Passé l’effet de surprise, le départ annoncé d’Inès de Dinechin pose plusieurs questions. Dont la stratégie que son successeur entend mettre en place. L’interrogation peut paraitre justifiée compte tenu de la soudaineté de l’annonce et, dans le même temps, de la qualité des résultats 2013 de la société de gestion publiés la semaine dernière (cf Newsmanagers du 12 janvier). Suffisamment en tout cas pour que des rumeurs courent sur des divergences de vue stratégiques sur l’avenir de Lyxor pour expliquer le divorce entre la responsable et sa maison. En attendant, la société n’entend pas modifier d’un iota le plan de route qui était déjà le sien l’année dernière... De fait, homme du sérail, entré à la Société Générale en juin 2004 puis chez Lyxor depuis 2007, Lionel Paquin, qui va succéder dans quelques jours à la directrice générale en prenant la présidence de la société, ne changera rien, assure-t-on dans la maison. Autrement dit, comme Inès de Dineschin se l'était fixé, en prenant seule la direction générale de la société depuis juin 2013 après le départ de son président Alain Dubois, il est question de renforcer les différents métiers de Lyxor AM, qu’il s’agisse du département ETF-indexing, de la gestion alternative, de la gestion structurée et de la gestion quantitative. «Toutes ont leur importance», explique-t-on chez Lyxor où l’on rappelle que la plus petite de ces activités «pèse» plus de 10 % des encours. Dans le détail, la gestion ETF-indicielle représente 50 milliards des 110 milliards de dollars sous gestion, tandis que la gestion structurée capte 27 milliards, l’alternatif, 21 milliards et la gestion quantitative et spécialisée, 12 milliards. Enfin, la diversification s’affiche à nouveau comme le second mot d’ordre de la stratégie de Lyxor pour 2014. Pour se faire, la société de gestion qui s’adresse essentiellement aux investisseurs institutionnels continuera notamment de poser ses jalons dans le «fixed income» et en particulier dans le domaine des senior loans. A ce titre, cette année, un nouveau produit de ce type doit voir le jour.

AXA Investment Managers a lancé, vendredi 14 février, un nouveau Collateralised Loan Obligation (CLO) d’environ 370 millions de dollars, Allegro CLO I Ltd / LLC (“Allegro CLO”). Il s’agit à la fois de son premier CLO 100% américain et de son premier CLO 2.01 (post-crise financière de 2008-2009).L’Allegro CLO est un portefeuille fermé, adossé exclusivement à des prêts bancaires aux entreprises. Le portefeuille est au minimum investi à 90% dans des prêts senior de premier rang, les 10% restant pouvant être alloués, entre autres, en prêts de second rang. Les titres émis par Allegro CLO n’ont été souscrits que par des investisseurs institutionnels américains, indique un communiqué.La société AXA IM indique qu’elle prévoit d’augmenter l’activité de l'équipe de financement structuré à l'échelle mondiale et réfléchit à la gestion future de portefeuilles qui seraient en conformité avec les règles de rétention (règlementation CRD IV2), offrant ainsi la possibilité à certains types d’investisseurs institutionnels d’obtenir une exposition à cette classe d’actifs.

Alexander Jansson a été nommé directeur général de la société de gestion suédoise CB Asset Management (AM). L’intéressé est gérant au sein de la structure depuis 2009.CB AM précise que cette nomination n’implique pas de changement dans l’organisation de la gestion. Carl Bernadotte, associé-fondateur, reste gérant avec Alexander Jansson et Marcus Grimfors. Côté direction, Jan Malmgren reste président.Créée en 1994, CB AM gère trois fonds : CB Hedge, European Quality Fund et Save Earth Fund, représentant environ 74 millions d’euros d’encours.

Catella a conseillé des transactions immobilières en Suède pour un montant d’environ 20 milliards de couronnes suédoises en 2013, sur un volume de marché total d’environ 96 milliards de couronnes suédoises.

Alistair Thompson abandonne ses fonctions de co-gérant sur le fonds First State Asia Pacific Leaders dont les actifs sous gestion s'élèvent à 7,6 milliards d’euros, rapporte Citywire.Le fonds sera désormais piloté par Angus Tulloch en qualité de gérant principal, assisté de Richard Jones en tant que co-gérant. La stratégie du fonds reste inchangée.Ces changements sont une pratique fréquente chez First State qui souligne que Alistair Thompson reste membre à part entière de l'équipe de First State.Le fonds First State Asia Pacific Leaders a dégagé une performance de 16% sur les trois ans à fin décembre 2013, à comparer à une hausse de 7,55% pour l’indice MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex Japan TR USD.

Les stratégies de beta avancé (ou smart beta) jouent un rôle plus important dans quelques-uns des plus gros portefeuilles mondiaux, selon une nouvelle étude de State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) («Beyond Active and Passive, Advanced Beta Comes of Age»). Selon cette étude, 42% des investisseurs utilisent actuellement des stratégies de beta avancé et 24% envisagent d’y recourir au cours des trois prochaines années. Le beta avancé ou smart beta consiste à capturer des primes de risque en fonction de la valorisation, de la capitalisation, de la volatilité de la corrélation et du momentum. Les trois quarts des investisseurs interrogés indiquent que ces stratégies constituent une voie alternative intéressante pour les gestions à la fois active et passive et une évolution significative dans les stratégies d’allocation.L’Europe est en avance sur les Etats-Unis pour l’utilisation, l’allocation et la mesure des stratégies de beta avancé, 25% des sondés européens allouant 20% ou plus d’actions de leur portefeuille à des stratégies de beta avancé contre seulement 4% du côté des sondés nord-américains. Près de 40% des investisseurs engagés dans des stratégies de beta avancé utilisent la basse volatilité et les faibles valorisations, séparément ou en les combinant."Le principal avantage que procurent les stratégies de beta avancé est la capacité de sélectionner un portefeuille qui respecte au mieux des objectifs de risque et de rendement spécifiques, plutôt que d’adopter une approche généraliste», remarque Kristi Mitchem, executive vice president et responsable de la clientèle institutionnelle de la région Amériques chez SSgA. «Alors que nous sommes au début de la courbe d’adoption de ces stratégies, les investisseurs se rendent compte que des rendements similaires peuvent être obtenus à un coût inférieur à la gestion active traditionnelle. On ne peut pas ignorer une telle tendance».

Les investisseurs institutionnels devraient revoir leur approche relative à la construction de leurs portefeuilles actions afin de tirer parti des innovations du secteur, selon un article de la nouvelle publication «Equity investing : Insights into a better portfolio».L’article souligne que les briques qui entrent dans la construction des portefeuilles actions ne se limitent plus à la gestion active et à la gestion passive avec des indices pondérés selon la capitalisation. Il faut maintenant ajouter un troisième pilier, le smart beta, qui vise les facteurs systématiques ou l’investissement thématique pour capturer des primes spécifiques, généralement à un coût très bas."Les développements sur les marchés actions et dans le secteur ont ajouté de la complexité et de la profondeur, en termes de produits disponibles et d’outils de construction de portefeuille. Il ne suffit pas d’avoir une allocation pour engranger du beta et un ou deux gérants actifs pour construire un portefeuille actions. Le détenteur d’actifs est désormais confronté au défi de développer ses propres outils de construction de portefeuille, ou de déléguer cette tâche à des tiers», estime Jim MacLachlan, responsable mondial de la recherche actions chez Towers Watson.Les institutionnels doivent devenir des adeptes de la sélection de gérants, et de la construction de portefeuille, afin d’identifier les gérants d’actifs chevronnés dans un univers où l’on dénombre plusieurs milliers de produits en compétition. Un principe de base est de s’assurer que les gérants actifs soient «best in class» et proposent des stratégies spécifiques qui ne puissent pas être répliquées ailleurs à moindre coût. Les institutionnels pourraient ainsi introduire de nouveaux critères coûts/bénéfices, par exemple en mettant en place un portefeuille long/short en parallèle avec une stratégie long only, ou en développant davantage de stratégies activistes.

Khalil Marcos, le patron du desk Afrique à la banque privée genevoise Bordier & Cie, veut développer son assise africaine, rapporte l’agence Bloomberg. Les actifs gérés pour le compte de clients africains s'élèvent actuellement à 300 millions de francs suisses.Le responsable, un ancien trader sur matières premières de Glencore qui a travaillé ensuite pour le Credit Suisse avant de rejoindre Bordier, souhaite doubler ce montant dans les deux prochaines années en musclant son équipe et en se concentrant sur le marché de l’Afrique sub-saharienne et les petites entreprises de la région.

Les hedge funds chinois dégagent des rendements spectaculaires, mais les investisseurs étrangers restent méfiants à leur égard, analyse le Financial Times dans un long article sur le sujet. « Les gérants que nous voyons en Chine affichent vraiment de très bons chiffres, mais ils sont trop opaques. Personne ne sait trop comment ils font », commente un investisseur interrogé par le journal. Dans l’ensemble, les hedge funds grande Chine ont enregistré en 2013 un gain de plus de 19 %, selon Eurekahedge.

Pour leur dernière année en tant que banquiers indéfiniment responsables, les associés de Lombard Odier se félicitent d’avoir réalisé un bon exercice. «Nos avoirs totaux ont augmenté de 10% pour atteindre 207 milliards de francs au 31 décembre 2013, contre 189 milliards un an auparavant», relève Thierry Lombard au quotidien Le Temps. Concernant la rentabilité de la banque privée genevoise, ce dernier se contente toutefois d’indiquer qu’elle est «en ligne avec [celle de] l’exercice précédent». Pour davantage de détails, il faudra attendre le 30 juin 2014, date à partir de laquelle la banque devra publier, pour la première fois, ses résultats financiers. Seule précision apportée à ce stade: la hausse des actifs sous gestion est principalement le fait de la clientèle institutionnelle et privée à l’international. Une clientèle institutionnelle qui représente désormais un quart des avoirs gérés, soit environ 45 milliards de francs.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Schroders will be closing its Currency Absolute Return fund following a decline in the appetite of investors for the fund, Citywire has learned. The UCITS hedge fund was launched in January 2011 and managed by Clive Dennis and Hardeep Dogra. The strategy represents only slightly over EUR8m in assets.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Martin Currie is proposing to merge the Martin Currie Japan fund, managed by John Millar, with the Japan Alpha fund, managed by John-Paul Temperley and Claire Marwick, Investment Week reports. The Martin Currie Japan fund, whose assets under management total GBP46m, has a strategy smilar to that of the Japan Alpha fund, whose assets total GBP63m. Over the year, the two funds show similar returns, but over a long period, the differences are more marked. The Japan fund shows returns of 26.5%, compared with an average of 37.3% for the sector, and a return of 55.6% for the Alpha Japan fund.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Schroders has changed the domicile of five funds registered in the Cayman Islands to its Luxemburg range, and merged three of the products as part of the integration of Cazenove Capital Management, Money Marketing reports. The funds concerned by the transfer are: Cazenove UK Dynamic Absolute Return, Cazenove European Alpha Absolute Return, Cazenove European Equity Absolute Return, Cazenove UK Equity Absolute Return and Cazenove Leveraged UK Equity Absolute Return. Cazenove European Equity Absolute Return, Cazenove UK Equity Absolute Return and Cazenove Leveraged UK Equity Absolute Return have been merged, and become Schroder ISF European Equity Absolute Return.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In their last year as indefinitely liable bankers, the partners at Lombard Odier welcomed the news of a good fiscal year. “Our total assets rose 10% to a total of CHF207bn as of 31 December 2013, compared with USD189bn one year previously,” Thierry Lombard has told the newspaper Le Temps. Concerning the profitability of the Geneva-based bank, Lombard says that it is “in line with the previous fiscal year.” More details will become available on 30 June 2014, when the bank will for the first time be required to publish its financial results. The only detail released at this stage is that the increase in assets under management is largely due to institutional and international private cliens. Institutional clients now represent one quarter of assets under management, or about CHF45bn.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Khalil Marcos, head of the Africa desk at the Geneva-based private bank Bordier & Cie, is planning to add to its African base, the news agency Bloomberg reports. Assets under management for African clients now total CHF300m. The head, a former commodity trader at Glencore who then worked for Credit Suisse before joining Bordier, would like to double this amount in the next two years, adding to its teams and concentrating on the sub-Saharan African market, and small businesses in the region.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) is adding to its staff in Scotland. The asset management firm, an affiliate of the Deutsche Bank group, has recruited John James and Mike Gore as senior investment managers at its Edinburgh office, Citywire reveals. The two new recruits join Charles Mullin, head of this location. Before joining DeAWM, Gore was senior investment manager and managing partner at Adam & Company Investment Management, while John James served at Blackadders. The two recruitments follow a series of departures last year from the Edinburgh office at DeAWM, including Grant Milne, former head of the office.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Changes are afoot at Aviva Investors. According to NewsManagers, Jean-François Boulier, chairman of the board at Aviva Investors France and CEO of Aviva Investors Europe, has been appointed in december as chief investment officer in charge of global fixed income. His role will be tasked with the development of the global fixed income team and he is already working with two people based in London. At this stage, the name of the chief investment officer in charge of equities has not been unveiled. This appointment follows the departure of Shahid Ikram, chief investment officer (CIO) at Aviva Investors, who left the asset management firm in December. Ikram had already been serving in this position for two years, after serving as head of sovereign debt and absolute return between January 2007 and March 2012. He had previously served as head of government debt and absolute return at Morley Fund Management, a brand which has since disappeared.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Alexander Jansson has been appointed as CEO of the Swedish asset management firm CB Asset Management. Jansson has been a fund manager at the firm since 2009. CB AM states that the appointment does not involve a change in the investment team of the company. Carl Bernadotte, managing partner, remains fund manager, with Jansson and Mercus Grimfors. On the management side, Jan Malmgren remains president. CB AM, founded in 1994, manages three funds: CN Hedge, European Quality Fund and Save Earth Fund, representing about EUR74m in assets.

Catella acted as advisor in property transactions in Sweden with a value of approximately SEK 20 billion in 2013, based on a total market volume of approximately SEK 96 billion.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BlackRock, Fidelity, Pimco and Vanguard were called to meet international regulators in London last week to determine whether the major asset management firms should be considered systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), Financial Times Fund Management reports. The talks, which were held at the headquarters of the Financial Conduct Authority, suggest that the Financial Stability Board and IOSCO have determined to push ahead with the subject. The two authorities are concentrating on large funds, with the view that those with more than USD100bn should be evaluated for their systemic importance, while US regulators are focusing on firms.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Alistair Thompson is leaving his position as manager of the First State Asia Pacific Leaders fund, whose assets under management total EUR7.6bn, Citywire reports. The fund will now be managed by Angus Tulloch as principal manager, with the assistance of Richard Jones as co-manager. The strategy of the fund remains unchanged. These changes are a frequent practice at First State, which says that Thompson remains a full member of the First State team. The First State Asia Pacific Leaders fund has earned returns of 16% in the three years to the end of December 2013, compared with gains of 7.55% for the MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex Japan TR USD index.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } 2014 is expected to be the year of stock-pickers, the Financial Times writes. Volatility is expected to increase, providing asset managers with better opportunities to beat the benchmark indices. According to Morningstar, actively-managed funds have outperformed passive funds in Europe and the United States in 2007, 2009 and 2010, while volatility was relatively high, which tends to support this theory. The exception was 2008. But it is important to remember that volatility is not everything.

New research from Cerulli Associates finds exchange-traded fund (ETF) use among registered investment advisors (RIAs) has grown nearly 27% annually over the past 5 years, and Cerulli anticipates this growth to continue."The allocation to ETFs among RIAs grew 48% from 2011 to 2012,» comments Kenton Shirk, associate director at Cerulli. «The RIA channel is an extremely attractive opportunity for asset managers.""RIAs believe ETFs will become a larger portion of portfolios,» Shirk continues.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Delta Alternative Management (AM) is writing a new page in its short history, with a change to its capital structure. The company, previously 60 % controlled by its founders and 40% by Amlab, the incubation firm from La Banque Postale Asset Management (LBPAM), on 14 February made official admission of Financière Dassault and Blue Alpha to its shareholder structure Financière Dassault and Blue Alpha, the firm recently founded by Thierry Callault, former deputy CEO of the OFI group, control 15.05% of the capital each. The stake held by AMlab is reduced to 9.90%, while the remaining partners will retain 60% stakes. Due to this change in the capital structure, Delta AM, a specialist in special situations on the corporate bond markets, plans to accelerate its growth, and to “develop the assets in our first fund, Delta Prime ESSF which is preparing to celebrate 6 years in existence,” Thibaut Sciard, CEO of Delta AM, says in a statement. It is also planning to admit more partners to extend its range, “capitalizing on our management expertise in SMB-ETIs,” says Sciard. The asset management firm offers a dual debt and equity range in the French SMB-ETI segment, with Delta France Smid Caps, an equity fund investing in small and midcaps eligible form investment from PEA-PME policies, and on the other hand Delta Bond Plus, a bond fond dedicated to short-term SMB financing.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } JP Morgan has reopened its Luxembourg-domiciled fund dedicated to equities from Asean countries, whose assets had fallen by nearly USD400m since its closure in April 2013, Citywire reports. The JP Morgan Asean Equity fund, managed by Pauline Ng, was closed to new investors when assets under management stood at about USD1.2bn. As of 12 February last year, assets under management totalled USD854m.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Chinese market regulatory commission (CSRC), which has recently accelerated its licensing procedure for mutual funds, on 45 January issued permission to launch new products, an increase of 50% compared with January 2013, Asia Asset Management reports. Slightly over 62% of products approved in January are hybrid funds, sectoral ETF funds and money market funds. This is a highly marked evolution compared with the first half of last year, when 8-% of funds approved were bond products. Among the funds licensed in January are eight ETFs, including four managed by China Southern Asset Management.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Lombard Odier has launched an investment approach which applies the experience developed in pension funds for its employees. The multi-strategy approach aims to offer private clients high and diversifeid returns over a market cycle. Lombard Odier is now offering its private clients two strategies: LO Selection Vantage 1500, and LO Selection Vantage 3000. The methodology constructs portfolios designed to optimize diversification via risk factors, in order to deliver better risk-adjusted performance throughout the market cycle. Instead of asking clients what their expectations in terms of returns are, the approach at Lombard Odier based on risk determins their tolerance to potential risk (drawdown). From there, the bank constructs a risk budget based on average losses that a portfolio might sustain in the worst case, over a 20-year period. Lombard Odier constructs portfolios which combine external and internal strategies, on the basis of transparency, track record and liquidity, which offer exposure to developed and emerging market equities, government bonds, corporate bonds and commodities. The strategies from Lombard Odier, LO Selection Vantage 1500 and LO Selection Vantage 3000, are registered in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. They are in the process of being registered in Switzerland.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With the confidence of investors on the rebound, mutual funds in the month of January posted a net inflow in the United States of USD28.6bn, a level not seen for one year, according to statistics released by Morningstar. Long-term inflows (excluding money market funds) totalled USd39.2bn. Equity funds posted a net inflow of USd28.6bn. Money market funds had outflow of a net USD12.2bn. In line with the monthly flows observed last year, international equity funds attracted USD17.4bn. US equities, for their part, attracted USD8.83bn. Morningstar reveals that actively-managed US equity funds had a dissapointing month in January, and that half of them show losses. Fidelity Growth Company, American Funds Growth Fund of America, et Dodge & Cox Stock all saw heavy outflows. However, JP Morgan, John Hancock, MFS, and Putnam continued to attract inflows to their actively-managed equity straegies. Traditional bond funds posted net inflows of USd3.49bn, but year on year, outflows total nearly USD7bn. Municipal bond funds posted USD227bn in inflows, but over 12 months, outfows total slightly over USD65bn. For alternative mangement, long/short equity and market neutral funds posted inflows of USD2.9bn and USD1bn, respectively. After a monthly inflow of USD1.1bn between January 2009 and May 2013, emerging market bond funds have since been showing outflows at a pace of USD1.4bn per month. Assets in this category peaked at USD86.7bn in April 2013, and have since fallen to USD66.3bn as of the end of January.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Investors continued to prefer Europe and Japan equity funds in the second week of February, to the detriment of emerging market equity funds, which, however, had posted much more moderate redemptions than during the previous weeks. Overall, equity funds posted collective net inflows of USD11.5 billion for the week ending February 12 while bond funds took in USD4.72 billion and money market funds USD16.7 billion, according to EPFR. Year-to-date inflows for Japan and Europe equity funds pushed past the USD9 billion and USD17 billion marks respectively during the second week of February as both fund groups maintained their record setting start to 2014. Flows into Europe equity funds again favored funds with broad, regional mandates. But country fund groups dedicated to the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) markets continue to lead the way in percent of AUM terms, especially Italy and Spain equity funds. Commodities sector funds, which were pounded in both flows and performance terms last year, extended their current thaw with net inflows of USD492 million for the week ending February 12. That represented their largest inflow and their first back-to-back weekly inflow since late September.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Institutional investors are expected to revise their approach with respect the construction of their equity portfolios, in order to benefit from innovations in the sector, according to an article in the new publication “Equity Investing: Insights into a better portfolio.” The article emphasizes that the bricks used to build an equity portfolio are no longer limited to active and passive management, with weighted indices according to cap size. Now a third pillar needs to be aded: smart beta, which aims for systematic factors or thematic investment to capture specific premiums, generally at a very low cost. “Developments on the equity markets and in the sector have added complexity and depth, in terms of products available and portfolio construction tools. It is not enough to get an allocation to earn beta and one or two active managers to construct an equity portfolio. The asset-holder now faces the challenge of developing his own portfolio construction tools, or to delegate this task to third parties,” says Jim MacLachlan, global head of equity research at Towers Watson. Institutionals need to become adept in manager selection and portfolio construction, in order to identify qualified asset managers from a universe that includes thousands of competing products. A basic principle is to ensure that managers are “best in class” and offer specific strategies which cann’t be replicated elsewhere at low cost. Institutionals may introduce new cost-benefit criteria, for example by putting place a long/short portfolio in paralle with a long-only strategy, or developing more activist strategies.