Q3-2017 Swiss-Asia Communication
9th October 2017
Q3-2017 Swiss-Asia Communication - Swiss-Asia Holding Pte Ltd
Written by Steve Knabl, COO & Managing Partner
Reading Time: 5 Minutes
Q3 SYNOPSIS - Q3-2017 was an eventful quarter for Swiss-Asia. We held our Hong Kong Capital Introduction event at the China Club and this was followed by the Hong Kong Fundies event at the Armani Prive.
Over 100 guests attended our 16th edition of The Fundies in Hong Kong ! We would like to thank our sponsors for their support – #Hublot, #Dynamo Software, #Arthur Bell, #Campbells, # KGI Securities Singapore Pte Ltd. - Futures & Forex and #Apvera.
The Fundies has been one of the best industry networking events the last 5 years. We’ll continue that trend going into 2018 with more events in Hong Kong and Singapore. Our next one on Nov 15th will be held at The Senso Restaurant on Club St. More details will be released in the coming days.
We also launched 3 Funds in Q3 and expect to launch another 3 within Q4. All in all a very busy quarter and Q4 is also looking to be quite eventful.
FUND PERFORMANCE SNAPSHOT
While Swiss-Asia’s funds experienced a mixed month in September as Macro funds generally took a hit while long only strategies did fairly well. Despite a mixed September, they are all heading into Q4 with strong Q3 and YTD numbers.
Prulev and Salmon Global end Q3 up roughly 26.30% and 8.42% (YTD) respectively. AVM Global continued its run of consistent positive returns for the past 10months, up 15.02% (YTD).
Sunspur Global and Shanti IndiAsean each have YTD returns of over 15%, making long only strategies among our top performers so far in 2017. Heritage Global, another long only is up roughly 11.86% (YTD). Wrapping up our update is Ddraig Equity Fund, which ends Q3 up roughly 12.43% (YTD). (Figures shown below are based on preliminary NAV estimates, as of 30 September 2017)
FUND PLATFORM DEVELOPMENTS
INCLUSIF VALUE FUND - 3rd July 2017. The Inclusif Value Fund seeks to achieve capital appreciation over the long term primarily through investing in a long-only value focused portfolio consisting of global equities.
The Portfolio Manager, Teh Hooi Ling is a CFA Charterholder and holds a Master of Science Degree in Applied Finance from National University of Singapore. She spent the first two and a half decades of her career as a student of the markets. Her astute and insightful observations were recorded in a widely followed weekly column in Singapore’s Business Times. The weekly columns have been compiled into eight bestselling books. Through her years of research and study of the markets, Hooi Ling arrived at a process-driven style of investing that has shown a high probability of delivering consistent returns. The Deputy Portfolio Manager Seng Hong Lau is assisting in stock analysis and portfolio construction. He has 22 years of working experience, of which 17 years are in equities investment. His last position was as a Senior Investment Manager with a large Asian family office. Prior to that he was an Investment Analyst with a bank. Seng Hong graduated with a First Class Honours in Social Science from NUS, majoring in Economics.
FUND ONE - 3rd July 2017. The Fund analyses macro data on a global range of assets and markets. Using statistical analysis and complex algorithms. It profits from short-term moves in the currency, commodity, bond and equity markets. The Fund One principals are Clint Maddock and Christophe Delorme. Clint Maddock is an Australian national with over a decade of experience in trading complex derivative products. He studied Aerospace Engineering at the Australian Defence Force Academy before transferring to the University of New South Wales where he completed a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (First Class Honours). He started his career at IMC in Sydney, an international derivatives trading house, while completing a Master of Commerce specializing in funds management. In 2006 he went on to cofound Tibra, where he started and managed several trading desks as well holding the role of Director of Tibra’s fledgling investment management business. Since 2012 Clint has been Director of Ark International Group responsible for trading strategy development and deployment. Christophe Delorme was previously a partner and COO at RSR CAPITAL Pte Ltd in Singapore, a firm that managed a volatility arbitrage fund in equity derivatives. Prior to that Christophe was head of the OTC equity derivatives department at Newedge (Societe Generale), which he built into the top brokerage desk in the Japanese equity derivatives market, after joining them in 2003 from ICAP. During 17 years living in Japan Christophe headed several other brokerage desks in Japan. He holds a Business degree (specialty - SME’s) from école Des Cadres, Paris, France. He speaks fluent English and French.
CAISHEN SPC - KAIROS Fund SP - 20th September 2017. The Fund’s investment objective is to seek long-term risk-adjusted absolute return with low correlation to that of a market portfolio. The investment scope of the fund spans globally across a broad range of asset classes including equities, fixed income, currencies, and commodities. Financial derivative instruments may be used, where appropriate, for hedging or speculative purpose. Anson Guo is the Portfolio Manager for Kairos Fund SP. Prior to joining Swiss-Asia, Anson acquired an institutional trading experience at J.P. Morgan Singapore with majority of time in equity sales trading specializing in Asia-ex Japan equity. Anson graduated cum laude in 2015 from New York University Stern School of Business with a BA in Finance and Statistics. His passion for investing started at the age of 17 amidst the global financial crisis in 2009.
WEALTH PLATFORM
Q3 was a very quiet quarter with no notable events on the wealth platform side of things. That being said, we are now entering the high season for Wealth Manager recruitments. We are meeting with many high profile managers over the next quarter and would expect a few interesting announcements during Q1 and Q2 of 2018.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Singapore
- Omar Taheri has decided to fly with his own wings. Omar left Swiss-Asia to setup his own business. The whole team at Swiss-Asia wish him all the best with his new venture.
- David Soetanto, has left the Company to pursue other interests.
- On a positive, we have the arrival of two new Fund Managers and Roland Jude Thng (01st Jul 17) and Lyall Taylor (04th Aug 17) who will be launching their funds in Q4-2017. More news to come in the next update.
- We also have a new joiner, Raji Phichitsingh (24th Jul 17) from Thailand who will launch an Actively managed Certificate in Q4-2017.
Hong Kong
- Anson Guo Hoakun has joined Swiss-Asia on the 10th of April from JP Morgan to launch the Caishen - Kairos Fund SP
- Lucy Gazmararian & Emily Lam - Have left the Company and decided to pursue other interests.
FINTECH @ SWISS-ASIA
- Cafelatte PMS by Telostat - A tailored Portfolio Management System for Wealth management has been successfully deployed. Swiss-Asia has launched the system with integrated STP connections to Credit Suisse, LGT and Julius Baer. Nordea, Pictet, Sarasin and VP Bank are in the process of being added. We anticipate that a further 4 banks will be connected by the end of Q1-2018. This will bring the number of connected banks to 11. The Telostat Cafelatte PMS allows us to consolidate client portfolios across banks and also produces tailored T+1 Risk monitoring and reporting on an automated basis. We are very happy and proud to have achieved this very important milestone for our company.
- Accuity Compliance software - We have just replaced Thomson Reuters Worldcheck with Accuity Compliance software (“Accuity”) to aid us with our KYC and Due Diligence checks. With Accuity, we will be able to automate the Due Diligence checks on a high-frequency basis (i.e. daily). Accuity currently sources its PEP and Adverse News/Enforcement data from its sister company in the RELX group, LexisNexis Risk. The automated systems monitor more than 30,000 news sources to help ensure that we have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information possible. This information includes the following types of sources: Magazines, Newspapers, Relevant websites, Over 9000 government agency websites, Enforcement agency websites and Sanctioning body websites.
- With the data being processed in our in-house servers, we are able to eliminate data breaches and/or hacks from external sources. Separately, users will be tracked and any action carried out within the software will create a solid and compliant audit trail.
- Accuity also allows for detailed background checks and additional information via the “investigation” tool and any results will be sent back to Swiss-Asia within 48 hours.
- We believe that with Accuity, we will be able to provide qualitative KYC checks on our clients, investors, service providers, prospective clients and/or counter-parties, thereby strengthening the automated compliance and KYC component of our business.
3. Paperless Fit and Proper Declaration - Swiss-Asia is striving to go paperless in many of its processes and we have just recently launched the online interactive Corporate Fit and Proper Declaration. The new online form provides an essential audit trail as well as timely submissions by all employees.
Wishing you all a phenomenal Q4 !
Steve Knabl