Rothschild & Cie Gestion reste fidèle à sa stratégie d’allocation d’actifs. Comme l’an passé, la société de gestion joue à plein la carte de la surpondération des actions européennes dans sa politique d’investissement. «L’environnement est très favorable en Europe à l’investissement en actions», a jugé hier Didier Bouvignies, associé gérant et co-responsable de la gestion, à l’occasion d’un point presse. Ce dernier a évoqué des signes d’amélioration économique sur le vieux Continent et des valorisations toujours attractives. «La tendance sur les marchés doit rester favorable», ajoute Philippe Chaumel, associé gérant et co-responsable de la gestion. «La prime de risque est très forte en Europe et nous constatons le début d’un mouvement de rattrapage des actions de l’Eurozone.» La société de gestion avoue sa préférence pour les titres des pays périphériques de la zone euro au détriment des pays «core» et elle privilégie également les sociétés en retournement plutôt que les titres de croissance qui «présentent des risques liés à des valorisations élevées, sensibles à une hausse de taux d’intérêts, et à une exposition aux pays émergents». De fait, de manière globale sur les actions, «nous restons à l’écart des pays émergents et nous maintenons une exposition nulle à ces marchés», indique Philippe Chaumel. En revanche, Rothschild & Cie Gestion se montre «très prudente» sur les obligations. «Il y a encore un peu de spread à capter, explique Philippe Chaumel. Mais la tendance va être plus compliquée.» Tout l’enjeu sera de réussir à capter du rendement tout en se protégeant contre une remontée des taux. Dans un tel contexte, Rothschild & Cie Gestion va davantage se positionner sur les dettes des pays périphériques que sur celles des pays «core» de la zone euro. Interrogé sur le niveau de sa collecte nette en 2013, Rothschild & Cie Gestion est restée volontairement discrète. «2013 n’a pas été une année de très forte collecte pour nous mais une année correcte», a sobrement commenté Arnaud Perrier, son directeur commercial et marketing. Si la collecte nette a été légèrement positive à l’international et auprès des institutionnels français, Rothschild & Cie a reconnu avoir rencontré plus de difficultés sur le segment de la distribution externe (banque privée, fonds de fonds, CGP). Ses encours ressortent à ce jour à 23,5 milliards d’euros.

Natixis AM indique sur son site qu'à compter du 31 décembre 2013, les porteurs de parts du fonds Natixis Convertibles euro (*) auront la possibilité de distribuer, reporter ou capitaliser les plus-values. Les sommes distribuables seront donc constituées par :- Le résultat net de l’exercice augmenté des reports à nouveau et majoré ou diminué du solde des comptes de régularisation des revenus afférents à l’exercice clos.- Les plus-values réalisées, nettes de frais, diminuées des moins-values réalisées, nettes de frais, constatées au cours de l’exercice, augmentées des plus-values nettes de même nature constatées au cours d’exercices antérieurs n’ayant pas fait l’objet d’une distribution ou d’une capitalisation et diminuées ou augmentées du solde du compte de régularisation des plus-values.Les sommes mentionnées aux 1° et 2° peuvent être distribuées, en tout ou partie, indépendamment l’une de l’autre, indique la société de gestion. Ces modifications entreront en vigueur à compter du 18 décembre 2013. (*) FR0010660142 – FR0010202853 – FR0011034826 – FR0010658963

Selon Mutual Fund Wire, la boutique de gestion American Century a nommé David MacEven et Victor Zhang en tant que co-chief investment officer. Ces nominations font suite au départ de Enrique Chang en avril. Victor Zhang rejoint la société en provenance de Wilshire Funds Management, où il était CIO. David MacEven était jusqu'à présent CIO pour le fixed income d’Americain Eagle.

Selon The Wall Street Journal, le gestionnaire alternatif SAC Capital, qui a obtenu une composition administrative au civil et au pénal moyennant 1,8 milliard de dollars, songe à changer de nom pour la période où il ne gérera plus que les 7-9 milliards de dollars de son fondateur Steven A. Cohen et de ses salariés.D’autre part, il va maintenir ses relations avec les courtiers principaux Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase et Morgan Stanley, mais pourrait cesser ses relations avec Deutsche Bank, qui lui a retiré une ligne de crédit de 100 millions de dollars lors de la mise en accusation par la justice.SAC a déjà vendu, probablement pour 500 millions-1 milliard de dollars, son activité de réassurance basée aux Bermudes et va fermer son bureau de Londres avant la fin de l’année.Ces dernières semaines, certains des collaborateurs du bureau de Londres ont mené des entretiens exploratoires avec la Global Trading Unit de Guggenheim Global Partners et avec Brummer & Partners, entre autres. De leur côté, Moore Capital Management et Balyasny Asset Management se font concurrence pour essayer de recruter les équipes d’investissement de SAC Capital.

L’agence d'évaluation financière Moody’s a indiqué le 12 décembre dans un communiqué qu’elle avait confirmé les notes du français Oddo & Cie, notamment sa note de long terme «Ba1». Moody’s ajoute que suite à cette annonce, elle retire les notations d’Oddo pour des raisons qui lui sont propres, sans plus de précisions.

Avec le Global Minimum Volatility Fund, Vanguard a lancé le 12 décembre un fonds d’actions à gestion active pour lequel l’Equity Investment Group (17,7 milliards de dollars d’encours en actions gérées activement de manière quantitative) utilise des modèles quantitatifs pour filtrer les valeurs du FTSE Global All-Cap Index (USD hedged).L’objectif consiste à construire un portefeuille d’actions du monde entier avec la plus faible volatilité ex-ante possible en respectant des contraintes «raisonnables» pour assurer la diversification et la liquidité du portefeuille qui sera composé pour moitié d’actions étrangères et pour moitié d’actions américaines, a précisé Tim Buckley, CIO de Vanguard.Le fonds sera disponible en classes de parts Investor chargées à 0,30 % (souscription minimale : 3.000 dollars) et Admiral chargées à 0,20 % (à partir de 20.000 dollars).

Azimut pousse ses pions au Brésil. La société de gestion italienne vient de conclure un accord avec le groupe financier brésilien FuturaInvest visant à créer une coentreprise pour fournir des services aux conseillers financiers sur le marché brésilien. L’accord prévoit l’acquisition par Azimut, via sa filiale locale AZ Brasil Holding, d’une participation de 50 % dans trois structures du groupe FuturaInvest: une compagnie de conseiller financier; une société de gestion d’actifs dédiée aux fonds de fonds et aux managed accounts; et, enfin, dans FuturaInvest DTVM, une institution distribuant des produits financiers aux investisseurs locaux depuis septembre 2013. A fin novembre, FuturaInvest affichait environ 71 millions d’euros d’actifs sous gestion L’opération est estimée autour de 3,9 millions d’euros, financée principalement par une augmentation de capital. En vertu de l’accord signé par les deux parties, le prix de la transaction pourra être ajusté en fonction du développement commercial réalisé au cours des trois premières années. «Après deux ans de recherche, nous estimons que FuturaInvest constitue notre partenaire idéal pour fournir des services aux conseillers financiers», a commenté Pietro Giuliani, PDG de Azimut Holdings, évoquant «une étape majeure dans la mise en œuvre de notre modèle intégré au Brésil». La société italienne n’en est pas à son coup d’essai. Début septembre, elle avait déjà acquis 50 % du capital de Legan, une société de gestion brésilienne indépendante.

KBL European Private Bankers (KBL epb) on 12 December announced the appointment of Marc Formisani as Head of Mergers & Acquisitions. With 10 years of experience in corporate finance, previously as an adviser for mergers ad acquisitions at the Dexia gorup, he will be based in Luxembourg. The appointment echoes an ambition on the part of KBL epb to join the ranks of the 20 best European private banks by 2015. In order to achieve this ambitious objective, the Group is currently defining external growth opportunities, largely through potential acquisitions in key markets. As head of the mergers and acquisitions team, Formisani will be responsible for management, co-ordination and execution of merger and acquisition processes, in close collaboration with all stakeholders concerned. He has also been mandated to provide analysts to the Steering Committee at KBL epb as an expert.

The index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices has announced that Facebook will replace The Williams Companies in the S&P 100 index, and Teradye in the S&P 500, according to a statement released on 11 December. Teradyne will replace Scholastic on the S&P MidCap 400.All of these changes will take effect after the close of the trading day on Friday, 20 December.

Amundi Alternative Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amundi, has received an AIFM license from the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) for a range of asset management solutions.According to the management of the firm, the issuing of the license marks “the fruition of a strategic choice engaged upon in 2010,” with the move of domicile to Europe (France, Ireland and Luxembourg) for its alternative range at all levels: 10 funds of funds and 21 managed accounts.The issuance of the AIFM license represents a first step before the awarding of passports by the end of first quarter 2014.

Eastspring Investments, the Asian asset management affiliate of the insurer Prudential, has appointed Jackiw Chew as CEO of its Singapore activity. With slightly under 300 employees, Singapore is the largest of the 11 offices of Eastspring in Asia, and serves as an investment centre in the region.

Azimut is making a push into Brazil. The Italian asset management firm has signed an agreement with the Brazilian financial group FuturaInvest, to create a joint venture to provide services to financial advisers on the Brazilian market.The agreement inludes the acquisition by Azimut, via its local affiliate AZ Brazil Holding, of a 50% stake in three structures of the FuturaInvest group: a financial advisory firm; an asset management firm dedicated to funds of funds and managed accounts; and, lastly, in FuturaInvest DTVM, an institution which has been distributing financial products to local investors since September 2013. As of the end of November, FuturaInvest had about EUR71m in assets under management.The deal is estimated at about EUR3.9m, financed largely through a capital increase. Under the agreement signed by the two parties, the sale price may be altered according to the commercial development achieved in the next three years. “After two years of research, we estimated that FuturaInvest represents our ideal partner to provide services to financial advisers,” said Pietro Giuliani, chairman and CEO of Azimut Holdings, pointing to “a major step in the implementation of our integrated model in Brazil.” The Italian firm is not inexperienced. In early September, it purchased a 50% stake in Legan, a Brazilian independent asset management firm.

UK-based Threadneedle Invesments on 12 December announced that it has won an international equity mandate for a total about about GBP150m from Dyfed Pension Fund, whose assets under management total about GBP1.6bn.The mandate awarded by the pension fund is a sign of its desire to abandon regional equity allocation in favour of a much more international exposure. The mandate will be managed by Stephen Thornber, who manages the Global Equity Income strategy.

Funds Europe reports that Edison Investment Research, regulated by the British FCA, has recruited the created of the HSBC research team for publicly-traded equities in Israel, Will Manuel, as an analyst. Manuel had been head of equities research at HSBC for Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The recruitment corresponds to a desire on the part of Edison to enlarge its coverage of businesses in the healthcare and technology sectors, in the fact of increased demand for Israeli equities on the part of North American and European clients.

The British firm Brewin Dolphin is planning to discontinue its investment services for clients with less than GBP50,000 in investable assets, Fundweb reports. The clients affected by this measure will be contacted by Brewin, which will offer them “execution-only” services instead.A few days ago, Brewin Dolphin reported a 4% decline in its profits and costs of GBP4.8m, related to the closure of offices and several departures of big names.

Barings Asset Management has recruited Duncan Goodwin, former director of Martin Currie, where he had been principal manafer of the GF Global Resources Fund, to take over as head of global resources team. He will be based in London, and will report to Tim Scholefeld, head of equities. Goodwin, who will take over in January, replacing Jonathan Blake, will be responsible group-wide for Global Resources funds, and will manage the Baring Global Resources Fund.

Russell Investments has announced the recruitment of Mirko Cardinale as head of asset allocation for EMEA. He will be based in London, and will join Davi Vickers, who joined in November as senior portfolio manager, and Rob Hall, who also joined the multi-asset team in October, a statement says.Previously, Cardinale had been at Aviva Invetors, where he was director of asset allocation strategy for six years, and has served as lead manager for British multi-asset funds (“with profits” and “unit-linked”). Before that, he worked for Watson Wyatt (now Towers Watson) as an economist, and then moved to a position as a Senior Consultant from 2002 to 2007.

The asset management firm Brooks Macdonald International (BMI) has launched a managed accounts service aimed at international investors, Investment Week reports. The new service offers four active strategies: defensive, diversified prudent, diversified, and growth. Investors will also have multiple currency options available to them, with a way to invest in sterling, euros, or US dollars.

Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB), Commerzbank, Haspa Finanzholding and Sal. Oppenheim (Deutsche Bank group) have sold nearly 90% of the Bavarian asset management firm specialised in closed funds KGAL to two individuals, Francis Louvard and Gregory Ingram, who “have several years of experience in the international management of assets,” according to a statement. The new owners “support the growth plans of KGAL in the asset classes of real estate, infrastructure, and aircraft.” The former owners will retain 10% stakes.Following the transaction, the CEO, Georg Reul, left the firm with immediate effect on 10 December. His responsibilities will provisionally be taken over by Kurt Holderer, chief financial officer of KGAL.As of the end of 2012, KGAL managed investments of EUR25.1bn, with EUR6.4bn in assets. The range includes 135 closed funds, and only one (real estate) open-ended fund.

The consultant Wilshire Associates has announced that Jason Schwarz will become chairman of Wilshire Funds Management, its activity dedicated to asset management, Mutual Fund Wire reports. In this position he will replace Victor Zhang, who is moving to American Centry to take over the position of co-chief investment officer. Cleo Chang, meanwhile, becomes CIO fo Wilshire Funds Management.

Paris-based Tobam on 12 December announced the opening of an office in New York and the appointment of two representatives, who will work to develop the activities of Tobam in North America. “From the beginning, we have expressed a desire to expand in North America, with a certain number of emblematic clients such as CalPERS. The proportion of North America in our assets currently stands at about 35%. We would like to accelerate our expansion and increase this proportion to 50%,” the chairman of Tobam, Yves Choueifaty, tells Newsmanagers, emphasizing the sustained engagement of the firm in North America.The New York office will allow Tobam to increase its presence serving North American investors, and will be led by Stéphane Detobel and Francis Verpoucke, both of whom come from Amundi and both of whom are associate directors at the new firm Tobam North America. They will be responsible for commercial development and relationships with US investors. The announcement comes at a time when Tobam will finish the year with highly satisfactory results. “Our objective is to double our assets every two years. We did much better this year. Assets under management at Tobam have already doubled in one year, to USD5.4bn as of the end of November 2013,” says Choueifaty. 25% of inflows are coming from North America, and 75% from Northen Europe, which corresponds to the current distribution of assets. “We are also seeing the first fruits of our parnership with Amundi,” Choueifaty adds, “with two mandates in Japan and one mandate in Taiwan.”

Funds collected to reimburse the victims of the Ponzi pyramid scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff may, according to the Financial Times, cover as much as 75% of their losses due to the fraud, which total USD17.5bn. JPMorgan has agreed to pay USD2.5bn by the end of the year, following an agreement with the US authorities, who had accused it of failing to denounce the massive fraud, discovered five years ago.

53% of institutional investors are planning to increase their exposure to smart beta ETFs in the next three years. This is the category of ETFs which receives the most votes, exceeding even cap-weighted ETFs (48%), a survey by Cogent Research, relayed by Invesco PowerShares, reveals. This result corroborates the trends observed for flows throughout the profession: non-cap-weighted ETFs have attracted 25% of subscriptions to equity ETFs since the beginning of the year, while they represented only 12% of total assets, says John Hoffman, director of institutional sales & capital markets at Invesco PowerShares. The survey of 193 institutionals between 5 September and 2 October reveals that interest in smart beta ETFs is the result of a desire to improve risk-adjusted returns, to reduce volatility and to access more elaborate weighting methodologies. The survey by Cogent Research (Market Strategies International group) reveals that the largest institutionals, those which have USD500m in assets under management, have twice as much of an opportunity as average to consider that smart beta ETFs offer higher risk-adjusted returns than cap-weighted ETFs.

Three former partners at the Skandia – Old Mutual group, Steve Lamarque, Bogdan Popescu and Eric Gairin, are teaming up to found the firm Hilbert Investment Solutions, according to a statement released on 12 December. Hilbert IS presents itself as a specialist in structured engineering solutions for all types of underlying assets: equities, fixed income, credit, commodities. The solutions proposed cover the universe of products which provide a capital guarantee, products which privilege returns, or index-based products. These products may be created through a «public call for savings» (APE), private investment, and is eligible for investment from life insurance policies and/or securities accounts. Hilbert IS also proposes to create custom products to meet precise specifications.Hilbert IS designed products for wealth management clients as part of a diversification of its financial wealth, but also for businesses, for the management of their cash or their owners’ equity. For commercial distribution, the preferred partners of Hilbert IS are Independent Financial Advisers, institutionals and and private management teams at banking networks.

The European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) on 12 December announced the composition of the Securities Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG). The new members of the stakeholders’ group will have a 2-year term, which will begin on 1 January next year.The new group will have 30 members from 17 member countries, and will represent consumers, users of financial services, actors on financial markets, employees at financial institutions, SMEs and academics. Some members of the new group participated in the first group.The group of participants may express their point of view and advise ESMA on its working programme, while also being required to be consulted concerning technical standards, guidelines and recommendations of the European authority.

The financial ratings agency Fitch Ratings has called the outlooks stable for money market funds in 2014. These outlooks also reflect the regulatory status quo, as all reforms under consideration would only be implemented very graudally. However, the challenges related to this regulation and the contraction of the investment universe are very real. If they are implemented, the regulatory texts under consideration would lead to profound changes which would alter the time scope and investment strategies on both sides of the Atlantic. The Moody’s ratings agency shares the point of view of Fitch Ratings, claiming that outlooks are stable for money market funds in 2014, as the key problem remains regulatory changes under consideration on both sides of the Atlantic.

La popularité croissante des monnaies virtuelles, bitcoin en tête, constitue un sujet de préoccupation pour les régulateurs. Après la Banque de France, l’Autorité bancaire européenne (EBA) a publié une note avertissant des risques liés à ce phénomène. Pour l’EBA, le consommateur doit ainsi avoir conscience du fait qu’il peut perdre la totalité de sa mise ou être victime d’un acte de piratage. Le régulateur met également l’accent sur l’implication possible de ces devises dans des activités criminelles, dont le blanchiment d’argent. Il recommande en guise de conclusion au consommateur de ne pas engager de l’argent «réel» qu’il ne peut pas se permettre de perdre.

Les ventes au détail ont augmenté davantage que prévu le mois dernier aux Etats-Unis, accréditant l’hypothèse d’un raffermissement de la croissance au quatrième trimestre. Elles ont progressé de 0,7% selon le département du Commerce. La hausse enregistrée le mois dernier est la plus élevée en cinq mois et fait suite à une progression de 0,4% en octobre.

Les partis séparatistes de Catalogne se sont entendus sur la formulation d’un référendum d’autodétermination. Le gouvernement espagnol a pourtant immédiatement prévenu que ce scrutin ne pourrait se tenir en raison de son caractère anticonstitutionnel. Le chef de l’exécutif régional catalan, Artur Mas, a déclaré que deux questions seraient posées lors de cette consultation, fixée au 9 novembre 2014 : «Voulez-vous que la Catalogne devienne un Etat ?» et «Voulez-vous que cet Etat soit indépendant ?»