GAM buys $4bn AuM Cantab Capital Partners for $290m and starts Systematic Unit

Zurich-based GAM (listed on the Swiss stock exchange and which manages around $120 billion) is acquiring Cantab Capital Partners (CCP), a systematic asset management firm.

This acquisition will form the basis of GAM Systematic - a new offering from GAM covering "traditional" long-only investments as well as alternative investing.

In GAM's investor presentation, a Deutsche Bank 2016 Alternative Investment survey was referenced which mentioned a growing allocation to systematic strategies by institutional investors (the presentation also heralds equity market neutral strategies as offering promising performance in 2016). Coupled with GAM's distribution network, there is certainly scope for GAM to ramp up allocations to its systematic funds.

GAM is also planning UCITS versions of CCP's strategies, UCITS being a form of European-regulated fund first introduced in 1985

The question though is whether performance can be maintained and what capacity constraints exist on the strategies pursued by the funds - according to GAM, the funds are scalable and the capacity constraints are low. This is supported by the proportion of Cantab's employees who are involved in strategy research (high), multiple models and multiple traded markets. Cantab has $4bn AuM as of 31 May 2015.

ONS Publishes Q1 2016 CAD Figures for the UK

The ONS has published its Q1 CAD figure of £32.6 billion (3x2=6). This means value of imports exceeds the value of exports.

George Osborne, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2010, expressed an interest in managing the economy to surplus, but has since retracted this aim post Brexit (the "Exchequer" was the medieval English institution responsible for collection of revenues, whose name comes from a physical table used to perform tax calculations).

From Soda to Soya - Coca Cola Makes Unconventional Acquisition from Unilever

Coca Cola is acquiring AdeS, the biggest brand in soy beverage in Latin America for $575m.