Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, which is the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services . Finance activities take place in financial systems at various scopes; thus, the field can be roughly divided into personal, corporate, and public finance.
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and other accredited investors such as high-net-worth individuals.
Financial services are economic services provided by the finance industry, which together encompass a broad range of service sector firms that provide financial management, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, individual asset managers, and some government-sponsored enterprises.
D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. is a multinational investment management firm founded in 1988 by David E. Shaw and based in New York City. The company is known for developing complicated mathematical models and sophisticated computer programs to exploit anomalies in the financial market. As of June 1, 2021, D. E. Shaw manages $55 billion in AUM, $35 billion of which are alternative investments and the remaining $20 billion long-oriented investments. In 2023, Forbes reported that among hedge funds, D. E. Shaw had delivered the third-highest returns in the world since its inception.
Lazard Ltd is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's largest independent investment bank, with principal executive offices in New York City, Paris and London.
Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products, for private and institutional clients. Founded in Bahrain in 1982, the firm has offices in United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Japan and Singapore. Investcorp’s principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but it also has a growing base of institutional clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Financial risk management is the practice of protecting economic value in a firm by managing exposure to financial risk - principally operational risk, credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside. As for risk management more generally, financial risk management requires identifying the sources of risk, measuring these, and crafting plans to address them. See Finance § Risk management for an overview.
Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) is a professional designation offered by the CAIA Association to investment professionals who complete a course of study and pass two examinations. The "alternative investments" industry is characterized as dealing with asset classes and investments other than standard equity or fixed income products. Alternative investments can include hedge funds, private equity, real assets, commodities, and structured products. The CAIA curriculum is designed to provide finance professionals with a broad base of knowledge in alternative investments.
Wellington Management Company is a private, independent investment management firm with client assets under management totaling over US$1 trillion based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Hyman Philip Minsky was an American economist, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, and a distinguished scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His research attempted to provide an understanding and explanation of the characteristics of financial crises, which he attributed to swings in a potentially fragile financial system. Minsky is sometimes described as a post-Keynesian economist because, in the Keynesian tradition, he supported some government intervention in financial markets, opposed some of the financial deregulation of the 1980s, stressed the importance of the Federal Reserve as a lender of last resort and argued against the over-accumulation of private debt in the financial markets.
Marshall Wace LLP is a British hedge fund headquartered in London, England, founded by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace in 1997. Marshall serves as chairman and chief investment officer, and Wace as a chief executive officer & chief risk officer. The company is recognized as one of the world's largest hedge fund managers.
An alternative investment, also known as an alternative asset or alternative investment fund (AIF), is an investment in any asset class excluding capital stocks, bonds, and cash. The term is a relatively loose one and includes tangible assets such as precious metals, collectibles and some financial assets such as real estate, commodities, private equity, distressed securities, hedge funds, exchange funds, carbon credits, venture capital, film production, financial derivatives, cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and Tax Receivable Agreements. Investments in real estate, forestry and shipping are also often termed "alternative" despite the ancient use of such real assets to enhance and preserve wealth. Alternative investments are to be contrasted with traditional investments.
Man GLG is a discretionary investment manager and a wholly owned subsidiary of British alternative investment manager Man Group plc. It is a diversified and multi-strategy fund manager that operates strategies including equity long-short funds, convertible arbitrage funds, emerging market funds and long-only mutual funds. The firm is also a founding member of the Hedge Fund Standards Board and a signatory of the Principles for Responsible investment. As of 2022, Man GLG had $35.4 billion assets under management.
Sculptor Capital Management is an American global diversified alternative asset management firm. They are one of the largest institutional alternative asset managers in the world. The firm operates multiple investment strategies, including multi-strategy, credit and real estate. It has nearly 400 employees worldwide including offices in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Shanghai.
Blackstone Credit, formerly known as GSO Capital Partners (GSO) is an American hedge fund and the credit investment arm of The Blackstone Group. Blackstone Credit is one of the largest credit-oriented alternative asset managers in the world and a major participant in the leveraged finance marketplace. The firm invests across a variety of credit oriented strategies and products including collateralized loan obligation vehicles investing in secured loans, hedge funds focused on special situations investments, mezzanine debt funds and private equity funds focused on rescue financing.
Magnetar Capital is a hedge fund based in Evanston, Illinois. The firm was founded in 2005 and invests in fixed-income, energy, quantitative, and event-driven strategies. The firm was actively involved in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market during the 2006–2007 period. In some articles critical of Magnetar Capital, the firm's arbitrage strategy for CDOs is described as the "Magnetar trade".
GCM Grosvenor is an American alternative asset management firm, with approximately $76 billion in assets under management and approximately 530 professionals as of 2023.
Winton Group, Ltd is a British investment management firm founded by David Harding. In the United States, Winton is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment advisor and with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a CTA, and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The company trades on more than 100 global futures markets in a wide variety of asset classes and on global equity markets. The firm was launched with $1.6 million in 1997, reached a peak of $28.5 billion in assets under advisement, before dropping to $7.3 billion by late 2020. Winton Group has six offices around the world: London, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, and Abu Dhabi.
Richard Andrew Deitz is an American investment manager. He is the founder and president of London-based investment firm VR Capital Group.
The Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI), formerly known as the Hedge Fund Standards Board, is an international standard-setting body for the alternative investment industry and sets the voluntary standard of best practices and practices endorsed by its members. Its primary role is to be the custodian of the Alternative Investment Standards, which are designed to create a "framework of transparency, integrity and good governance" in the way the hedge fund industry operates.
