Activity has been lively in March, but for first quarter as a whole, initial public offerings have raised only USD16.2bn, the lowest amount observed since 2009, according to statistics from Bloomberg. In fourth quarter 2011, IPOs represnted a total of USD28.8bn, and in first quarter 2011, total IPOs measured USD48.4bn. Renaissance Capital observes that expected IPOs in the United States are close to their highest level in over 10 years. However, in recent weeks, some interest in activity in the United States, Asia and Europe has returned. In the United States, nine companies raised USD1.4bn in the week to 30 March.

The board of directors at DekaBank (central asset management firm for the German savings banks) on 2 April appointed Georg Stocker as a board member. He will be responsible for distribution to savings banks and treasuries, and succeeds Hans-Jürgen Gutenberger, who is retiring. From 2004, Stocker had been a member of the board at the Frankfurter Sparkasse, and became its vice president in 2009.

On 2 April, BNP Paribas Germany announced that Stefan Hartl, head of external distribution at BNP Paribas Investment Partners in Germany, has been promoted to the position of managing director of the wealth management-key clients unit at BNP Paribas.Hartl, who had previously worked at Schroders, where he had been responsible for German institutional clients, replaces Pascal Gundrich, who is now in charge of assisting wealth management key accounts at BNP Paribas in Luxembourg.

In a nine-line statement, the DSGV federation of German savings banks on 2 April announced that it is immediately relieving Franz S. Waas of his responsibilities as a member and chairman of the board at DekaBank, the second-largtest German asset management firm. The savings banks now control the entirety of capital in the firm, in which the Landesbanken had held half until last year. The decision, taken the day before a press conference at Deka to announce results, is officially motivated by the fact that “the necessary relationship of confidence no longer existed, due to a lawsuit over additional bonuses filed by the party in relation to his first term in the position, in 2008-2009.” The board of directors at DekaBank has appointed Oliver Behrens as interim chairman of the board.

Tradewinds Global Investors, an affiliate of Nuveen Investments, has seen a further setback with the departure of its chief investment officer, David Iben, Pensions & Investments reports. Fundamentals improved at Tradewinds last year, thanks to a net inflow of USD13bn. But with the departure of Iben, Nuveen will have a lot of trouble putting an exit strategy at Tradewinds into practice, as the firm has debts of over USD4bn, after an LBO in 2007.

Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB) on 2 April announced a reshuffle and apopintments which particularly affect Lyxor Asset Management, which is now directly under the direction of SG CIB. This development allows Lyxor Am to “continue its development as a top-raking asset management firm in the areas of alternative management, ETFs, structured and quantitative management,” a statement says, adding that Inès de Dinechin, CEO of Lyxor AM, is joining the extended executive committee at SG CIB. Richard Paolantonacci, head of the newly-created Management of Rare Resources department, Vincent Mortier, CFO, and Sylvie Préa, director of human resources, are also newly-appointed. The Financing and Investment Bank will continue to be organised around its three major professions: investment banking, financing, and market activities. In these three divisions, SG CIB is making the following changes and appointments, effective from 2 April: In the Client Relations and Investment Banking division, led by Thierry Aulagnon and his deputy, Diony Lebot: two new departments are created, including Primary Equity Capital Markets and Merger and Acquisition Advising activities, and dedicated to client segments. A department of Corporate Finance, led by Thierry d’Argent, offers major clients of the bank a complete range of services from origination to execution. Luis Vaz Pinto and Olivier Buttier are appointed as deputies. A Financial Institutions department, led by Pierre-Yves Bonnet, will include a ream of bankers serving financial institutions. In the Global Finance division, led by Pierre Palmieri and his deputies, Slawonir Krupa and David Coxon: an organisation oriented to distribution and favouring synergies. Creation of a Financing professional area, led by Matthew Vickerstaff. This professional area includes Infrastructure and Asset Financing, Expore Financing and Debt Optimisation. Creation of an Energy and Natural Resources professional area, co-directed by Federico Turegano and Jonathan Whitehead. The professional area includes the Financing activities in the Energy sector, Commodity Trading, Metals and Mines, and will work closely with the team in Commodities Markets in the Market Activities division. Creation of a Capital Markets professional area, led by Patrick Ménard and his deputy, Jean-Marc Giraud. This professional area includes the Capital Markets Finance (securitisation and capital structuring) activities, Capital Debt Markets, Ratings Advising, Leveraged Financing and Media & Telecom, Strategic Acquisition Financing and Financial Engineering. In the Market Activities division, led by Dan Fields: Fixed Income activities are scaled up. Creation of a Fixed Income & Currencies professional area, created by merging the Fixed Income, Treasury and Fixed Income and Currency Derivatives, led by Danielle Sindzingre. For commodity market activities, Jonathan Whitehead has been appointed Head of these activities in the Market Activities division, assisted by François Combes and Jean-François Maurey.

Florian Uleer, who had been head of banking and business clients for “A deposits” at Union Investment Institutional, has joined Schroders Germany as head of distribution for banks and funds of funds, replacing Alexander Prawitz.Prawitz has been transferred to the global financial solutions group Asia in Hong Kong, to assist international and local banking clients as well as strategic distribution partners.Uleer will report to Joachim Nareike, director of distribution at Schroders Investment Management GmbH.

Emerging market debt funds’ performance has been heterogeneous and shows a lack of persistency, according to Fitch Ratings. Only 11% of funds stay in first or second quartile performance in both the periods 2005-2008 and 2008-2011. Worse, around 20% of funds moved from top quartile to bottom quartile (and vice versa) over the same periods. «The lack of consistency in performance reflects fund managers’ difficulties in adapting style and exposure to changing market regimes: EMD funds investments remain a beta play,» says Manuel Arrive, senior director in Fitch’s Fund and Asset Manager Rating team. Flows to emerging market debt funds have been solid in 2011 attracting USD28bn (and USD13bn for the first two months of 2012), pushing the sector’s assets under management to USD279bn as at the end of February 2012, according to Fitch. Local currency funds attracted about 64% of the flows in 2011. Emerging market debt benchmarked funds dominate the sector, with absolute return funds representing just 3% of total assets under management. Fitch expects to see more multi-strategy funds (absolute return or blended currency) or specialised corporate funds being launched in the next few months.

DWS Investment (Deutsche Bank group) has had to freeze redemptions of its ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat fund of funds, with assets of EUR101.5m. Five other funds of this type have already been required to do likewise, as eight open-ended real estate funds are now in the liquidation process, and six others have recently announced that they are extending redemption freezes. As the DWS ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat is largely invested in open-ended real estate funds whose redemptions are suspended, the available liquidity is not sufficient to meet redemption demands, except by selling off assets at a loss and a disadvantage to shareholders. Overall, the DWS ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat is invested in 10 open-ended real estate funds, which hold about 500 properties.

Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has sold the Luisacenter shopping centre in Darmstadt (19,000 square metres) to LaSalle Investment management for about EUR104m. UIRE bought the property in December 2003. Management of the shopping centre will continue to be provided by ECE.A statement says UIRE took advantage of an attractive moment to sell the property, which belongs to a category currently in strong demand from investors.

Deutsche Börse announced on 2 April that four German-registered ETFs of the iShares brand have been admitted to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform. The XTF segment now lists 956 funds. Three new funds replicate S&P indices of commodity producers, while the fourth tracks an MSCI index of industrial shares. Characteristics Name: iShares S&P Commodity Producers GoldISIN code: DE000A1JS9D8Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Gold IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares S&P Commodity Producers Oil & GasISIN code: DE000A1JS9C0Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Oil & Gas Exploration & Production IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares S&P Commodity Producers AgribusinessISIN code: DE000A1JS9B2Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Agribusiness IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares MSCI ACWIISIN code: DE000A1JS9A4Benchmark index: MSCI All Country World IndexTER: 0.60%

Investment Week reports that Standard Life Investments (SLI), seeking to focus on its range of actively-managed funds, has sold its range of six OEIC tracker funds to Vanguard Asset Management. In addition, SLI will be closing the Unit Linked UK Equity Tracker Fund from Standard Life Insurance. Assets in the fund transferred to Vanguard nearly all come from Standard Life.

Jeremy Soulter, global head of products at Aviva Investors, has left the business following a restructuring, Investment Week reports. His duties will be taken over by the product strategy and product development teams.

Martin Gilbert, CEO of Aberdeen Asset Mangement, has sold GBP771,000 worth of shares in the firm, with the proceeds of the sale to be reinvested in funds managed by Aberdeen, Investment Week reports. Assets at Aberdeen as of 29 February totalled GBP184.4bn, compared with GBP173.9bn as of the end of December 2011.

EFG Private Bank, the British affiliate of WFG International, has appointed Daniel Gerber as Managing Director and Head of Private Banking, effective from 2 July 2012. Gerber will chair the management committee and the board of directors at EFG Private Bank, according to a statement published on 2 April. Gerber will report to Anthony Cooke-Yarborough, CEO of the affiliate of EFG International for the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands, which includes EFG Private Bank, EFG Harris Allday and EFG Independent Financial Advisers. Gerber previuosly served as Chief Executive Officer at Julius Baer International in London.

Proposées par les BFI, et dans une moindre mesure par les asset managers, les options de couverture des risques permettent de réduire l’exigence de fonds propres. La Sham a étudié des scénarios où un risque important se matérialise sur ses actifs. Elle souhaite construire elle-même (avec l’aide d’un consultant en finance) des stratégies de couverture, « mais nous ne les avons pas encore mises en ??uvre car aujourd’hui tout le monde cherche à se protéger contre les mêmes risques (baisse brutale du marché actions, hausse brutale des taux obligataires ), ce qui rend les couvertures très chères » note Dominique Godet, le directeur général de la Sham. Sur les produits structurés, les asset managers proposent des offres proches de celles des BFI. Ces produits financiers effrayent certains investisseurs : « Des banques ou des asset managers nous proposent des produits structurés qui sont moins consommateurs en fonds propres que les actifs sous-jacents, décrit Dominique Godet. Ce type de produits ne m’intéresse pas car le risque intrinsèque demeure. Si un sous-jacent me coûte trop cher en fonds propres, je préfère y renoncer. »

La société est sortie victorieuse de la bataille pour VIP Commodities, permettant la mise sur pied d’une équipe spécialisée sur le courtage du coton. «Nous pensons que c’est un bon assemblage», a déclaré Louis Barbera, l’un des trois courtiers de VIP Commodities. «Ils ont une base de clientèle élargie», a-t-il ajouté, soulignant que l’opération devrait permettre à la société de développer ses activités de dérivés, notamment OTC.

Le numéro un mondial de la gestion d’infrastructures se prépare à lever 2 milliards de dollars cette année pour son troisième fonds dédié aux Etats-Unis et au Canada, a rapporté Reuters de sources proches du dossier. Son deuxième fonds dédié, de 1,6 milliard de dollars, est totalement investi. Fin septembre, le groupe disposait de 317 milliards de dollars d’actifs sous gestion.

Le régulateur américain des contrats à terme accuse Royal Bank of Canada d’avoir mis en œuvre au moins entre juin 2007 et mai 2010 un ensemble de transactions de plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars entre différentes filiales dans un but uniquement fiscal. RBC a «énergiquement» démenti les accusations de la CFTC, estimant notamment que les opérations concernées avaient été réalisées en toute transparence auprès des régulateurs.

Le principal fonds ouvert de DoubleLine, gestionnaire d’actifs fondé par l’ancien gérant vedette de TCW, affiche pour le premier trimestre 2012 une collecte nette de 6,4 milliards de dollars, selon les données préliminaires publiées par Morningstar. Le montant total des actifs sous gestion de la société passe en trois mois de 22 à 31 milliards.

La société de données financières a fait l’acquisition de Data Explorers Limited, qui fournit à une base de données de clients internationaux une évaluation quantitative quant à la rentabilité et aux risques du prêt-emprunt de titres. La transaction s’est effectuée auprès du fonds de private equity Bowmark Capital. Les modalités financières n’ont pas été précisées.

Les valorisations relatives sont aujourd’hui plus favorables aux actions, y compris aux Etats-Unis

Les ministres des Finances de l'Union demandent à Bruxelles de revoir sa copie sur l'idée d'une rotation tous les trois ou six ans des agences

L'Esma a estimé que la plate-forme répondait aux exigences de transparence prénégociation contenues dans la directive MIF

Ils reprochent à la Commission de ne pas suivre le régulateur européen, l'Esma, sur la directive AIFM

Ils reprochent à la Commission de ne pas suivre le régulateur européen, l'Esma, sur la directive AIFM

L’autorité de régulation comptable de Hong Kong mène une enquête sur plusieurs sociétés chinoises cotées sur la Bourse locale concernant des suspicions de fraudes, indique le South China Morning Post qui cite la présidente de l’autorité, Sophia Kao. La démission de certains auditeurs et le report de la publication des résultats de plusieurs sociétés chinoises auraient alerté les autorités.

De source non identifiée, le South China Morning Post avance que la chute du leader politique local de Chongqing Bo Xilai aurait «bouleversé les règles du jeu». Le fonds texan serait ainsi disposé à transférer quelque 4 milliards de yuans, l’équivalent de près de 480 millions d’euros, récoltés en vue d’être investis à Chongqing vers Pékin et Shanghai.

L'opérateur boursier compte se lancer sur le marché des différentiels de cours et vise 250 millions de dollars d’économies annuelles d’ici 2014

Les dépenses de construction aux Etats-Unis ont subi en février leur recul le plus marqué en sept mois, ce qui pourrait conduire à une révision à la baisse des prévisions de croissance pour le premier trimestre. Ces dépenses ont diminué de 1,1% pour revenir à 808,86 milliards de dollars en données annualisées, leur plus bas niveau depuis octobre, a précisé le département du Commerce.