The UK asset management firm Threadneedle (GBP67.7bn as of the end of 2010) has announced that it has assembled a team dedicated to development and distribution of absolute return products, led by Kris Haber, global head of absolute return strategies, who joined the firm in 2009.John Mackin joins Threadneedle as head of North American sales, and will be in charge of development of sales of absolute return products in North America, in addition to traditional products.Christian Trixl, head of distribution in Switzerland, is now in charge of European sales for absolute return products. He is assisted by George Szemere, an investment specialist for equities and bond absolute return products.Stéphane Jeannin will now focus on his role as an investment specialist for absolute return strategies; he was previously senior equity investment specialist.Adrian Mackaay, head of strategic analysis, will be in charge of directing development activities for absolute return strategies and distribution in North America. The range of absolute return products includes commodities (unregulated), the macro emerging markets strategy (unregulated and UCITS III), credit (UCITS III), bonds (UCITS III), European equities (unregulated), European small caps (UCITS III), US equities (UCITS III), and UK equities (UCITS III).

Banque Julius Baer & Co. SA a annoncé le 31 mars la nomination de Bernhard Hodler en qualité de nouveau chief operating officer (COO) du groupe et de la banque à partir du 1er avril. Cette nouvelle fonction de directeur général de l’exploitation permettra de renforcer l’organisation et la transformation du modèle d’affaires de Julius Baer, ce qui facilitera l’application de sa stratégie de croissance, explique le groupe dans un communiqué. Bernhard Hodler est l’actuel chief risk officer du groupe. Il travaille au sein de Julius Baer depuis 1998. Il a fait ses armes auparavant chez SBS et Credit Suisse, en grande partie dans la gestion des risques. En tant que COO, Bernhard Hodler sera responsable de l’attribution des moyens nécessaires à un alignement supplémentaire de Banque Julius Baer avec le paysage en transformation du private banking. Il sera responsable des opérations globales aussi bien que du contrôle et de la prévention des risques. En conséquence, les domaines du risque, legal & compliance, IT & ainsi que les opérations et services partagés seront sous sa responsabilité directe.

Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA on 31 March announced that in 2010 it earned net profits of CHF149.9m, up 9.6% year on year. Net inflows totalled CHF6.5bn. Assets under management, however, were up only slightly, due to the negative impact of the weak US dollar and euro against the Swiss franc. As of the end of 2010, they totalled CHF92.7bn, compared with CHF92.2bn the previous year. The Geneva-based private bank says in a statement that it will continue its strategic development projects this year. In Hong Kong, a banking license is expected to be issued to the bank “in the next few weeks,” while the bank has recently received a banking license in Dubai. In Switzerland, it would also like to concretise a strategic project “in the area of domestic clients.”

UBS is losing the director of its ultra high net worth segment, Riccardo Petrachi, who on 1 October will be joining the Zurich-based private bank Rothschild Private Banking & Trust, Rothschild announced on 31 March in a statement. Petrachi will take responsibility for clients with wealth of over CHF25m (ultra high net worth clients) and family offices, Rothschild says in the statement released on Thursday.

BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced the appointment of Jack Malvey to the newly-created position of head market strategist. Malvey will also serve as director of the new BNY Mellon Center for Global Investment & Market Intelligence, where he will be responsible for a research team focused on economic and market trends.

Olivier Renard, who was head of the Paris office of DWS Investments, has left the Deutsche Bank group to pursue “other opportunities,” a statement says. He will be replaced by Philippe Goettmann, who has been appointed as head of sales for France and Monaco, from 1 April. Goettmann, a Frenchman, had been head of the distribution department at DWS in Belgium since 2007, and was also one of the top directors of distribution for DWS in Luxembourg. He was previously head of institutional sales at Evli Bank, from 2005 to 2006. He was also deputy director of the Business Development department at ING Luxembourg for four years (from 2001 to 2005), and was in charge of the legal service at Société Générale Bank & Trust in Luxembourg from 1996 to 2000. “Philippe Goettmann allowed us to accelerate our development on the Belgian market. I am certain that his international professional experience and his expert knowledge of client relationship management will allow us to achieve our ambitious objectives in France, one of our key markets in Europe,” Marnix van den Berge, head of distribution for northern Europe at DWS, says in a statement.

Sub-prime and other categories of mortgage-backed bonds, which were one cause of the financial crisis, are regaining the affections of long-term investors, the most recent in a series of signs that the US credit markets are recovering from their hardest crash in a generation, the Wall Street Journal reports.Values for a representative sample of the sub-prime bond market have doubled, from 30% at the height of the crisis to about 60% currently. This shows that investors once again have the courage to take risks, because the economy is recovering.The attraction of the bonds backed by subprime mortgages is the high returns, at a time when the Fed has lowered the yields on the safest investments to all-time lows.

Nasdaq OMX and NYSE cancelled trades in 10 ETFs after their prices sank on Thursday morning, raising questions about measures adopted to protect investors against sharp market swings after last year’s “flash crash”, writes the Financial Times. Prices plummeted by as much as 98 per cent after a human error at Knight Capital Americas, a market maker.

The French additional retirement establishment for public sector employees (ERAFP) on Thursday, 31 March announced that it has awarded 6 active financial management mandates as part of a renewal of is Euro zone publicly-traded mid and large cap equities mandates, and a diversification of its small and mid-sized business publicly-traded equities allocation. The managers selected for index-based management will be required to replicate the SRI Best in Class index, developed by Erafp with the support of Edhec. With the call for proposals, Erafp sought to put in place complementary management strategies, while reducing its exposure to traditional market indices, whose weighting is related directly to the share prices of businesses, a statement says. For the No. 1 Euro zone small and mid-sied businesses publicly traded equities – index-based management (diversification of assets) allocation, the EUR45m initial mandate was awarded to BNP Paribas Asset Management. A stand-by mandate was awarded to State Global Advisors France. For the No. 2 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – index-based management (renewal of mandate) allocation, the EUR300m initial mandate was awarded to Amundi. BNP Paribas Asset Management and AXA Investment Managers Paris are the stand-by managers for the allocation. For the No. 3 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – active benchmarked management (renewal of mandate) allocation, management will be an active SRI approach benchmarked against the MSCI EMU benchmark index. The total initial allocation to this mandate will be about EUR500m. The mandates were awarded to AXA Investment Managers and BNP Paribas Asset Management, with stand-by mandates for Amundi and Allianz Global Investors France. For the No. 4 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – non-benchmarked management (renewal of mandate) allocation, from an SRI investment universe defined and provided by ERAFP, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management and Rothschild & Cie Gestion won the main contracts on the allocation of an initial EUR500m. Tobam and AXA Investment Managers Paris have been appointed as stand-by managers for the mandate.

John Hancock Financial on 30 March unveiled the results of its first quarterly survey of investment choices by retail clients. In first quarter 2011, the investor sentiment index came in at +22, a good result, largely due to investors’ optimism about equities. A majority of investors estimate that the time is right to invest in equities (59%), equities mutual funds (55%), or diversified mutual funds (54%).

In a notification to the Spanish regulator, the UK hedge fund management firm Otus Capital Management (EUR350m in assets) announced that it will invest EUR2.5m in the acquisition of nearly 6.33 million shares from Service Point, equivalent to 17% of the shares created in a capital increase at the Spanish reprography company.

In the aftermath of its acquisition of the financial sector specialist HIM Capital, the investment firm Polar Capital is planning to launch an opportunity-driven fund specialised in the international finance sector. The UCITS III-compliant fund, domiciled in Dublin, is slated for launch in April. It will seek out investment opportunities in the US and European markets, with an interest in emerging countries.

The British management firm M&G has lowered its performance objectives for the Dividend fund (GBP528m), in order to give more flexibility to the manager of the strategy, Alex Odd. Instead of a performance objective of 33% above the performance of the FTSE All-Share index, the fund will now aim for returns higher than the benchmark index, through investments in UK equities. Morningstar reports that the fund has earned overall returns of 10% in the past twelve months, compared with an average of 7.1% for the UK Equity Income sector of the British Investment Management Association (IMA).

Hiroshi Yoh on 31 March left his position as CEO and CIO of Tokio Marine Asset Management International to become a portfolio manager and CEO at Janus Capital Singapore. During his 12 years as head of Tokio Marine AM International, assets increased from USD10m to USD3.9bn, and an initial staff of 2 people has grown to 28 today.

Dans le cadre du renouvellement des mandats «actions cotées de moyennes et grandes entreprises de la zone euro» et de la diversification de son allocation d’actifs «actions cotées de petites et moyennes entreprises», l’Etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la fonction publique (ERAFP) a annoncé l’attribution de 6 mandats actifs et 7 mandats en stand-by de gestion financière.

Les agences de notation ont prévenu la Commission européenne qu’elles risquaient de ne plus noter les pays à risque si l’exécutif européen s’en tient à son projet de les rendre responsables légalement de décisions jugées infondées, indique Reuters citant des sources professionnelles. C’est la dernière péripétie en date d’un conflit qui va s’intensifiant entre les agences et l’Union européenne.

La banque mutualiste a annoncé discuter avec trois fonds d’investissement d’une cession éventuelle de Foncia, le groupe de services immobiliers sur lequel elle a engagé une réflexion stratégique. BPCE, maison mère de Natixis, avait déjà indiqué avoir mandaté la banque Rothschild afin d'étudier toutes les options pour valoriser cette filiale dont la vente, selon certaines estimations, pourrait dépasser le milliard d’euros. «Cette cession n’est toujours pas certaine, une décision pourrait intervenir d’ici deux mois», a déclaré un porte-parole de la banque, refusant de donner les noms des fonds sélectionnés. Selon des sources interrogées par Reuters hier, il s’agirait de Charterhouse, Advent et BridgePoint. Des observateurs dans le milieu du capital investissement avaient indiqué durant la semaine que BridgePoint s'était montré très motivé par la reprise de cet actif.

Une libéralisation de la politique financière chinoise doit précéder l'entrée du yuan dans le panier composant les droits de tirage spéciaux du FMI

Un dauphin pressenti de Warren Buffett a démissionné. Il avait acquis des titres Lubrizol avant que ce dernier ne fasse l’objet d’une offre

La défiance des marchés a poussé le Président à appeler à des élections anticipées le 5 juin

D’après les données d’iShares pour « L’Agefi », les trackers sur les matières premières ont profité de la hausse du pétrole

Toute entreprise exerçant sur le territoire britannique peut devenir pénalement responsable et risquer une amende illimitée en cas de corruption

La société de private equity serait selon le quotidien en négociations concernant la vente de la chaîne de cinéma Odeon & UCI, pour un montant compris entre 700 millions et un milliard de livres. Guy Hands aurait mandaté Bank of America Merrill Lynch pour organiser la mise en vente. Vue Entertainment serait sur les rangs.

Le président de la Fed de Minneapolis, Narayana Kocherlakota, envisage une hausse des taux directeurs de 50 points de base dès la fin de l'année

Elle est ressortie à 2,6 % dans la zone euro en février compte tenu de l'augmentation des matières premières

Ce type d’opérations permet d’optimiser les portefeuilles d’activité sans s’exposer à des risques politiques ou réglementaires trop élevés

D'après l’Insee, le déficit budgétaire français en 2010 est ressorti à 7 % du PIB, après 7,5 % en 2009 et contre 7,7 % prévu

La défiance des marchés a poussé le Président à appeler à des élections anticipées le 5 juin

L’Agence France Trésor annonce l’adjudication, le lundi 4 avril, d’un montant global de 80 milliards d’euros de bons du Trésor (BTF). Cette opération portera sur 4,0 milliards d’euros de bons à 13 semaines qui arriveront à échéance le 07/07/11, sur 2,0 milliards de bons à 26 semaines à échéance du 06/10/11, et sur 2,0 milliards de bons à 52 semaines à échéance du 05/04/12.

La hausse des prix dans la zone euro s’est accélérée en mars davantage que prévu, selon l’estimation publiée par l’agence Eurostat , à une semaine d’une réunion du conseil des gouverneurs de la Banque centrale européenne qui devrait sans doute relever les taux d’intérêt. Les prix ont augmenté de 2,6% dans les 17 pays contre 2,3% attendus et 2,4% en février.