European institutional investors last year used cash reserves and sold equities to leave the sidelines and boost fixed income allocations to their highest levels in five years, research shows.

BlackRock is strengthening its senior management's experience in European fixed income, the most troubled but most important asset class for many clients, by appointing bond specialist Michael Krautzberger chief investment officer of its German unit....

BNP Paribas Securities Services is giving an implicit vote of approval to the master-feeder fund structure, whose future is somewhat clouded as Ucits IV nears, by launching a suite of back office services free of costs at feeder fund level.

France’s Oddo Asset Management has seeded a merger arbitrage fund established by former proprietary traders from Banque d’Orsay, in a further demonstration of willingness by French financiers to back new hedge funds.

London hedge fund Armajaro Asset Management has joined Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, in criticizing those who claim speculators artificially inflate commodity prices.

Man Group has become the largest investor to launch a fund of onshore alternatives funds, incorporating talents of discretionary management subsidiary GLG and its own computer-driven AHL in an onshore product for the first time.

Morningstar is to reveal quarterly returns of about three quarters of the world’s largest hedge funds – dubbed the ‘Billion-dollar Club’ - but only to institutional clients.

Bayerische Versorgungskammer, Germany’s largest public pension fund, has appointed F&C Investments to provide shareholder engagement services for its equities and bond holdings.

North America, home to the first ever hedge fund, cemented its position as the region of choice among allocators in May, as its managers recorded sixteen consecutive months of net inflows, according to Eurekahedge.

Emerging markets inflation has run half to two thirds of its course and prices should stabilize this quarter, said DWS Investments’ head of portfolio management for emerging markets.