A press release entitled, "Goldman Sachs Asset Management Announce Strategic Partnership to Help Investment Managers Manage Cash Holdings," says, "HazelTree and Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) announced today a strategic partnership to assist hedge funds, fund administrators, managed account providers and family offices in improving their cash management. The partnership is in response to the changing regulatory environment for systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), particularly Basel III guidelines on capital requirements and balance sheet composition." Stephen Casner, CEO of HazelTree, said, "This partnership with GSAM aims to provide a risk-managed, operationally efficient way for hedge funds to streamline their cash management through an unprecedented combination of visibility into excess cash balances across clients' various counterparties and automated movement of that cash for easier execution." Instead of manual cash transfers with each counterparty, typically the most common practice today, the partnership between HazelTree, a leading Treasury Management solution provider, and GSAM will provide hedge funds, fund administrators, managed account providers and family offices with automated, rules-based "sweep" access to solutions managed by GSAM. Clients will have a comprehensive view of all cash balances across their counterparties and can set target rules to optimize those cash balances and investments through the enhanced functionality." James McNamara, Global Head of Third Party Distribution at GSAM says, "GSAM has a long history of managing cash for hedge funds and other institutional investors, and we believe this new relationship with HazelTree will make cash management that much easier, as certain institutions are increasingly asked to find alternative investment options for their cash balances." In other news, `The Wall Street Journal wrote, "Winners and Losers When the Fed Raises Rates." It says, "Many Fedwatchers are convinced the central bank is just hours away from announcing the first increase to its benchmark federal-funds rate in nearly a decade. If that happens, there will be repercussions.... One of the winners is money market funds. WSJ's Daisy Maxey writes, "The Fed's 0.25% interest-rate increase will begin showing up in the yields of money-market mutual funds within days, welcome news for investors. Funds for individual investors that invest in both corporate and government debt currently yield just 0.01% on average, according to researcher iMoneyNet Inc. The higher rates should be fully reflected in just over a month, but investors in some money funds may not see the full increase, says Peter Crane, president of Crane Data LLC. Fund managers have temporarily trimmed fees to keep expenses from eating up the funds' paltry yields and taking a bite out of investors' principal. As interest rates rise, some part of the increase is likely to go toward increasing funds' fee charges, Mr. Crane says. Across the industry, "my wild guess is that half of the first rate hike might flow through to investors, but it could be more," he says."
