Axa Asia Pacific Holdings a annoncé dans un avis à l’Australian Stock Exchange qu’elle estime son bénéfice net hors exceptionnels pour 2009 à 675 millions de dollars australiens, ce qui est supérieur aux attentes des analystes, contre une perte de 278,7 millions de dollars australiens pour 2008. Selon The Wall Street Journal, cela relève potentiellement la barre pour toute nouvelle OPA, sachant que le board indépendant de la filiale d’Axa a récemment recommandé aux actionnaires d’accepter l’offre de 13,3 milliards de dollars australiens ou 6,43 dollars australiens en numéraire par action, sauf meilleure offre. AMP n’avait proposé que 11 milliards de dollars australiens, offre qui a été rejetée (lire notre dépêche du 17 décembre).

In 2009, BNY Mellon has seen a net loss after sold activities of nearly USD1.37bn, or USD1.16 per ordinary share, compared with net profits of nearly USD1.39bn, or USD1.20 per share in 2008. However, assets under administration as of 31 December totalled USD22.3trn (+10%), while assets under management were up 20% to USD1.115trn. The two increases are due primarily to the acquisition of Insight Investment Management in fourth quarter 2009. Net subscriptions to long-term funds totalled USD14bn in fourth quarter, which was more than offset by USD22bn in net redemptions from short-term products.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) on 20 January announced that last year it earned 11.80% returns on its investments as a whole. CalPERS says in a statement that the market value of its assets recovered more than USD46bn, to a total of over USD203.3bn as of the end of the year. As of 20 January, assets totalled over USD206bn. By asset class, the global equities portfolio, including emerging markets, has earned returns of over 43%. US equities show gains of 28%. Fixed income has gained 14%, but private equity and real estate are down 6% and 47%, respectively, on nine months; results are still published with a one-quarter delay.

The wealth management unit at Morgan Stanley (Global Wealth Management Group) has reported ongoing pre-tax profits of USD559m for the year as a whole, compared with USD1.17bn the previous year. Profits for the past year were negatively impacted by the discontinuation of results from Smith Barney on 31 May 2009. Revenues increased 535 to USD9.4bn, largely due to Smith Barney. Assets under management totalled USD1.6trn as of the end of 2009. In fourth quarter, pre-tax profits totalled USD231m, compared with pre-tax losses of USD51m one year earlier. The asset management unit, for its part, saw ongoing pre-tax losses of USD55m, compared with losses of USD696m the previous year, on net profits of USD1.3bn, compared with USD500m. For core activities, including traditional management, hedge funds, and funds of funds, revenues were up 70% to USD1.5bn, largely due to gains of USD164m due to trading of securities issued by SEV (structured investment vehicles), following losses of USD434m the previous year.

In 2009, subscriptions to John Hancock Funds, an affiliate of John Hancock Financial (Manulife group) were down to USD6.5bn, from USD8.5bn in 2008, according to president & CEO Keith Harstein. Assets as of the end of September totalled USD50.5bn. Harstein has told Mutual Fund Wire that this year, he predicts USD8bn in sales. The sales team includes 141 people, of whom 110 are dedicated to retail clients.

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing has been granted a mandate for custody, find administration and transfer agency services for five new ETF funds (GlobalShares FTSE All-World Fund, GlobalShares FTSE Emerging Markets Fund, GlobalShares All-Cap Asia Pacific ex Japan Fund, GlobalShares All-World ex US Fund, and GlobalShares FTSE Developed Countries ex US Fund) by Old Mutual global Index Trackers U.S. LLC.

BlackRock has announced that it has finalised its acquisition fo all assets of Helix Financial Group LLC, a firm based in North Carolina, which provides advising and analysis to real estate investors. Helix will be integrated into BlackRock Solutions. The financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

As of the end of December, State Street had USD1.911trn in assets under management, compared with USD1.735trn as of the end of September, and USD1.444trn one year previously, which represents a growth rate of 10.1% in one quarter, and 32.3% year on year. Assets under administration and management totalled USD18.795trn, an increase of 4.8% compared with the end of September and 18.2% compared with their levels one year previously. At December 31, 2009, the after-tax, unrealized mark-to-market losses in the investment portfolio are USD2.29bn, down from USD2.98bn at September 30, 2009, and down about 65% from USD6.32bn as of December 31, 2008. For the year as a whole, net income before extraordinary loss was down to USD1.64bn, compared with USD1.79bn the previous year. After an after-tax extraordinary loss of USD3.684bn related to the effect of the May 2009 consolidation of the State Street-administered asset-backed commercial paper conduits onto the Company’s balance sheet, net losses for the period totalled USD2.04bn. State Street adds that at December 31, 2009, the after-tax, unrealized mark-to-market losses in the investment portfolio are USD2.29bn, down from USD2.98bn at September 30, 2009, and down about 65% from USD6.32bn as of December 31, 2008.

Asset management activities at Wells Fargo (“Wealth, Brokerage & Retirement”) in fourth quarter saw net profits of USD131m, compared with Usd244m one quarter earlier. Revenues totalled USD2.87bn, compared with USD2.96bn previously.Assets increased for all retail activities (+6% compared with the previous quarter), and for wealth management (+11%). Assets in pension programs increased 6% quarter on quarter to USD285bn.

EFG International on 20 January announced that its French affiliate, EFG Gestion Privé, has been renamed EFG Banque Privée, to reflect its banking license, obtained in September 2009. In addition to its private portfolio and mutual fund management activities, EFG Banque Privée also offers its clients a wide range of banking services, from credit to cash management and means of payment. In July 2008, EFG International finalised its acquisition of Sycomore Gestion Privée, which was renamed as EFG Gestion Privée at the end of that year. The new entity, led by Fabrice Moullé-Berteaux and Antoine Lacourt and successfully integrated into the group, has shown rapid growth and solid performance, thanks to an increase in its capacity and the recruitment of high-quality managers. The bank has also made additions to its management team. David Kalfon, previously executive director at Morgan Stanley, last year joined EFG Gestion Privée as Head of Asset Management. EFG Banque Privée has CHF700m in assets under management and 30 staff (compared with 5 when the firm was acquired), 10 of whom are private managers.

The social and environmental ratings agency Vigeo and Transparence International on 20 January announced that they have signed a partnership agreement to develop their exchange of information and expertise on transparency, integrity of conduct and prevention of all forms of corruption in managerial strategies and social responsibility practices at business. The two organisations will cooperate to strengthen information to prevent the risk of corruption in businesses and markets, and to raise the requirements for the observed best practices. Vigeo and Transparence International France have agreed to mutually reinforce each other’s expertise, to organize regular exchanges and to jointly undertake research and publications on the subject. At the end of February, Vigeo and Transparence International France will release an exhaustive study providing comparative analysis of corruption prevention strategies at European and North American businesses.

For the year 2009 as a whole, net results for management activities at Bank of America totalled USD2.54bn, compared with USD1.43bn one year earlier. This strong increase is partly due to the contribution of Merrill Lynch, says a statement from Bank of America. For the same reasons, net profits for fourth quarter were up by USD816m to USD1.3bn on revenues of USD5.5bn. Revenues for the year more than doubled, to a total of USD18.12bn, up from USD7.81bn the previous year, also thanks to additional revenues (from brokerage and investment services) related to the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and a USD1.1bn gain due to BlackRock. Warnings of credit losses increased by nearly USD400m to USD1.1bn due to a net increase in charge-offs for real estate portfolios. Net results at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management increased 22% to USD1.5bn due to the contribution of Merrill Lynch. U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, saw a decline in its net profits to USD174m, on revenues down 11% to USD2.7bn, while Columbia Management reduced its losses to USD7m, from USD469m in 2008. The statement says that money market funds from Columbia are no longer exposed to structured investment vehicles or to other distressed assets.

Deutsche Börse on Wednesday announced that a new German-registered ETC from ETF Metal Securities (ETF Securities group) has been admitted to trading on the Xetra electronic platform. The product is the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Securities (DE000A1DCTL3), which may be redeemed in cash or in physical gold, and which is backed by physical gold stored in Switzerland. Management commission totals 0.395, and the benchmark is the daily gold pm fixing. The ETC segment of Deutsche Börse now lists a total of 142 products. Monthly trading volumes for the segment total an average of EUR400m.

Standard Life Investments (SLI) has announced that it has been selected by the platform B2B Moventum as its preferred provider of bond products in Germany. As a part of the new “Asset Management Inside” concept, Noventum and SLI have created a co-branded website dedicated to bonds, which will allow registered advisors to obtain training in this asset class, guidance for asset allocation at the various stages of teh credit cycle, and information about SLI bond products, which now have over EUR1bn in assets.

David Dalton-Brown, former head of Fidelity FundsNetwork, has joined Barclays Wealth, where he will be in charge of investment fund activities and client services. He will report to Thomas Rostron, director of Barclays Wealth Managers Europe, Investment Week states.

Credit Suisse has announced the appointment for Neil Harvey as head of Asia Pacific and head of asset management for the entire Emerging Markets region. He will officially begin in this position on 1 February, and will be based in Hong Kong. Harvey was previously vice CEO at Renaissance Group. Between 1993 and 2003, Harvey held a variety of positions at the investment bank at Credit Suisse.

By mid-February, a new organisation representing the ETF sector is to be founded, entitled The ETF Council, Irving Straus (Straus Corporate Communications) has told Mutual Fund Wire. The association will include several providers, with the double objective of providing proactive marketing of ETFs and defending the profession to regulators. The ETF Council will also aim to replace the Investment Company Institute (ICI) as representative of the ETF sector, as the ICI is already sufficiently occupied with mutual funds to effectively also represent ETFs.

Axa Asia Pacific Holdings has announced in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange that it has raised its estimate for its annual net profit after non-recurring items for 2009 to AUD679m, higher than analysts’ expectations, compared with losses of AUD278.7bn in 2008. According to the Wall Street Journal, this potentially raises the bar for any potential future takeover bids, as the independent board of the Axa affiliate recently recommended that shareholders accept an offer of AUD13.3bn, or AUD6.43 per share in cash, in the absence of any better offer. AMP had offered only AUD11bn, which was rejected (see Newsmanagers of 17 December 2009).

Ils souhaitent ainsi mieux surveiller leurs investissements. Prudents, ils concentrent leurs engagements sur les grands marchés européens

L'AFT a ramené à 1,4 milliard d'euros la prévision de hausse du stock de BTF en 2010

Répliquer le delta par les futures pourrait s’avérer plus économique que l’achat de puts

La faiblesse de la reprise économique va entraîner une hausse des libérations de bureaux. Les loyers devraient donc continuer de reculer

Selon les calculs de Thomson/Reuters Lipper, les fonds éthiques et développement durable ont affiché pour 2009 une performance moyenne de 29,52 % alors que le MSCI World ne gagnait «que» 26,35 %, rapporte le Handelsblatt. Dans la catégorie développement durable, un produit First State, trois fonds SAM et un fonds climat de Swisscanto ont enregistré des gains compris entre 36 et 52 %. Et, parmi les fonds éthiques, les meilleurs produits d’UBS, Swisscanto, Danske Invest et Hunter Hall ont généré des performances situées entre 73 % et près de 90 %.

Partenaire de BNP Paribas dédié à la gestion de fonds d’infrastructure mais doté d’une gouvernance indépendante, Antin Infrastructure Partners a annoncé mardi 19 janvier avoir procédé à un deuxième «closing». Ce tour de table réalisé le 18 décembre et qui s'élève à 215 millions d’euros – portant à 515 millions le total des engagements du fonds – a été souscrit par des fonds de pension scandinaves et allemands ainsi que par des investisseurs français. Le fonds– dont la nature juridique est celle du fonds commun de placement à risques, avantageuse fiscalement pour les investisseurs français et «neutre» pour les investisseurs étrangers – a déjà investi dans quatre sociétés, pour un montant total de 240 millions d’euros. Le nom de la quatrième entreprise a été également dévoilé mardi : il s’agit de Pisto SAS, une société du secteur aval pétrolier en France. D’un point de vue financier, le fonds assure un rendement annuel de 5 % avec un taux de rendement interne de 15 %. Pour cela, Antin IP n’investit qu’en Europe continentale où la gestion privilégie des dossiers de grande qualité et où la concurrence est moindre comparé à ce qui se passe en Grande-Bretagne. Bien évidemment, la qualité a un prix a noté en substance Alain Rauscher, CEO et fondateur de la société de gestion. De fait, le fonds n’est investi qu’en Europe de l’ouest à l’exception d’un investissement dans Bina Istra, la société autoroutière en Croatie. Mais elle profite, il est vrai, de la garantie de l’Etat. «Même si de très beaux dossiers existent notamment dans des pays comme la Pologne, a expliqué le responsable de la société, nous ne donnons pas suite en raison du risque de change qu’un investisseur subit dans ce pays.» A ce titre, la règle pour le fonds est qu’au moins 80 % des investissements soient réalisés en euro. En outre, compte tenu de ses exigences en matière de rendement, le fonds n’a pas vocation à participer à la réalisation de nouvelles infrastructures – typiquement une nouvelle liaison TGV par exemple – mais plutôt à accompagner leur exploitation ou leur développement. Compte tenu de l’intérêt marqué par d’autres investisseurs , Antin IP anticipe un troisième closing au cours du premier trimestre 2010, la taille cible du fonds ayant été fixée à un milliard d’euros. Alain Rausher a également laissé entendre qu’une version à destination des particuliers - actuellement le ticket d’entrée est de 10 millions d’euros - pourrait à terme voir le jour, via la gestion privée.

2009 aura été pour Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco, groupe Allianz) l’année d’un double record en ce qui concerne son fonds Total Return, qui a franchi la barre des 200 milliards de dollars d’actifs fin décembre et qui a enregistré 69,4 milliards de dollars de souscriptions nettes sur douze mois, soit davantage que le total constaté pour la période 2006 à 2008. Dès lors, ce produit géré par Bill Gross n’est pas seulement le plus gros fonds obligataire au monde, c’est aussi le plus important mutual fund à l'échelon mondial, souligne The Wall Street Journal.La performance a été de 13,8 % en 2009, contre 5,93 % pour celle du benchmark, le Lehman Brothers U.S. Aggregate Index et, sur les cinq dernières années, le fonds a surperformé de 187 points de base l’indice, lequel a gagné 4,97 %.En décembre, Bill Gross a réduit à 32 % l’exposition aux obligations d’Etat ou publiques (government-related) contre 51 % en novembre pendant qu’il augmentait à 17 % contre 12 % celle aux obligations hypothécaires.

Selon L’Agefi suisse, Leopard Capital, qui s’est spécialisé dans les pays qui sortent de conflits armés, a annoncé hier le lancement de deux fonds dédiés au Sri Lanka. Le Leopard Sri Lanka Fund entend lever 100 millions de dollars, qui seront investis durant dix ans via des participations minoritaires dans des sociétés non-cotées. Le second véhicule d’investissement, baptisé Leopard Sri Lanka Value Fund, est un fonds ouvert, avec un premier objectif de levées de capitaux fixé à 30 millions de dollars. Il investira dans un portefeuille diversifié de valeurs cotées du Colombo Stock Exchange.

Sur les treize stratégies régulièrement suivies depuis janvier 2001 per Edhec-Risk institute, seules deux ont été dans le rouge pour l’ensemble de l’an dernier, à savoir les futures (CTA global), avec 2,1 % de perte, et les ventes à découvert (short selling), avec 20,5 %. Comme on pouvait s’y attendre sur le vu des résultats publiés par les autres fournisseurs d’indices de performance, les deux meilleures stratégies de 2009 ont été l’arbitrage de convertibles (avec un bond en avant de 46,9 %) et les marchés émergents (+ 37,9 %).Les deux plus fortes performances annuelles moyennes depuis janvier 2001 ont été affichée par les marchés émergents (12,5 %) et les valeurs de sociétés en difficulté (distressed securities) avec 11,1 %.

Selon Asian Investor, l'équipe d’ING Investment Management basée à Dubai, envisage de lancer dans les prochains mois un fonds à la fois «actions» et «dette» sur les marchés frontières.ING IM travaille aussi sur un fonds obligataire long/short pour les marchés du Moyen Orient et de l’Afrique du Nord, qui utilisera des CDS et d’autres outils de couverture contre les risques de baisse des marchés. ING IM sonde encore le marché pour évaluer l’intérêt des investisseurs pour un tel produit, les marchés obligataires de la région étant encore relativement peu développés.

Schroders vient de nommer Marina Bottero en tant que responsable de la gestion de fonds immobiliers en Italie. Elle s’occupera à ce titre de l’activité immobilière italienne de la société de gestion britannique et de son expansion. Précédemment, Marina Bottero dirigeait l'équipe d’investissement de Hines en Italie. Dans le même temps, Cristina Ferrari Bravo a été nommée responsable de la gestion d’actifs immobiliers en Italie. Elle travaille chez Schroders depuis 2003 et était jusqu’ici en charge de la gestion du portefeuille de centres commerciaux. L’activité immobilière de Schroders représente 7,5 milliards de livres (8,2 milliards d’euros) au 30 septembre.