Joseph Pacini, head of alternative investments at JP Morgan Private Bank (Asia), is joining BlackRock Alternative Investors (BAI) as head of the strategy group Asia-Pacific ex Japan, Hedgeweek reports. He will be based in Hong Kong, and will report to Mark McCombe, chairman of BlackRock Asia-Pacific, and Rick Arney, head of hedge funds in the strategy group at BAI.As of the end of December, alternative assets under management by BlackRock totalled USD105bn worldwide (hedge funds, private equity and real estate).

Assets under management by Sicavs, the preferred vehicle of Spanish high net worth investors, fell last year by 10.59% to EUR23.3bn, and the number of shareholders fell 3.86% to 411,178, according to VDOS Stochastics, relayed by Cotizalia.The largst manager in the sector is BBVA Patrimonios, with a market share of 11.28%, but Bansabadell Inversión has seen the largest net inflows, with EUR180m, March Gestion has been the firm whose Sicav assets have increased most, gaining 7.26%.

Two months after taking over as global head of BBVA AM, Paloma Piqueras has reshuffled teams and apointed Luis Megías as director fo Europe, after serving as head of Goldman Sachs Quartix for the Iberian peninsula in London, Funds People reports. Megías had been head of sales at BBVA AM until mid-2010.Eduardo García Hidalgo has been appointed as chief investment officer for Europe, replacing Olivier Asselin, who has left the business. Hidalgo was head of the Quality Funds unit (fund platform). He will be replaced by Belén Blanco, head of innovation and product development.

The global equities team led by Ilario Di Bon at Alliance Trust Investments has gained the addition of Adrien Bommelaer (formerly of Matrix Corporate Capital) and James Twyman (formerly of AllianceBernstein), Fundweb reports.

According to reports in Investment Week, Liontrust Asset Management has made redundant Ian Furtado, director of sales at its new affiliate Occam, acquired in October. The other two sales personnel at the boutique, David Shephard and Edward Ford, remain at the firm, and will be in charge of international sales.

Last year, 419 open-ended funds were launched in Germany, while 436 funds were closed, not counting closed-ended funds, according to statistics from the German BVI association of asset management firms. The number of new funds created has been at its lowest since 2005, with a peak in 2007 at 1,113 launches. In 2010, 482 funds were launched, while 389 were closed.Due to the development of the equities market, it is not overly surprising that the most negative population growth in 2011 was in the equity fund category, with 110 launches and 170 closures. However, creations of diversified funds totalled 128, while there were 93 closures.

The UK’s big pension funds now own a smaller slice of shares quoted on the London stock market than at any time for nearly half a century, Henderson Global Investors reports. Figures from the Office for National Statistics claim that ownership has slipped to just 9% of the total – the lowest since 1963. The “cult of equity,” based on the belief that equities will outperform all other asset classes over the long term, is losing its appeal. However, UK’s pension funds are not completely neglecting equities, as they are increasingly focusing on non-UK equities. And foreign investors, including sovereign funds, consider the shares attractive long-term investments. Foreign owners now control about 40% of the UK equity market, which was valued at GBP1.8tn as the end of December 2011.

F&C Investments has seen net outflows in 2011 of GBP7.2bn, the firm has announced at a publication of its annual results. These outflows have come largely from strategic partnerships. Assets have fallen from GBP105.8bn as of the end of 2010 to GBP100.1bn as of the end of 2011, and underlying operating profits have fallen from GBP67.2m to GBP65.2m. Despite that decline, net revenues increased from GBP243.2m to GBP267m as of the end of 2011. F&C has also announced that the first phase of its strategic review has been completed, and that the second phase will begin in May 2012. A cost reduction plan for GBP33.2m will also be completed by the end of 2012. Alain Grisay, CEO of F&C, has confirmed that he will be leaving the group following its general shareholders’ meeting in May.

The private bank DBS Private Bank, one of the largest in the Asia ex Japan region, has set up an international team which will be led by Peter Triggs, previously of Bank of China (Switzerland), where had been deputy CEO and head of the international private bank. Triggs, who will be based in Singapore, will begin next month as managing director and head of international and wealth structuring. He will lead a team of four people, and will be in charge of development of wealth management activities serving high net worth clients in Asia. Among the four employees who will assist Triggs are Yann Mocellin, who had previously worked for a multi-family office (Swiss-Asia Financial Services), and James Tan, previously of Credit Suisse. Two client advisers will soon join the team.

Finesti and fundinfo have announced that they are combining their respective expertise in investment fund data and documents to offer services intended to facilitate cross-border notifications and the dissemination of Key Investor Information Documents (KIIDs). The two companies will offer integrated solutions and packages to all fund groups and fund promoters who need to fulfil the requirements of the UCITS IV directive.

Fidelity a lancé un fonds démographique investi sur les sociétés dans le monde qui vont profiter des développement sociologiques de long terme, rapporte Money Marketing.Le Fidelity global deographics, de droit luxembourgeois, sera géré par Hilary Natoff et Nicky Stafford. Il s’agira d’un portefeuille sans contrainte de 50 et 80 valeurs, couvrant un univers de 1.000 entreprises.

The British asset management firm Schroders has recruited Katja Börger, who will focus on insurers and businesses, for institutional client relationship management. She will report to Carlos Boehles, head of the institutional team in Frankfurt.Börger has over 20 years of experience in investment banking, including 18 years at Commerzbank, where she was most recently head of capital markets, North America, before becoming an independent financial adviser in the area of financing optimisation, derivative risk management and corporate finance.

The German real estate fund DEGI Europa from Aberdeen, which is under liquidation to be completed by 30 September 2013, has sold the WestendGate tower (55,000 square metres) in Frankfurt to RFR Holding and Stenham Property, for an undisclosed amount, which increases liquidity in the fund to 16% from 10% previously. The property, which contains the Marriott Hotel and also has 27,000 square metres of office space, was acquired in 1988, and was renovated in recent years to make it a green property.The fund had EUR845.3m in assets as of the end of January.

Robert Lacoursiere, a partner at Paulson & Co, left the firm last week, and is planning to launch his own hedge fund, Bloomberg reports.After four years at Paulson, Lacoursiere is planning to set up an equity hedge fund in the next six months, which will focus on international financial establishments.Paulson underwent record losses last year, including more than 50% for one of its largest funds, Bloomberg reports.

NYSE Euronext on 15 March announced that it has added the LVIX ETF from Lyxor, which replicates the S&P 500 VIX FutureEnhancedRoll index, on Euronext Paris, bringing the total number of ETFs listed in Europe by NYSE Euronext to 596.CharacteristicsName: Lyxor LVIXISIN code: FR0011160290TER: 0.70%

Ossiam, an affiliate of Natixis Global Asset Management, on 15 March announced the launch of a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on a minimum variance strategy index, on the London, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris stock markets. The new ETF will offer investors access to a key market segment, emerging markets, with a reduced risk profile. It follows the launch of the strategy ETFs OSSIAM ETF iSTOXX EUROPE MINIMUM VARIANCE NR, OSSIAM ETF US MINIMUM VARIANCE NR and OSSIAM ETF FTSE 100 MINIMUM VARIANCE.The addition of the new fund to the minimum variance product range from Ossiam allows investors to diversify a global portfolio whose objective is to reduce volatility and drawdowns. The new ETF will be listed on 19 March 2012 on Xetra in Frankfurt, on 19 March 2012 on Borsa Italiana in Milan, on 22 March 2012 on NYSE Euronext Paris, and on 26 March 2012 on the London Stock Exchange.The fund replicates the rising and falling performance of a new strategy index from the research team at Ossiam, the Ossiam Emerging Markets Minimum Variance (Bloomberg OEMMVNR). The index is calculated and published in real time by Standard & Poor’s. The index is composed of a dynamic sample of 400 of the most liquid equities from a universe composed 85% of the market capitalisation of the S&P IFCI index. The S&P IFCI index is a global index, which tracks the performance of major businesses in 20 emerging markets (composed of about 1800 shares and ADR). The Ossiam Emerging Markets Minimum Variance index aims to reduce the volatility of a portfolio composed of shares from emerging markets. Its volatility is on average more than 30% lower than that of the benchmark index (here the emerging markets S&P IFCI), which results in a significant reduction in drawdowns.TER for the fund is 0.75% per year.

Robert Gravil, directeur du patrimoine de la Carac dans Option Finance numéro 1164: Sur les 80% de titres obligataires que nous détenons actuellement, nous ne possédons plus aujourd’hui que 30% d’obligations souveraines, car nous préférons investir dans la dette de corporates européens ou même dans des obligations foncières. En 2011, nous avons remarqué que les fonds d’obligations convertibles ont bien joué leur rôle d’amortisseur en période de baisse des marchés. Nous comptons donc doubler cette année notre allocation en obligations convertibles. Nous avons fortement diminué notre poche actions qui est passée de 20% en 2007 à 7% en 2008, un niveau que nous avons maintenu depuis lors à cause de la forte volatilité de cette classe d’actifs.

Dans un communiqué, La Française AM a annoncé une prise de participation à hauteur de 25% dans le capital de Flornoy & Associés Gestion. Cette dernière est une société de gestion de portefeuille indépendante avec une majorité de son capital détenu par les associés fondateurs et des clients partenaires.

Selon le département du Travail, les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué pour s'établir à un plus bas de quatre ans aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 10 mars, à 351.000 contre 365.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 356.000 inscriptions au chômage.

La RBI a laissé ses taux inchangés après une baisse de 75 pb du ratio des réserves obligatoires, alors que l’inflation remonte à 6,95% en février

Les espoirs de reprise se répercutent sur les taux des titres d’Etat américains qui ont pris près de 30 points de base en cinq jours. Certains analystes estiment que la Fed renoncera à toute forme de QE3 et reviendra sur sa politique de taux proches de zéro plus tôt que prévu.

Les derniers indicateurs macroéconomiques confortent les espoirs de reprise et de fin de la politique de taux bas de la Fed avant 2014

Le recul des prix a atteint un record de 11,2% l'an dernier. Les ventes de logements saisis par les banques mettront la pression en 2012

«C’est le bon moment pour investir dans les actifs européens dépréciés et sous-évalués, la dette européenne et les obligations de la zone euro» a confié au quotidien Lee Kuan Yew, conseiller senior du fonds souverain singapourien GIC et ancien Premier ministre de la ville-Etat de 1959 à 1990. Et de rappler que « la Chine a 3.180 milliards de dollars de réserves de change ».

L’opérateur de la Bourse de Londres entend poser son empreinte aux antipodes. Le London Stock Exchange est en pourparlers, dans le sillage de l’annonce de son projet de rachat de la chambre de compensation LCH.Clearnet, avec les opérateurs boursiers singapourien (Singapore Exchange) et australien (ASX) afin de mettre en œuvre des cotations croisées.

Le gouvernement japonais aurait réuni un groupe de travail visant à mettre en place un marché extérieur pour stimuler les échanges en yuan, sur le même modèle que le marché «offshore» de Hong Kong pour la Chine, selon le quotidien nippon. Une initiative qui fait suite à l’autorisation délivrée par Pékin au gouvernement japonais d’acheter pour 10,3 milliards de dollars d’obligations d’Etat chinoises.

Ils ne pourront plus financer certains établissements dégradés, mais ces derniers profitent déjà, grâce à la LTRO, d'un financement bon marché

Les banques européennes pourront continuer à utiliser les notes émises aux Etats-Unis, l'Esma ayant tranché hier un feuilleton vieux de plus d'un an

«A mes yeux, la solidarité de ses partenaires européens donne au Portugal le temps nécessaire pour la mise en oeuvre des réformes», a déclaré Olli Rehn, commissaire aux Affaires économiques et monétaires, devant le parlement portugais après qu’il lui a été demandé si Lisbonne avait besoin d’un deuxième plan d’aide après le premier, de 78 milliards d’euros, décidé l’an dernier.

Selon le département du Travail, les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué pour s'établir à un plus bas de quatre ans aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 10 mars, à 351.000 contre 365.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 356.000 inscriptions au chômage.