Elle est défendue par des élus, la Cour des comptes et certains cabinets d'audit pour apporter plus de transparence et de fiabilité

Le marché a enregistré des retraits pour 8,2 milliards en mai selon BarCap, la pire performance jamais observée après septembre 2011

Le premier ministre chinois Wen Jiabao a achevé sa tournée en Amérique Latine en offrant 10 milliards de dollars de lignes de crédit dans le cadre de sa proposition d’accord de libre échange avec les pays du Mercosur. L’objectif serait de doubler le volume des échanges d’ici 2016. En 2011, les exportations de la Chine vers le Mercosur ont atteint 48,5 milliards de dollars, en croissance de 34%.

La commission boursière américaine pourrait entamer des poursuites au civil contre Philip Falcone, le directeur d’Harbinger Capital Partners, dès cette semaine, selon des sources concordantes. La SEC le soupçonne d’avoir utilisé l’argent de ses clients pour régler ses impôts, favorisé certains clients, et notamment Goldman Sachs, mais également de manipulation de cours.

La société d’investissement Fortress Investment Group qui gère 46,4 milliards de dollars d’actifs souhaiterait lancer son deuxième fonds d’investissement (Japan Opportunity Fund) ciblé sur l’immobilier japonais d’un milliard de dollars d’ici la fin de l’année, selon Bloomberg. Les investisseurs institutionnels nippons pèsent à hauteur de 40% dans ce nouveau fonds.

Le Chicago Mercantile Exchange a annoncé hier soir avoir augmenté ses appels de marge sur les contrats à terme de maïs, soja, lait, bois, riz, avoine et blé, traités sur le Chicago Board of Trade. Une mesure effective dès la prochaine séance de cotation.

Pamplona Capital Management, un fonds de private-equity russe, a annoncé avoir accru sa participation dans UniCredit de 1,99% à 5%, devenant ainsi le deuxième actionnaire de la banque italienne. Une participation qui a une valeur de marché de 700 millions d’euros, la banque ayant perdu les deux tiers de sa valeur de marché ces trois derniers mois. Les intentions de Pamplona seraient amicales, selon le Financial Times.

L’Espagne envisage de relever la TVA sur certains produits assujettis actuellement à un taux bas, afin de réduire le déficit budgétaire, a déclaré le ministère des Finances. Le taux de TVA espagnol - 18% - est l’un des plus faibles de l’Union européenne et de nombreux produits bénéficient de surcroît d’un taux réduit de 4% ou 8%.

Pour le gouverneur de la Banque de France, le solde des transactions courantes, déficitaire à hauteur de 1,9% du PIB fin 2011, doit s’améliorer. Ce déficit, persistant depuis 2005, représente en cumul 165 milliards. Outre l’impact de l'énergie, commun à toute la zone euro, la France présente un facteur spécifique : une compétitivité insuffisante, a souligné Christian Noyer.

Avec un net recul des recettes fiscales et une hausse des dépenses gouvernementales, le déficit budgétaire britannique (hors soutien public aux banques) a atteint 17,9 milliards de livres en mai, contre 15,2 milliards un an plus tôt, selon l’Office national des statistiques. Le consensus des économistes s’établissait à 14,8 milliards de livres.

L’agence de notation a ramené la note de l’Allemagne de AA- à A+ et assigné une perspective négative. Que la Grèce ou d’autres pays de la zone euro quittent ou pas l’union monétaire, l’Allemagne se retrouvera chargée de créances supplémentaires et irrécouvrables, explique Egan-Jones.

Sur les cinq premiers mois de l’année, le déficit budgétaire du gouvernement central espagnol s’est élevé à 3,41% du PIB, contre 2,59% un an plus tôt. Hors impact des transferts aux régions, le déficit est ramené de 2,56% à 2,38%. Pour l’ensemble de l’année, le gouvernement central vise un déficit de 3,5% du PIB.

The index provider S&P Indices on 26 June announced the launch of the S&P Sri Lanka 20 index, which was developed in partnership with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). The index includes the 20 largest caps on the CSE market. The 20 shares in the index are as follows: John Keells Holdings PLC Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC Bukit Darah Co. Ltd. Hatton National Bank PLC Carson Cumberbatch& Co PLC Sampath Bank PLC Ceylon Tobacco Co. Ltd.. DFCC Bank Aitken Spence & Co PLC National Development Bank PLC CT Holdings PLC Distilleries Co of Sri Lanka PLC Hayleys PLC Chevron Lubricants Lanka PLC Dialog Axiata PLC Cargills Ceylon PLC Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings PLC Nestle Lanka Asian Hotels & Properties Sri Lanka Telecom PLC

La banque verte veut aider les collectivités locales alors que ces dernières éprouvent des difficultés à trouver des financements depuis les difficultés de Dexia. Pour y arriver, le Crédit Agricole va s’appuyer sur ses activités assurantielles. Dans un communiqué daté du 26 juin, le groupe mutualiste annonce que les caisses régionales vont proposer 1,875 Md€ de crédits à taux fixe sur 15 ans aux collectivités « de taille moyenne présentant des projets utiles pour le développement des territoires et ne pouvant accéder directement aux marchés obligataires ». 80% de ces créances seront ensuite rachetées par un véhicule de titrisation, qui se finance en émettant des obligations souscrites par Crédit Agricole Assurances. Les caisses régionales conserveront dans leur bilan les 20% restants, dont elles assureront la gestion. « C’est une source de diversification de nos placements, car nous nous sommes largement désengagés de la dette souveraine non française. Il nous fallait en outre un placement long pour être en adéquation avec la durée des contrats d’assurance-vie », a expliqué Jérôme Grivet, directeur général de Crédit Agricole Assurances, dans Les Echos.

Agefi reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may file a civil suit against Philip Falcone, director of Harbinger Capital Partners, as soon as this week, according to multiple sources. The SEC suspects Falcone of using client money to pay taxes, of favouring certain clients, particularly Goldman Sachs, and also of manipulating the share price of MAAX Holdings.

Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) has been mandated by Hansainvest Lux S.A. to produce key investor information documents (KIID), according to a statement from SGSS released on 26 June. Hansainvest has chosen to adopt the entirety of the modular KIID range offered by SGSS, which includes: -creation of content, such as explanations of investment policy in everyday language, -calculation of various indicators, such as risk indicators, presentation of past performance, or calculation of management fees, -creation and layout of KIID documents: the documents are prepared by experienced teams, including asset servicing, legal, graphics, translation, quality control and distribution via a robust IT platform which is able ot manage very large volumes. Hansainvest Lux S.A., an affiliate of the Signal Iduna group, manages about EUR10bn in assets.

NYSE Euronext on 26 June announced that it has added two Luxembourg-registered ETFs from Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale group) to trading on Euronext Paris. The European markets of the NYSE Euronext group now list a total of 590 ETFs 686 times, replicating more than 450 different indices. The first of the two new Lyxor funds replicates the new Euro iStoxx 50 Equal Risk index, which has the same composition as the Euro Stoxx 50 Index. The new concept applies an equal risk contribution strategy to the underlying index to allocate the risk contribution of the components equally. In order to do so, at the monthly rebalancing a covariance matrix is calculated for the 50 components of the Euro Stoxx 50 Index, using the single components’ closing prices over the trading days of the past year.CharacteristicsName: Lyxor ERCISIN code: LU0776635921Underlying index: Euro iStoxx 50 Equal RiskTotal expense ratio: 0.25%Name: Lyxor WLDRISIN code: LU0776636812Underlying index: MSCI World Risk WeightedTotal expense ratio: 0.45%

On Tuesday, the Munich-based asset management firm KanAm announced that shareholders in its US-grundinvest fund (DE0006791817) will be receiving a report on the liquidation of the fund, which was completed on 31 March. Historically, the product was the first German open-ended real estate fund to be liquidated. The decision to liquidate the fund was taken in late September 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 1 October 2010).KanAm insists that the fund, the only German product in the category to be denominated in US dollars, in its nine years of existence (the fund was launched on 20 May 2003), has earned returns of 48.8%. Over six years, the average investment duration, returns were 23.5%. And in the past year, performance was 23.9%, due to higher-than-expected tax refunds.Since 1 April 2012, the procedure to liquidate the fund and distribute its assets to shareholders has been transferred to the depository bank, the Hamburg-based M. M. Warburg & Co KGaA.

First Trust Advisors will soon be launching its first actively-managed ETF, Mutual Fund Wire has announced. The First Trust North American Energy Infrastructure Fund will invest in energy infrastrucure, and will be managed by Energy Income Partners on behalf of the US asset management firm.

AllianceBernstein on 26 June announced the launch of an income strategy, the Lifetime Income Strategy, by the United Technologies Corporation (UTC), which is available through the group’s retirement programme. The new vehicle is designed to bring simplicity to a horizon fund, and security for lifetime income, similar to a defined-benefit programme.

The Basel Committee on 26 June launched a consultation on collection of information and risk reporting. The financial crisis has shown that many banks, including systemic banks, were incapable of rapidly and exhaustively finding their total exposure to risk, the Basel Committee says in a statement. “These proposals are an important step to improve the risk management capacities of banks,” says Stefan Ingves, chairman of the Basel Committee, and also governor of the central bank of Sweden. The consultation will be open until 28 September. The Basel Committee has also published a final revision of rules on information that banks must supply about the detailed composition of their capital.

39% of European institutional investors are planning to increase the proportion of assets they delegate to external asset management firms, by an average of 5%, in the next 12 months, a Caceis Investor Services and PwC survey undertaken between February and April, of a sample of professionals representing total assets of USD4.5trn, presented Tuesday at the Fund Forum International (“Taking the Reins: A Roadmap for Navigating the Institutional Investors’ Universe,”) has found.Of the survey, 32% are planning to increase the number of asset management firms to which they delegate assets.Currently, institutionals ousource an average of 59% of their assets to external managers, while the practice is much more sidespread at pension funds (69%) than at insurance companies (10%).They outsource an average of EUR553m to each asset management firm. This amount is lower for those who tend to invest in funds (EUR240m) than for those who prefer mandates (EUR809m). At the same time, 52% of investors surveyed use fewer than 10 external asset management firms, in all investor categories combined.When they select external managers, institutional investors, who account for 69% of assets under management in the asset management sector, or EUR12trn, are most swayed by the transparency of the product, followed by performance and expertise, François Marion, CEO of Caceis Investor Servies, said at a presentation of the study. Their level of satisfaction depends on operational strength, independence of verifications of controls and procedures, and the quality of service, the survey continues. As a result, says Marion, the study suggests that investors are not focused solely on performance. However, poor performance is the most popular reason for investors to decide to replace an asset management firm. The other two reasons are high fees and poor quality reporting. These are three areas where asset management firms need to seek to improve.

30% of asset managers will disappear in the next ten years, a survey by KPMG of 25 CEOs in the asset management industry to be published in July, from which Nicolas Griffin, partner, presented a few findings at the Fund Forum International on Tuesday in Monaco, has found. The head of KPMG says that by asset managers, he means both asset management firms, and people working in the industry.This is a result of overcapacity in the sector, and compressing margins, he explained to Newsmanagers at the conference. “That will primarily affect asset management firms which are too large, and those which have a cost/income ratio of 80-90%, a relatively large population,” says Griffin.The KPMG head also predicts that sovereign funds will become full-blown asset managers. He would not be surprised if sovereign funds started buying up asset management firms as soon as next year.

In the past few years, aversion to the equity markets has given rise to an increasing appetite for bond funds in Europe, according to a Lipper study. But that hasn’t worked to everyone’s advantage. An examination of inflows in 2011 finds that a small percentage of funds accounted for a large percentage of inflows. According to Lipper, slightly over 5% of bond funds took on nearly 50% of bond inflows in 2011.This may encourage some managers to launch new strategies to attempt to capture a part of the inflows to the best-selling funds. The number of funds in Europe, however, remains very high, with an increase of about 1,000 in the number of funds in barely a year.

A survey of 21 institutional investors and 25 corporate CFOs (issuers), mostly European, undertaken by the Edhec-Risk Institute and sponsored by Rothschild & Cie, finds that investors consider inflation-linked corporate bonds the ideal instrument to hedge their liabilities, now that government debt is no longer considered an asset safe from the risk of default, in liability-driven investment by pension funds.For businesses, respondents say that inflation-linked bond issues tend ultimately to limit risks for businesses and to increase its share price.

Uffi Real Estate Asset Management (UFFI Ream) on 26 June announced that it has signed a partenrship agreement with Corpus Sireo, a top fund manager in Germany, to provide outsourced asset management with a dedicated team for the French portfolio of a Luxembourg Sicav-FIS investing in Europe. Uffi Ream will manage six office properties for the fund, which are valued at about EUR250m. As a part of these duties, Uffi ream will be responsible for valuation and rental of the properties. With this new management mandate, “Uffi Ream shows its capacity for development beyond its historical profession as a SCPI, in the management of real estate funds for French and foreign institutional managers,” a statement says. Assets under management at Uffi Ream total EUR1.5bn.

In response to criticisms of ETFs, and at the demand of many investors, BlackRock has decided to limit the room to manoeuvre it grants to its portfolio managers, and will now put a ceiling of 50% of the portfolio on the use of securities lending for products sold under the iShares brand, a spokesperson for the US asset management firm has told Reuters, Handelsblatt reports. In the past, the percentage of assets involved in these transactions has been higher than this limit.

The State Street Investor Confidence index for institutional investors in the month of June 2012 is up 7 point, from 86.5 in May to 93.5 in June, its highest level of the year. This rise is attributable to US and European investors. Appetite for risk on the part of institutional investors in North America rose 5.7 points from a corrected level of 88.1 in May, at 93.8 in June. The confidence of institutional investors in Europe is up 4.5 points at 102.5, compared with a corrected level of 98.0 the previous month. The confidence of investors in Asia has improved slightly. The regional index is up by one point to 90.4 in June, compared with a revised level of 89.4 in May.

Asset management firms now account for only 22% of global financial assets, which have increased in volume in four years, compared with 25% four years ago, according to the most recent edition of the annual McKinsey study of asset management, Les Echos reports. However, there is no more profitable area in financial services. Returns on owners’ equity totalled 13.5% in 2011 in asset management, compared with 8.1% in insurance and 5.1% in banking. In the next three, four or five years, McKinsey predicts annual growth of 3%, while the other two sectors will shrink.

Frédéric Potelle will succeed Michel Juvet, who became a partner in January this year, as head of research at Bordier & Cie, Agefi Switzerland reports. Potelle, who has been employed at the Geneva-based bank since 2008, was previously an analyst coering the industrial, construction, utilities and energy sectors. After beginning his career as a project manager in nuclear engineering, he then became vice president of Areva, in charge of financial communications and investor relations, before moving into financial analysis. Gianluca Tarolli is joining Bordier & Cie as a market economist. He was previously an investment strategist at Heritage Bank from 2009, and an equity strategist in the investment strategy team at Lombard Odier, after serving at Darier Hentsch and J.P. Morgan.