a balance between value (or expected return), liquidity and negative correlation to risk assets, it should be no surprise that despite their negative nominal yields, Japanese bonds have a role to play”.
MaxPixel CC0. Una economía fuerte, con un desempleo muy bajo y una Fed acomodaticia aceleran la actividad de fusiones y adquisiciones
While we are bottom-up stock pickers (and not stock market prognosticators or macro traders), we do note that despite the strong rally in the market so far this year, we continue to find many opportunities of stocks trading at significant discounts to our estimate of Private Market Value. Many of these are so-called “value” stocks including consumer staples, media and industrial companies.
The economy continues to be strong, with very low unemployment and now an accommodating Federal Reserve. This has led to ripe conditions for accelerating M&A activity, which, along with financial engineering, can cause undervalued stocks to close the valuation gap with over business values as Buffet and others typically describe.
Stocks have rallied into November first setting record highs as a solid October jobs report, improving China trade talks, easy central bank monetary policies, and the December UK election date agreement all fueled the advance.
After the FOMC statement release on October 30, Chairman Powell gave his assessment of the effect of recent rate reductions on the current state of the economy: “You are seeing strong durable goods sales. You are seeing housing now contributing to growth for the first time in a while. And you are seeing retail sales”…”More broadly, monetary policy is also supporting household spending and home buying by keeping the labor market strong, keeping workers incomes rising, and keeping consumer confidence at high levels.” Translation – rate pause. This all has benefits for the economy and value investing.
That said, it has seemed before that we are on the precipice of a trade deal with China, only to learn we are no closer and/or more tariffs are coming. So we wait and watch macroeconomic and political events closely, and seek a portfolio of companies that can withstand whatever economic conditions are before us. Furthermore, as we enter 2020 the market will surely be looking ahead to the November US Presidential election, with the market and specific sectors reacting accordingly which could help fuel further momentum for value stocks.
As always, we seek to buy high quality businesses trading at a discount to Private Market Value with Catalysts present to surface value.
Column by Gabelli Funds, written by Michael Gabelli
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To access our proprietary value investment methodology, and dedicated merger arbitrage portfolio we offer the following UCITS Funds in each discipline:
GAMCO MERGER ARBITRAGE
GAMCO Merger Arbitrage UCITS Fund, launched in October 2011, is an open-end fund incorporated in Luxembourg and compliant with UCITS regulation. The team, dedicated strategy, and record dates back to 1985. The objective of the GAMCO Merger Arbitrage Fund is to achieve long-term capital growth by investing primarily in announced equity merger and acquisition transactions while maintaining a diversified portfolio. The Fund utilizes a highly specialized investment approach designed principally to profit from the successful completion of proposed mergers, takeovers, tender offers, leveraged buyouts and other types of corporate reorganizations. Analyzes and continuously monitors each pending transaction for potential risk, including: regulatory, terms, financing, and shareholder approval.
Merger investments are a highly liquid, non-market correlated, proven and consistent alternative to traditional fixed income and equity securities. Merger returns are dependent on deal spreads. Deal spreads are a function of time, deal risk premium, and interest rates. Returns are thus correlated to interest rate changes over the medium term and not the broader equity market. The prospect of rising rates would imply higher returns on mergers as spreads widen to compensate arbitrageurs. As bond markets decline (interest rates rise), merger returns should improve as capital allocation decisions adjust to the changes in the costs of capital.
Broad Market volatility can lead to widening of spreads in merger positions, coupled with our well-researched merger portfolios, offer the potential for enhanced IRRs through dynamic position sizing. Daily price volatility fluctuations coupled with less proprietary capital (the Volcker rule) in the U.S. have contributed to improving merger spreads and thus, overall returns. Thus our fund is well positioned as a cash substitute or fixed income alternative.
Our objectives are to compound and preserve wealth over time, while remaining non-correlated to the broad global markets. We created our first dedicated merger fund 32 years ago. Since then, our merger performance has grown client assets at an annualized rate of approximately 10.7% gross and 7.6% net since 1985. Today, we manage assets on behalf of institutional and high net worth clients globally in a variety of fund structures and mandates.
Class I USD – LU0687944552
Class I EUR – LU0687944396
Class A USD – LU0687943745
Class A EUR – LU0687943661
Class R USD – LU1453360825
Class R EUR – LU1453361476
GAMCO ALL CAP VALUE
The GAMCO All Cap Value UCITS Fund launched in May, 2015 utilizes Gabelli’s its proprietary PMV with a Catalyst™ investment methodology, which has been in place since 1977. The Fund seeks absolute returns through event driven value investing. Our methodology centers around fundamental, research-driven, value based investing with a focus on asset values, cash flows and identifiable catalysts to maximize returns independent of market direction. The fund draws on the experience of its global portfolio team and 35+ value research analysts.
GAMCO is an active, bottom-up, value investor, and seeks to achieve real capital appreciation (relative to inflation) over the long term regardless of market cycles. Our value-oriented stock selection process is based on the fundamental investment principles first articulated in 1934 by Graham and Dodd, the founders of modern security analysis, and further augmented by Mario Gabelli in 1977 with his introduction of the concepts of Private Market Value (PMV) with a Catalyst™ into equity analysis. PMV with a Catalyst™ is our unique research methodology that focuses on individual stock selection by identifying firms selling below intrinsic value with a reasonable probability of realizing their PMV’s which we define as the price a strategic or financial acquirer would be willing to pay for the entire enterprise. The fundamental valuation factors utilized to evaluate securities prior to inclusion/exclusion into the portfolio, our research driven approach views fundamental analysis as a three pronged approach: free cash flow (earnings before, interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, minus the capital expenditures necessary to grow/maintain the business); earnings per share trends; and private market value (PMV), which encompasses on and off balance sheet assets and liabilities. Our team arrives at a PMV valuation by a rigorous assessment of fundamentals from publicly available information and judgement gained from meeting management, covering all size companies globally and our comprehensive, accumulated knowledge of a variety of sectors. We then identify businesses for the portfolio possessing the proper margin of safety and research variables from our deep research universe.
Class I USD – LU1216601648
Class I EUR – LU1216601564
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Class A EUR – LU1216600673
Class R USD – LU1453359900
Class R EUR – LU1453360155
Disclaimer:
The information and any opinions have been obtained from or are based on sources believed to be reliable but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. No responsibility can be accepted for any consequential loss arising from the use of this information. The information is expressed at its date and is issued only to and directed only at those individuals who are permitted to receive such information in accordance with the applicable statutes. In some countries the distribution of this publication may be restricted. It is your responsibility to find out what those restrictions are and observe them.
Some of the statements in this presentation may contain or be based on forward looking statements, forecasts, estimates, projections, targets, or prognosis (“forward looking statements”), which reflect the manager’s current view of future events, economic developments and financial performance. Such forward looking statements are typically indicated by the use of words which express an estimate, expectation, belief, target or forecast. Such forward looking statements are based on an assessment of historical economic data, on the experience and current plans of the investment manager and/or certain advisors of the manager, and on the indicated sources. These forward looking statements contain no representation or warranty of whatever kind that such future events will occur or that they will occur as described herein, or that such results will be achieved by the fund or the investments of the fund, as the occurrence of these events and the results of the fund are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The actual portfolio, and thus results, of the fund may differ substantially from those assumed in the forward looking statements. The manager and its affiliates will not undertake to update or review the forward looking statements contained in this presentation, whether as result of new information or any future event or otherwise.
Should investors hold negative-yielding bonds?