By Ian Fraser European Fund Manager December 20th, 2007 Colin McLean, founder of SVM Asset Management, has been managing hedge funds since 1992. He believes that many hedge fund managers have dodged the fall-out from the sub-prime crisis and points out that some have in fact profited handsomely from it. He also believes that changes on the stock lending [...]
By Ian Fraser European Fund Manager December 20th, 2007 130/30 funds are suddenly all the rage. But is the surge in such funds a response to client demand or do fund managers have other motives? Ian Fraser investigates BARELY a week passes these days without some traditional fund management group or other jumping onto the [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald Business Comment December 9th, 2007 THE BANK of England’s decision last week to cut interest rates has raised serious questions about its independence. Rather than thinking long-term about the economy or the worsening outlook for inflation, the bank seems to have caved in to pressure from siren voices in the [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Citywire Date: December 5th, 2007 SVM founder Colin McLean has warned the credit crunch will hit the UK economy and housing market hard with small and mid cap stocks likely to underperform as investors flee funds focused on these sectors. McLean is the AA-rated manager of the SVM Global Opportunities fund. [...]
December 4th, 2007 The hall of shame of those deemed responsible for the subprime mess has been extended. Until now, those mainly blamed for engendering the current crisis, which could yet tip us into a global recession, have included the ratings agencies, market participants (notably Bear Stearns, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley), financial [...]
By Ian Fraser Scottish Banker December 2007/January 2008 In the light of RBS’s success in the acquisition of ABN Amro, Ian Fraser takes the long view of Scotland’s big banks’ approach to international expansion IN an increasingly globalised world, both the Royal Bank of Scotland and its older rival the Bank of Scotland long ago [...]
By Ian Fraser Scottish Business Insider December 2007 Q3 deals round-up: While the world’s lenders felt the big chill of the credit crunch, Scotland’s deal makers claim to be better insulated. Ian Fraser finds, however, there is no room for complacency. NOT many Brits can be unaware that the summer’s ‘credit crunch’ nearly brought the [...]
By Ian Fraser CA Magazine December 2007 Scotland’s corporate financiers are quietly busy, in spite of the crisis on world money markets, writes Ian Fraser, partly because they focus on smaller deals than the private equity giants that hit the headlines. THE era of easy credit abruptly came to an abrupt end when banks took [...]
By Ian Fraser The Herald December 3rd, 2007 The “Big Six” accountancy firms will be taking a much tougher line on banks’ assessments of their own assets in the light of the dubious methods used by some banks to value sub-prime related derivatives. The six firms – PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton [...]
By Ian Fraser The Herald December 3rd, 2007 Scotland’s government and legal establishment has been accused of continuing to drag its heels on reforms intended to open up the justice system and reduce the costs of litigation. Sections 25-29 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 were intended to end the country’s legal [...]