The Swedish bank SBAB Bank, which is owned by the Swedish government, is planning to launch its first three funds in autumn, all designed and managed by Öhman Fonder. All three of the products invest in equities, bonds, commodities, real estate and hedge funds, with different allocations and investment horizons, in order to meet the needs of a variety of investor profiles. The SBAB Sparfond Kort invests 20% in equities, while the SBAB Sparfond Medel invests 50%, and the SBAB Sparfong Lang invests 75% in this asset class.

The post-2008 influx of institutional money into hedge funds has resulted in a marked increase in the global industry’s operational sophistication and transparency to investors, according to a new report by KPMG and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). The report, entitled “The Evolution of an Industry”, is based on a survey of 150 hedge fund management firms globally with more than USD550bn in combined assets under management. It found that hedge fund management firms have increased their operational infrastructure in areas like investor transparency and regulatory compliance as allocations from institutional investors have increased. Seventy-six per cent of respondents have observed an increase in investment by pension funds since 2008, while institutional investors as a whole, including funds of funds, accounted for a clear majority (57%) of assets under management. The report finds that the increase in institutional investment has led to more thorough due diligence and greater demands by investors for transparency, with 90% of respondents reporting an increased demand for due diligence since 2008. Eighty-four per cent of all respondents indicated they had increased transparency to investors since 2008, which is reflected by the fact that the majority of firms have taken on multiple members of staff to respond to these increased investor demands.

A growing number of institutional investors are using ETFs to facilitate their management practices, including liquidity management, according to a study published by Greenwich Associates. The study, sponsored by iShares, finds that a significant number of institutional investors use ETFs to improve the liquidity of their portfolios. “Liquidity has become a governance issue since the outbreak of the financial crisis. Institutional investors have learned their lessons from this period to develop effective liquidity solutions. From this point of view, ETFs can represent a useful tool,” the study finds.

Sales of pension funds in Europe could be compromised if the sector is included in the PRIPs (Packaged Retail Investment Products) directive, Financial Times Fund Management suggests. The Association of British Insurers is preoccupied by a proposed rule that individuals would be required to seek independent advice before subscribing to any fund. That would hamper the long-awaited introduction of a British proposed regulation which would ensure that employees automatically join corporate pension funds, FT FM reports.

Jay Rosoff has joined Thesis Fund Management, an asset management firm which offers the Thesis Flexible Fund. He will be director of distribution for the product. Until 2010, Rosoff served as national sales manager at Allianz Global Investors in the United States.

BNY Mellon has announced that it has been selected by AdvisorShares to provide it with administration, accounting and custody services on 14 ETF funds in its range, which have total assets of over USD500m.

In April, equity markets lost 0..65%, while after six months of steep decline, implicit volatility increased month on month by 1.7 percentage point to 17.2%.In this environment, only two of the 13 strategies monitored by the Edhic-Risk Institute posted positive results, with monthly returns of 1.02% for short selling and 0.50% for bond arbitrage. The heaviest losses were for long/short equity, with 0.65%.Since the beginning of this year, the best returns were for distressed securities (6.2%) and long/short equity (5.5%), while the worst performer was short selling, with losses of 11.8%.Meanwhile, since the beginning of January 2001, the best two results, according to Edhec, were for distressed securities, with 10.4% per year (the only ratio with a Sharpe ratio of over 1, at 1.02), just ahead of emerging markets at 10.2% (with a Sharpe ratio of 0.60).

Only a few weeks after SEB Asset Management on 7 May announced the liquidation of the open-ended real estate fund SEB ImmoInvest, the German asset management firm Credit Suisse Asset Management Immobilien announced on 21 May that it was not in a position to satisfy all redemption demands for the CS Euroreal fund (EUR6bn in AUM, like ImmoInvest). The fund will therefore be liquidated by 30 April 2017. The asset management firm will issue payments every 6 months, with the first payment to come in the second half of 2012, along with December dividends at the latest.CSAM Immobilien states that redemption demands for the Euroreal fund (whose redemptions had been frozen for two years) exceeded available liquidity of EUR1.6bn (27% of assets), of which EUR1.25bn came from subscriptions and sales of properties at their market value or higher.

Since its launch in May 2011, the PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF has seen inflows of about USD1.6bn, more than any of the 400 other funds launched last year, and it has gained 9.5%, compared with losses of 0.7% for the S&P 500 in the same period, the Wall Street Journal reports. This appears to reinforce the argument that solid shares outperform without causing the wrenching ups and downs that many investors consider unnecessary punishment. But some indices already show that the tide may already have turned against the fund: its lead on the larger market has fallen in the past three to four months.

The banker Pascal Quiry has left BNP Paribas to launch an investment fund, Les Echos reports. Quiry, who has been a partner at Paribas since 1986, had for the past five years been in charge of execution teams in European and American mergers and acquisitions at the bank. He was also a member of the international board of directors. The objective of the small asset management firm which he is in the process of founding, and which is expected to be up and running by the end of the year, is to invest in blocs of shares in businesses which are considered undervalued, for the long term. A team of three to four people is in the process of being recruited.

Frédéric Lasserre and Christophe Cordonnier, two former managing directors of commodity market activities at Société Générale, have announced the launch of Belaco Capital, a commodity investment fund which will be managed in Paris. The official launch date for the fund is set for 4th quarter 2012. Lasserre built and led the research and strategy teams at Société Générale, while Cordonnier, who has worked with him for the past 15 years, set up and led the sales and commodity structuring teams at Société Générale, a statement says. They will be joined by François Beuzelin, who has spent 12 years at Société Générale, where he had been director of trading activities for metals, before working on an investment fund for the past 2 years.

AXA Investment Managers has announced the launch of a series of innovative corporate bond strategies. ‘SmartBeta’ strategies have been designed specifically for investors seeking low-cost credit exposure without the drawbacks of market capitalisation weighted index-based strategies. AXA IM’s SmartBeta strategies take an active approach to define the investment universe and therefore aim for a more attractive risk/return profile than that offered by passive index tracking strategies.Tim Gardener, Global Head of Consultant Relations, AXA IM commented: «We have seen significant interest from institutional investors and their consultants, who want a more intelligent and pragmatic approach to capture the market return within the corporate bond segment. SmartBeta offers a middle ground for those clients looking to harvest the return of the market whilst still avoiding the inefficiencies of a purely passive approach. It is a strategy that is designed with the aim of protecting portfolios from both systemic and event risk and to deliver a less volatile return."AXA Fixed Income’s Portfolio Manager Analysts begin by using a number of rules based and fundamental filters to arrive at the investible universe of bonds. The portfolio is then constructed to achieve an optimal level of diversification such that it is not unduly exposed to a tail risk at a stock, sector or country level. Using relative value analysis, those bonds that are deemed to be best value are purchased and equally weighted in the portfolio. Given that the purchase price of a bond is critical to overall return of a buy and hold strategy, this approach maximises the beta of the portfolio over the medium term.AXA IM’s approach boasts two differentiating features: it optimizes purchase costs by striving for best execution and also rebalances investments more optimally than standard index funds. Unlike with a purely passive approach in which the evolution of the index dictates the buying and selling of bonds potentially leading to overweighting the most indebted issuers, AXA IM’s approach strives to ensure that poorly valued or ‘at risk’ bonds are not purchased. In addition, regular monitoring by the AXA Fixed Income team aims to ensure that diversification and credit worthiness of the portfolio is maintained as the SmartBeta strategy rests on the premise that a bond held to maturity delivers its beta in full provided it does not default even partially.SmartBeta strategies will be managed by senior portfolio managers within AXA IM’s Fixed Income expertise. Mark Benstead, who is Head of AXA Fixed income for UK and Asia, will be responsible for managing SmartBeta portfolios across the sterling denominated corporate bond market. Anne Velot, Head of Continental Credit will manage European SmartBeta strategies, and Nicole Montoya, Head of Global Credit and Money Market will manage the strategy across the global universe of corporate bonds.The SmartBeta strategies will be managed by senior portfolio managers in the bond management team at AXA IM. Mark Benstead, head of credit in the United Kingdom, will manage the SmartBeta Sterling portfolios; Anne Veelot, head of credit for continental Europe, will be in charge of euro SmartBeta strategies, while Nicole Montoya, head of global credit and money markets, will manage global credit strategies.

The Environmental Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has issued a call for the creation of a genuine global environmental governance body in a statement which will be presented on Tuesday, addressed to the Rio+20 summit. If a genuine global environmental governance body is not created to further sustainable development objectives, with the power to take decisions and require adherence to them, future generations will be endangered, says Françoise Vilain, rapporteure for the statement to be released today. One month ahead of the UN summit scheduled for 20-22 June in Rio.

According to a survey on German institutional funds (Spezialfonds) by the Kommalpha and Telos agencies, obtained in advance of its release by the Börsen-Zeitung, more than one in two institutional investors is disposed to change its asset mangement firm in the next twelve months. One year ago, in the previous edition of the survey, only one in three institutional managers said it was considering changing managers.

On 21 May, the Scottish asset management firm Martin Currie announced that it is opening the UCITS IV-compliant version of its Asian Long Term Unconstrained (ALTU) strategy to investors, in the form of a sub-fund of its Luxemborg Sicav Martin Currie Global Funds. It will be available in share classes denominated in US dollars, pounds sterling and euros.The Martin Currie GF – Asia Long Term Unconstrained Fund is managed by Jason McCay and Andrew Graham, who are already responsible for USD441m in the ALTU strategy. The unconstrained portfolio will have 20 to 30 holdings, and will be managed with a long-term absolute return approach, and the objective of minimising transaction costs and limiting volatility.The managers will place particular emphasis on the transparency of books and good governance at businesses selected.

A London court has upheld fines levelled by the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) against two former advisers in the wealth management unit at the major bank UBS, the FSA announced in a statement on 21 May. The two former employees in 2007 and 2008 undertook rogue trades totalling several billions of pounds. The two former employees, whom the FSA has fined a total of GBP1.3bn, will not be allowed to work in the regulated financial services industry in the future, the FSA announced on Monday.

Paul Manduca, founder of Threadneedle, may be nominated to take over as head of the Prudential financial group, which in addition to insurance, also has asset management activities at M&G, the Telegraph reports. Manduca would succeed Harvey McGrath. Recently, Manduca’s name is said to have been submitted to the British Financial Services Authority (FSA), who would then be required to ensure that the nominee has the “appropriate capabilities” to direct one of the largest British financial groups. Prudential may announce the appointment in the next few days. Manduca would then leave his position as chairman at Aon in order to take over as head of Prudential over the summer.

The British bank Barclays on 21 May announced that it has sold its 19.6% stake in the capital of the BlackRock group. This stake is estimated at slightly over USD6bn. BlackRock will buy a part of the bloc of shares, for a total of USD1bn. Barclays entered the capital of BlackRock in June 2009, when it sold its affiliate Global Investors.

Investec Asset Management reach GBP61.5bn in assets as of the end of March, largely due to net subscriptions of GBP5.2m in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, Investment Europe reports. For the past three years, net inflows have averaged over GBP5bn.

La Banque Populaire de Chine (PBOC) bénéficierait d’un accès direct aux obligations émises par le Trésor américain, alors que les autres acheteurs passent par l’intermédiaire des banques, selon Reuters. Une manière pour Pékin, premier créancier des Etats-Unis avec 1.170 milliards de dollars de titres, de bénéficier de cotation plus avantageuses.

Reuters croit savoir de source proche que les gestionnaires d’actifs Waddell & Reed, BlackRock et Norges Bank Investment Management ont acquis auprès de CVC Capital une part au capital du circuit automobile qui prépare une IPO à Singapour pour 1,6 milliard de dollars. La part de CVC est ainsi passée selon cette source de 63,4 à 40%.

Selon Bloomberg, le Financial Stability Oversight Council s’apprête à désigner certaines chambres de compensation de swaps comme étant d’importance systémique afin de les soumettre à une supervision renforcée. Dans le cadre de Dodd-Frank, les chambres de compensation ont l’obligation de compenser la plupart des swaps sur le marché des dérivés OTC, évalué à 708.000 milliards de dollars.

L’actionnaire de référence de Séchilienne-Sidec, contrôlé par les fonds gérés par Apax Partners et par Altamir Amboise, a scellé un accord avec ses partenaire bancaires visant à ramener le montant de sa dette à 40 millions d’euros. Le montant initial à la mise en place du crédit en juillet 2008 était de 145 millions. La dette sera remboursée intégralement en une fois à l’échéance du contrat.

Frédéric Lasserre, l’ancien directeur de l’investissement dans les matières premières de la Société Générale, prévoit de lancer au quatrième trimestre un fonds d’arbitrage avec deux de ses anciens collègues, Christophe Cordonnier et François Beuzelin. Belaco Capital investira dans les futures sur les matières premières, dont l’énergie, les métaux et l’agriculture. Les fondateurs tablent sur une mise de 100 millions d’euros au premier trimestre de 2013.

La performance annuelle des fonds offrant un profil défensif - monétaire et obligataire - s’est accélérée au mois d’avril en France à la faveur du net regain d’aversion pour le risque des investisseurs, montrent les données compilées par Lipper. Le gain des gestions obligataires est passé de 5,6% fin mars à 6,1% fin avril et celui des fonds monétaires de 1,5% à 2%.

Le fonds britannique Parvus Asset Management a acquis la semaine dernière de nouvelles actions du capital de Havas, portant à 17,41% sa participation dans le groupe publicitaire dont il est le deuxième actionnaire derrière Vincent Bolloré, selon l’AMF. Le titre Havas a clôturé en hausse de 3,16% à 4,01 euros.

Réunis demain soir, ils devraient approfondir l'idée de lancer des «obligations de projets» avec la Banque européenne d'investissement

Le gendarme des marchés américain a autorisé un élargissement des investisseurs ciblés pour la prochaine émission de Royal Bank of Canada

Les chefs d’Etat discuteront demain d’une augmentation du capital de la Banque européenne d’investissement d’environ 10 milliards d’euros comme outil de croissance.

Le gouvernement a nommé deux cabinets pour faire la lumière sur la situation du secteur, durement touché par la crise immobilière