Lyxor AM réduit pour la troisième fois en moins de deux mois les frais de gestion de son ETF monétaire, le Lyxor ETF Euro Cash, à 0,065 %. La société avait déjà abaissé la commission de 0,15 % à 0,085 % le 1er août, et à 0,075 % le 3 septembre.

Le taux de défaut des entreprises notées en catégorie spéculative a terminé le troisième trimestre à 3%, en très légère hausse par rapport au deuxième trimestre où il s'était inscrit à 2,9%, selon des statistiques communiquées par Moody’s.Aux Etats-Unis, le taux de défaut s’est établi à 3,5% à la fin du troisième trimestre contre 3,2% un trimestre plus tôt et 2% l’année précédente. En Europe, le taux de défaut s’est replié à 2,6% au troisième trimestre, contre 2,8% au deuxième trimestre et 1,4% un an plus tôt. Moody’s estime que le taux de défaut devrait terminer l’année à 3% avant de refluer légèrement à 2,9% d’ici au troisième trimestre 2013. Depuis le début de l’année, Moody’s a dénombré 46 entreprises en défaut contre 17 pour la période correspondante de 2011.

State Street Global Advisors a nommé Jacqueline Pang head of capital markets pour son activité pour SPDR ETF. Basée à Hong Kong, l’intéressée aura pour mission de diriger les activités liés aux marchés des capitaux pour les ETF de SSgA en Asie Pacifique.

Le 15 novembre, le groupe suédois spécialisé dans l’assurance Länsförsäkringar externalisera la gestion de ses fonds de fonds à Alfred Berg, la filiale nordique de BNP Paribas. Cela représente un encours de 4,8 milliards de couronnes. L’équipe des taux et de l’allocation d’actifs, dirigée par Stefan Gothenby, sera responsable de la gestion de ces fonds.

PriorNilsson Fonder, société de gestion suédoise gérant deux hedge funds, lance un fonds d’actions suédoises, rapporte Fondbranschen. Le gestionnaire espère attirer les investisseurs grâce à une gestion active et des frais concurrentiels (1 % de frais de gestion).

Suite au départ d'Ángel de Molina (lire Newsmanagers du 4 octobre), Tressis a promu Javier Monjardin directeur de l’analyse et Montserrat Formoso directeur de la gestion, divisant ainsi les prérogatives du partant, qui a rejoint Santander Asset Management comme directeur de l’intelligence de marché.

Natixis Interépargne et Natixis AM ont informé les porteurs de parts du FCPE « Natixis Elan Modéré » que la dénomination du fonds est devenue « Avenir Modéré » à compter du vendredi 5 octobre 2012.

Deux sociétés de gestion lancent cinq fonds ouvrant droit à une réduction d’impôts. Jusqu’au 27 décembre 2012, Viveris Management commercialise trois fonds: le FCPI Innoveris 2012, le FIP Néoveris Santé & Bien Etre et le FIP Néoveris Corse 2012.Innoveris 2012 est investi à hauteur de 90% au moins dans des PME innovantes situées principalement en France mais aussi en Europe. Le fonds ciblera trois thématiques d’investissement prioritaires : la sécurité informatique et le « Cloud Computing », l’économie verte et l’empreinte carbone, la sécurité énergétique et industrielle. Ces thématiques pourront se retrouver dans plusieurs secteurs d’activités, tels que l’environnement, les sciences de la vie, les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication, les logiciels, les services et l’industrie.Neoveris Santé & Bien être investira dans les régions Provence-Alpes-Côte d’azur, Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté et Ile-de-France. Il a pour objectif de répondre aux besoins de financement en fonds propres de PME majoritairement en phase de développement ou de transmission. L’équipe sélectionnera les projets créateurs de valeur en fonction de la qualité de l’équipe dirigeante, leur potentiel de croissance et leur stratégie de développement dans le domaine vaste de la santé et du bien-être. Neoveris Corse 2012 investira un minimum de 60% de ses actifs dans des PME familiales situées exclusivement en région Corse et porteuses de projets de développement à fort potentiel. Avec 42 millions d’euros levés depuis 2007 et 19 investissements déjà réalisés, l’équipe de gestion ciblera des investissements unitaires d’environ un million d’euros dans une dizaine de participations dans des secteurs d’activité variés tels que l’environnement, la construction, l’industrie, les biens de consommation ou les services… Par ailleurs, la société de gestion INOCAP lance la gamme «Made in France» composée de deux fonds : un FCPI et d’un FIP dédiés au financement des PME françaises, employant 75% de leurs effectifs en France et réalisant 50% de leur chiffre d’affaires à l’international. Concernant le FIP, le portefeuille en PME régionales du fonds sera principalement constitué de sociétés industrielles ayant leur activité dans les régions Ile-de-France, Bourgogne, Rhône-Alpes, PACA.

Le 20 août, Russell Investments avait annoncé que sa gamme de 25 ETF américains gérés passivement seraient liquidés di’ci au 9 octobre (lire Newsmanagers du 21 août). Cependant, deux d’entre eux, le Russell Low P/E ETF et le Russell Small Cap Contrarian ETF ont finalement été fermés aux nouveaux investissements et à la négociation dès les 4 octobre et 5 octobre, respectivement. Les souscripteurs ont en effet pu être remboursés en numéraire avant la date prévue.Pour les 23 autres ETF concernés, la date de fermeture aux nouveaux investissements reste fixée au 9 octobre, le dernier jour de négociation étant le 16 octobre, à moins qu’il n’y ait remboursement anticipé, la liquidation totale étant programmée pour le 24 octobre.

AXA a annoncé le 8 octobre la nomination de Cyrille de Montgolfier en tant que directeur des affaires européennes et institutionnelles du groupe. Précédemment responsable de la région Europe Centrale et de l’Est, Cyrille de Montgolfier remplace Jérôme Hamilius, qui a décidé de quitter le Groupe. Il est rattaché dans ses nouvelles fonctions à Denis Duverne, Directeur général délégué du Groupe AXA. Par ailleurs, Jef Van In prend la direction de la région Europe Centrale et de l’Est. Cette nouvelle fonction s’ajoute à ses responsabilités actuelles de directeur général d’AXA Bank Europe. Dans les deux cas, il est rattaché à Jacques de Vaucleroy, directeur général de la région Europe du Nord, Centrale et de l’Est et responsable au niveau international des activités d’assurance vie, épargne, retraite et santé. Ces deux nominations seront effectives à compter du 15 octobre 2012.

BNY Mellon a annoncé le 8 octobre la nomination de Navin Suri en qualité de responsable de la distribution intermédiée pour la région Asie-Pacifique.L’objectif sera de développer des partenariats dans la région avec des intermédiaires financiers tels que banques privées, family offices, fonds de pension, compagnies d’assurances ou encore conseillers financiers indépendants (IFAs). Navin Suri travaillait précédemment chez ING Investment Management où il était managing director et CEO pour les activités de BNY Mellon en Inde.

On 12 October, the German firm MainFirst Asset Management will launch its first bond fund, an emerging market corporate debt fund domiciled in Luxembourg, the MainFirst Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund Balanced. The product has received a sales license from BaFin (Germany), FMA (Austria) and Finma (Switzerland).The portfolio, managed by Thomas Rutz and Cornel Bruhin, will invest in corporate bonds from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. The fund will be “balanced,” because it will invest in high yield securities as well as in quality investment grade bonds, and because the weighting per country will be limited, as will be the weight of each holding (3%).Currency risks are hedged for all currencies, US dollars, euros or Swiss francs.CharacteristicsName: MainFirst Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund BalancedISIN codesRetailA shares (in USD) : LU0816909013A1 shares (in CHF) : LU0816909286A2 shares (in EUR) : LU0816909369Minimal subscription: USD/CHF/EUR2,500Management commission: 1.2%InstitutionalC shares (USD) : LU0816909955C1 shares (CHF) : LU0816910292C2 shares (EUR) : LU0816910375Minimal subscription: USD/CHF/EUR500,000Management commission: 0.8%

On August 20th, Russell Investments announced that its full suite of 25 US domiciled, passively managed ETFs would be liquidated by October 9th (see Newsmanagers of August), but the company on October 5th gave a new closure date for the Russell Low P/E ETF and Russell Small Cap Contrarian ETF. Actually, the Russell Low P/E ETF was closed to new investment October 4, 2012 and October 4, 2012 was the last day the Russell Low P/E ETF was traded on the NYSE Arca. The Russell Small Cap Contrarian ETF was closed to new investment effective on October 5th, which has been the last day the Russell Small Cap Contrarian ETF has been trading on NASDAQ. The new closure dates are the result of the in-kind redemption of all outstanding shares of these funds. Unless there is an earlier redemption of all of the outstanding shares of any of the remaining 23 funds, those funds will be closed to new investment on October 9, 2012. The last day of trading for the remaining funds will be October 16, 2012 and full liquidation of those Funds is intended to be completed by October 24, 2012.

The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite hedge fund index has gained 1.1% in the month of September, putting gains for third quarter at 2.9%, according to statistics from HFR.In the first nine months of the year, the index shows gains of 4.7%.In September, strategies related to equities generally progressed well, with the HFRI equity hedge index showing gains of 1.94%, and positive contributions from both growth and value strategies. The HFRI emerging markets index, for its part, earned returns of 3.1% in September.The Lyxor hedge fund index, for its part, has posted gains of 0.2% in September, while 11 Lyxor strategy indices finished the month with gains.

On 8 October, Deka Investment GmbH, the central asset management firm for the German savings banks, announced that it has officially signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI), which in practice it had been following for some time, says Victor Moftakhar, CEO.The complete range of open-ended funds from Deka already respects certain exclusionary criteria, such as a man on makers of cluster bombs. Since the beginning of 2012, Deka has also launched a range of sustainable development products, Deka-Nachhaltigkeit, in which financial and extra-financial criteria are taken into account together.Overall, assets in open-ended sustainable development funds at Deka total about EUR2bn.

A few intrepid hedge funds have tiptoed back to Greek government bonds, the Financial Times reports. A 10-year issue of reference by the country has seen its price more than double since the end of May, to slightly over EUR0.30. The rally was largely provoked by a promise on the part of Mario Draghi, chairman of the European Central Bank, to save the euro zone, and has been dominated by hedge funds, particularly funds based in New York. One of these is Third Point, the FT reports.

The global services specialist BNY Mellon has been mandated by Allianz Global Services (AGI) to provide data management and accounting services for discretionary mandates managed by AGI. AGI manages about EUR300bn in retail funds, dedicated funds and discretionary mandates. These discretionary mandates, which include international portfolios invested in securities and derivatives, will be taken over by BNY Mellon Service Kapitalanlage-Gesellschaft mbH.

Janus Capital International Limited, the international arm of Janus Capital Group, announced the appointment of Meshal Jaber Al Faras, as head of the Middle East for Janus Capital’s international business, effective immediately.The firm has also opened a representative office in Dubai out of which Meshal will be based.Meshal comes to Janus with over 15 years of experience in the investment industry. Prior to joining Janus, he was Head of GCC Business Development at Royal Capital in Abu Dhabi. Before that, he was a Director at Natixis Global Associates and a spent a decade with the Kuwait Investment Authority. Meshal will report directly to Augustus Cheh, President of Janus Capital International.The new office in the Dubai International Finance Centre will service existing and new clients in the Middle East. The office opening marks the fifth for Janus in 2012, with offices opened to date this year in The Hague, Frankfurt, Paris, and Zurich.

Natixis Global Asset Management has recruited two people for its international products unit, Investment Europe reports. James Beaumont joins from Standard Life Investment, and becomes head of product consulting and solutions, durable portfolio consultant. Catherine Morat joins from Wellington Management. She becomes head of the product marketing team. Both will be based in London.

A senior member of the product structuring and financing group at Man Investments in Switzerland, Nicolas Samaran, has been appointed head of investment content at Source (EUR11.5bn in AUM at end-September).Samaran will have responsibility for the search and selection for new and innovative investment content from external providers and report to Peter Thompson, head of distribution and strategy.

Rathbone Brothers has acquired a 19.9% stake in Vision Independent Financial Planning, a financial advising company, and its sister company, Castle Investment Solutions, for GBP2m. The specialist in wealth management is planning to acquire all of the two entities by 2015, Investment Week reports.

The Paradigm group is planning to launch an asset management operation which will include the fund product range from Paradigm, discretionary fund management services, and model portfolios.The firm is currently in the process of recruiting an investment team to manage third-party fund mandates.

The Netherlands became the first country to implement the AIFM directive, after approval of the law by Parliament, IPE.com reports. “With the new legislation, asset management firms based in the Netherlands may optimally apply a relaxation of tax rules in order to reduce unnecessary costs in existing fiscal and legal structures,” says Marco Frikkee, of KPMG.

On 5 October, the CNMV issued sales licenses for Spain to the Bankinter Renta Fija Jade Garantizado, Ibercaja BP High Yield 2015-2 and Taltrack Alternative Investment funds.The Spanish regulator also issued licenses to the foreign-registered products Amundi Treso 3 mois and Treso Eonia ISR, to several sub-funds from iShares Germany (iShares Dax, Divdax, Dow Jones-UBS commodity Swap, EB Rexx Money Market, MDax, Stoxx Europe 600, and TecDax) , to Julius Baer Special Funds and to the LFP Credit Flexible International and LFP Rendement 2017 funds.

More than 80% of pension funds based in the Netherlands will have to reduce their payments to pensioners for the first time from April next year, unless they can improve their financial situation by then, Financial Times Fund Management reports. The Netherlands central bank is requiring assets at pension funds to represent at least 105% of liabilities by the end of 2013. In order to achieve that objective, 81% of them will have to reduce benefits to current pensioners, according to the most recent available figures.

In January-August, asset management firms belonging to the German BVI association for the sector posted net subscriptions of EUR7.85bn for their security funds. With EUR12.35bn going to Pimco, the Allianz Asset Management group alone posted inflows of EUR15.41bn.The other big winner in the first two thirds of the year is Union Investment (Co-operative banks), with net subscriptions of EUR2.37bn.However, the other two top actors in the sector show outflows, with net redemptions of EUR3.57bn for Deka (savings banks) and EUR3.82bn for Deutsche Bank.ETFs posted outflows, aside from products from ETFlab (Deka group), which posted net inflows of EUR427.6m: the other three major promoters belonging to the BVI have seen outflows of more than EUR800m each: EUR879.7m from iShares (BlackRok), EUR807.8m from db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), and EUR802.2m from ComStage (Commerzbank).

As of the end of August, assets under management by companies belonging to the German BVI trade group totalled a new record of EUR1.93698trn, compared with EUR1.92624trn as of the end of July, and EUR1.76221trn one year previously.Net subscriptions totalled EUR4.39bn in August, compared with EUR6.69bn the previous month, to a total of EUR48.99bn in the first eight months of the year, compared with EUR13.13bn in January-August 2011.However, in the first eight months of the year, open-ended equity funds underwent net outflows of EUR5.9bn, while net redemptions total EUR3.72bn for garanteed funds and EUR1.73bn for money market funds. Open-ended bond funds, however, benefited from net subscriptions of EUR18.44bn.Institutional funds had inflows of a net EUR40.375bn, compared with EUR20.379bn for the corresponding period of last year. Mandates managed outside funds underwent net redemptions of EUR1.81bn in January-August, compared with EUR3.64bn in the first eight months of 2011.

The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, the former Oil Fund, has bought 50% of the UK shopping centre Meadowhall, near Sheffield, for GBP348m.The stake was purchased from a joint venture between London & Stamford Properties and Green Park Investments. The transaction, completed on 6 October, values the entire asset at GBP1.525 billion pounds, including debt.

Fidelity Worldwide Investments is proposing to merge two multi-management funds, the Fidelity MultiManager Balanced Portfolio and Fidelity MultiManager Income Portfolio, Fund Web reports.More precisely, the first fund, whose assets under management total GBP3m, will be integrated into the second, which has a 50% exposure to growth assets (equities, commodities and real estate), and 50% to value securities (bonds).The merger is pending the approval of shareholders and supervisory authorities.

On 15 November, the Swedish group Länsförsäkringar, specialised in insurance, will be outsourcing the management of its funds of funds to Alfred Berg, the Scandinavian affiliate of BNP Paribas. These activities represent assets of SEK4.8bn. The fixed income and asset allocation team, led by Stefan Gothenby, will be responsible for managing the funds.