In other FinTech news, the CFTC will release delayed market data reports, CACEIS to help firm with MMF rules, CME has an FX first, and Pico has a new COO.
Firm Taps Northern Trust for UCITS Support
An investment management firm based in Abu Dhabi, AD Global Investors, will be using the asset servicing and trading solutions from Northern Trust to provide “an extensive range of to support its four new UCITS funds,” officials say. This is the second time that the firm will be working with Northern Trust.
The funds in question are: AD Global Emerging Market Debt Local Currency, AD Global Emerging Market Debt Hard Currency, AD Global MENA Fixed Income and AD Global Sukuk, which launched in January 2019, officials say.
“Northern Trust has been appointed to assist AD Global Investors with fixed income execution services, a first for Northern Trust’s capital market’s business in the region,” officials say. “Northern Trust will act as the sole broker and provide AD Global Investors with foreign exchange, fund administration and custody support.”
“Northern Trust is well known by the team at AD Global Investors and we are delighted to be working with them again,” says David Rothon, CEO of AD Global Investors, in a prepared statement. “Having relationship management coverage in both Abu Dhabi and Dublin was an important factor for us and we look forward to working with Northern Trust for many years to come.”
AD Global Investors was founded in 2018 and is a subsidiary company of Invest AD (Abu Dhabi Investment Company), officials say. The Abu Dhabi Investment Company, trading as Invest AD, is a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. AD Global Investors is an institutionally focused investment management firm offering fixed income investment products for emerging market debt (local and hard currency), including dedicated Middle East & North Africa (MENA) products in conventional bonds and sukuk.
AD Global Investors is headquartered in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the offshore financial center of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and is regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FRSA) of ADGM.
CFTC Sets New Dates for Delayed Market Data Reports
Following the end of the federal government shutdown, the CFTC Market Intelligence Branch of the Division of Market Oversight has announced an updated release schedule for CFTC market data reports delayed during the lapse in appropriations, officials say
“The goal of the new report schedule is to provide market participants with data as quickly as possible, given the agency’s resource constraints,” officials add.
During the shutdown, the CFTC suspended publication of the weekly Commitments of Traders report (COT), the weekly Cotton On Call report (COC), and the monthly Bank Participation Report (BPR). “As the agency resumes its normal operations, the CFTC will start publishing these reports again with the schedule below. Any changes to these dates will be announced on CFTC’s website,” officials add.
The updates for the following are:
- COT: The last COT report was published on December 21, 2018. Reports going forward from that date will be published in chronological order beginning with the report previously scheduled for release on Friday, December 28, 2018 (based on data from Monday, Dec. 24, 2018). The CFTC expects to publish this report on Friday, Feb. 1, 2019. After this, the CFTC expects to publish one report on Tuesday and another on Friday of each week until the reports are current as per the normal schedule.
- COC: The last COC report was published on December 20, 2018. Reports going forward from that date will be published in chronological order beginning with the report previously scheduled for release on Thursday, December 27, 2018 (based on data from Friday, December 21, 2018), according to the CFTC, which expects to publish this report on Thursday, January 31, 2019. After this, the CFTC expects to publish one report on Monday and another on Thursday of each week until the reports are current as per the normal schedule.
- BPR: The January 2019 BPR was not published. The CFTC expects to publish this report on Friday, February 8, 2019. The CFTC expects that the report scheduled to be published on February 8 will now be published on February 22, officials say.
“Beginning with the March report, we expect these reports will be published as normal,” according to the CFTC.
CACEIS to Help Ostrum Meet MMF Regulation
Paris-based Ostrum Asset Management, which spotlights its management of more than €265 billion ($303.3 billion) for institutional clients, retail investors and external distributors, also highlights its employment of CACEIS, the asset servicing group of France’s Crédit Agricole bank, to bring its money market funds into compliance with the European MMF regulation, according to a CACEIS statement.
The regulation “requires changes at various levels, including the valuation methods of financial instruments held in money market funds, regulatory and contractual ratios, and financial statements,” per the statement.
“CACEIS has enabled all of our money market funds to comply with the new constraints well before the deadline of 21st January 2019,” Simon Logeay, Ostrum’s head of market risk, says in the statement.
CACEIS tallies assets under custody of €2.7 trillion and assets under administration of €1.8 trillion (as of the end of 2017).
CME Group Clears First FX Cash-Settled Forwards
CME Group, a derivatives and futures marketplace based in Chicago, reports that Citi and Eaton Vance Management have begun clearing foreign exchange (FX) cash-settled forwards at CME.
“Forwards,” or forward contracts, are simply agreements to buy or to sell an asset in the future at a price determined at the present time.
CME notes that it cleared two Euro-U.S. dollar trades on Jan. 15, 2019.
“This first cash-settled trade, combined with the recent increase in our non-deliverable forward clearing volume in late 2018, allows us to work with our clients, clearing members and liquidity providers to help customers mitigate their risks through cleared solutions,” Sean Tully, CME group global head of financial and over-the-counter (OTC) products, says in a statement.
Pico Fills Chief Operating Officer Post
Pico, an infrastructure, connectivity, data and cloud technology provider to the financial services industry, reports the appointment of Jason Emerson as chief operating officer (COO).
He is a financial services and operational veteran, Pico says, most recently serving as chief financial officer (CFO) of Dynasty Financial Partners and, before that, COO at Convergex.
Prior to Dynasty Financial and Convergex, he worked as CFO at GAIN Capital; COO, global execution services, at Knight Capital Group; and director, operational risk management, at Instinet, per Pico.
Pico’s former COO, Marc Hineman, now becomes its chief administrative officer.
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