From the press release desk this week…
AI and the World Cup
The artificial intelligence model that Goldman Sachs used to forecast this year’s FIFA World Cup tournament has clearly failed to predict actual results. The predictions, which made use of 200 models and harnessed data on team characteristics and individual players, expected Brazil to win the World Cup title, defeating Germany in the finals. The bank also predicted that Croatia, which will be competing in the finals this weekend, would be eliminated even before the quarter finals. The firm did acknowledge in the report that the forecasts remain highly uncertain, simply because football is a very unpredictable game…
Goldman Sachs’ predictions
Robo-advisors
B2B robo-advisor Bambu has completed a $3m funding led by Franklin Templeton Investments, with Singapore family office Octava and Japanese fintech investor Mamoru Taniya. The Singapore-headquartered firm has offices in Malaysia, Hong Kong and London, and expects that seven new clients will go live this year with the firm’s robo-advisory technology…
Products
China Post Global, the international asset management arm of mainland-based China Post and Capital Fund Management, has launched in Europe an ETF providing exposure to euro-denominated AT1 contingent convertible (coco) bonds. The ETF will track the performance of the Markit iBoxx EUR Contingent Convertible Liquid Developed Market AT1 Index…
State Street Global Advisors has registered 19 US-listed SPDR ETFs with Japan’s Financial Services Authority. Fourteen of the funds are part of the SPDR Portfolio ETF Series of ultra-low cost funds that the firm launched in the US in October. Another equities ETF that promotes gender diversity among US companies will also be available for the first time in Japan…
So far this year, the global hedge fund industry has produced mixed results, according to an Evestment report. Just over half of reporting strategies are positive for the year. Those that are positive are up an average of 5.3%, while those in the red are down an average of -5.3%. In many cases, what had been doing well in 2017 has underperformed this year, while in other cases the opposite is true…
Source: Evestment
Offshore funds, such as Luxembourg- or Ireland-domiciled products, in key offshore markets in Asia, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, are expected to thrive in the medium term in spite of local regulators’ determination to grow their onshore businesses, according to a Cerulli Associates report. Cross-border fund assets under management in Asia ex-Japan climbed 18.6% to $166.6bn for the full year 2017. These include assets in Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, where they had double-digit growth in offshore AUM…
Regulation
The Securities and Futures Commission has today announced it expanded the category of professional investors to include holding companies — entities that wholly own another corporation which is itself a qualified professional investor. Directors of holding companies should ensure that shareholders are properly informed when the company becomes a professional investor under the amended rules, the regulator said…
Office expansion
Bank Julius Baer in Singapore has moved into an expanded corporate office in Marina One, which is located in the Lion City’s Marina Bay financial district. The new space, which is around 100,000 square feet, is about two-fifths bigger than its former office area. “Singapore is one of our key markets in Asia, where we have grown multi-fold from only a handful of staff more than a decade ago,” Jimmy Lee, head of Asia-Pacific, said in a statement. The bank’s employees in Asia account for around 25% of its global workforce…
