La Tribune reports that the NYSE-Euronext platform dedicated to block trading of shares appears to be attracting growing interest from investors. Fourteen new members have joined the ‘dark pool,’ which allows investors to trade shares discreetly, in compliance with all applicable regulations. Smart Pool, launched this February in partnership with JP Morgan, BNP Parbias and HSBC, has since posted a 90% growth in its activities.Market regulators are not particularly comfortable with these markets, however. According to the Financial Times, cited by La Tribune, the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) is expected to hold a meeting with four dark pool operators today.

Les Echos reports that the US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into credit default swap (CDS) markets. The Justice department is seeking to determine whether several major banks (JPMorganChase, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland and Goldman Sachs), all of which are shareholders in the Market company, may have profited from inside information in this capacity.

The former lawyer Marc Dreier was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison for attempting to sell USD700 million fake promissory notes and defrauding clients, the Wall Street Journal reports. He will also be required to refund USD387.7m. The judge stated that he will support a request on the part of the prosecutor to seize USD746m in assets.

In an interview with Global Pensions, Jean-Bpatiste de Franssu, the new chairman of EFAMA and CEO of Invesco Europe, claims that problems with the controversial directive on hedge fund managers could have been avoided if EFAMA and other professional associations had declared their opinions earlier and taken a more proactive attitude to regulations, rather than waiting for regulators to establish the new framework. He says that both the range of funds to which the legislation applies (the European Commission bill applies to all non-UCITS funds) and the question of the responsibility of the custodian should be studied further.During his two-year term, de Franssu hopes to establish a level playing field for distribution of funds from asset management firms. He would also like to achieve the creation of a third-pillar retirement system which would allow employees to move freely throughout Europe.

On Monday, Premier Asset management took over the management contracts for two OEIC umbrella funds, containing ten Credit Suisse funds, from Aberdeen Unit Trust Managers. Total assets in these funds are GBP850m, which brings assets under management at Premier AM to about GBP2.3bn.At the same time, Premier AM has announced that as a part of its new strategic alliance with PSigma Asset Management, Bill Mott and his team will become investment advisors at Premier for the funds formerly known as CS Alpha Growth, CS Alpha Income, CS Income et CS Monthly Income, the last two of which were managed by Mott at Credit Suisse.The changes will take effect on 31 July; until that time, the funds will continue to be managed by Aberdeen. The other six funds will be managed internally by Premier, but it is likely that two of them, the UK 250 and the Smaller Companies, will later be outsourced to another management firm.Aberdeen will retain five British retail funds from Credit Suisse, which will continue to be managed by Aidan Kearney and Graham Bruce, both of whom formerly worked at Credit Suisse. The Global Income Plus fund, which was managed by Graham Ashby at Credit Suisse, will now be managed by the global equities team at Aberdeen, led by Stephen Doherty, as Ashby has joined LV Asset Management.

db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) has admitted an ETF to trading on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) which replicates the S&P US Carbon Efficient index, which includes US large caps with comparatively low emissions of pollutants, and a carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions 50% and 60% lower than average, respectively. The objective will be to achieve performance approaching that of the S&P 500, Global Pensions reports. The index was developed by S&P in collaboration with Deutsche Bank and Trucost. The new ETF is expected to be of particular interest to pension funds.

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has announced that it has awarded bond mandates to a further four management firms. Its allocation to bonds is currently 50% of the GBP3bn portfolio, Professional Pensions reports. Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) and Pimco (Allianz) will retain their mandates, while the new arrivals are Mondrian Investment Partners and Rogge Capital Partners. Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) and Wellington Management International have been retained for bond mandates which will be assigned to them at a later date.

RBS, in which the British government controls a majority stake, is regrouping its investment banking activities in the Asia-Pacific region into a single entity, La Tribune reports.

According to the Swedish fund management association Fondsbolagens Forening, Swedish funds posted net subscriptions in June for the seventh consecutive month. They totalled SEK12.7bn, which brings the total for first half to SEK40.1bn. All major segments of funds posted net inflows last month, with the strongest inflows (SEK5.8bn) for equities funds. Bond funds attracted SEK4.6bn, while diversified funds attracted SEK1.1bn, money market funds SEK0.7bn, and other funds (mostly hedge funds) collected SEK0.6bn. With the exception of money market funds, which saw net outflows of SEK14.5bn, all categories posted net subscriptions in first half: SEK42.5bn for equities funds, SEK7.3bn for diversified funds, SEK4.3bn for bond funds, and SEK0.6bn for funds in the ‘other’ category.

The management mandates for the two largest hedge funds from Santander to have been affected by the Madoff fraud, Banif Fairfield Impala and Banif Optimal Low Volatility, have been withdrawn from Fairfield and Optimal and assigned to Allfunds Alternative, a joint venture from Allfunds Bank (Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo) and Goldman Sachs, Expansión reports. The Impala fund becomes the Select Global Managers, while the Low Volatility fund becomes known as the Manager Alpha Series. Allfunds Alternative already managed the third hedge fund on sale from Banif (the private bank of the Santander group), the Banif Allfunds Springbuck, which has not been affected by the Madoff scandal, and which has outperformed the two funds affected by the Madoff scandal.

The Lyxor ETF Ibex 35 Inverso will be admitted to trading on the Spanish stock exchange on 16 July, Funds People reports. The product, which complies with UCITS III, replicates the Ibex 35 Inverso index, which is the inverse of the Ibex 35 con dividendos. Management commission is 0.40%.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Michael Huffington, a former Republican congressman from California, has filed a lawsuit against the Carlyle Group in a Massachusetts court, claiming that the private equity investor concealed the risks involved in a mortgage fund, Carlyle Capital Corp, which went bankrupt in spring. Huffington, who had invested USD20m in the product, called “low risk” and “conservative” by the management firm, also names david Rubinstein, the co-founder of Carlyle, who was in charge of fundraising for the product.

The alternative management firm AQR Capital Management [AQR is the abbreviation for Applied Quantitative Research - ed] last week launched the mutual funds AQR Momentum Fund, AQR Small Cap Momentum Fund and AQR International Momentum Fund, which replicate the new momentum indexes AQR Momentum, Small Cap Momentum and International Momentum, the Wall Street Journal reports. The funds allow retail investors access to a strategy which was previously available only to institutional investors. The indexes use the top third of the equities markets, which have outperformed their counterparts in the past twelve months, weighted according to their market cap. Rebalancing of the portfolio occurs on a quarterly basis. Minimal subscription for the funds is set at USD5,000, and TER measures between 0.49% and 0.65%.

Philip Warland, senior adviser at PriceWaterhouseCoopers for investment management in London and Brussels, has been appointed head of public policy at Fidelity International, and will oversee the management firm’s contacts with the British and European authorities, Investment Week reports. Warland, who has spent 20 years at the Bank of England and was also director general of the Association of Unit Trusts and Investment Funds (AUTIF), will also be in charge of the firm’s contacts with stakeholders on the subject of policies concerning financial services in all European countries in which the Fidelity group is active.

La Tribune reports, citing Bloomberg, that Bank of America is seeking to avoid paying the US federal government billions of dollars in commissions in exchange for the government’s guarantees of losses at Merrill Lynch. The US authorities are claiming, for their part, that even in the absence of a completed legal document, the bank received an implicit government guarantee of USD118bn in assets at Merrill, and should therefore be obligated to repay part of USD4bn in commissions earned on the assets.

BlackRock will receive at least USD42m in commissions for its first year managing three vehicles (Maiden Lane I, II and III) containing MBS and other investments previously held by Bear Stearns and American International Group (AIG), the Wall Street Journal reports. The figures were published on the website of the New York Fed, which awarded the mandates to BlackRock. BlackRock will also receive USD13.5m in advising and restructuring commissions.

Janus Capital Group has announced that it will take a charge of USD12.1bn for third quarter to cover indemnities due to Gary Black, its former CEO, who has resigned on Tuesday and has been replaced by Tim Armour, one of the group’s directors, for an interim period.Janus has also announced net profits on continued operations for second quarter of USD15.8bn, comaprd with losses of USD818.1m in the corresponding period of last year. As of 30 June, assets totalled USD132.6bn, compared with USD110.9bn as of the end of March, and USD191.8bn twelve months earlier. In April-June, market effects were positive to the tune of USD20bn, and net subscriptions totalled USD2.3bn.

The pension fund CalPERS has filed a lawsuit at the California Superior Court in San Francisco against Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, for providing it with “wildly inaccurate and unreasonably high” ratings of structured investment vehicles, which led to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports. CalPERS had invested USD1.3bn in three SIVs (Cheyne Finance LLC, Stanfield Victoria Funding LLC et Sigma Finance Inc), all of which were rated AAA by the agencies.

Les Echos reports that Goldman Sachs posted the largest net banking proceeds in its history in second quarter 2009, at USD13.76bn. Net results totalled USD3.44bn. Fixed issuance activities posted record revenues of USD6.8bn, while equities markets revenues are up strongly, to USD3.18bn. Share issues exploded, to USD736m, compared with USD48m the previous quarter, while bond issues also increased to a lesser extent (USD336m, compared with Usd248m in first quarter. Only commercial real estate has continued to perform poorly, with losses of USD700m. Merger and acquisition advising has declined to USD368m, from USD527m the previous quarter. Revenues from asset management have also fallen to USD922m from USD1.6bn one year previously.

United Kingdom Financial Investments, the public holding company in charge of managing the UK government’s participations, announced on 13 July that the state’s stakes in British banks may take years to be sold off but by bits, La Tribune reports.

As of the end of June, the number of ETF funds listed on Euronext came to 416 funds, listed 464 times, from 14 different promoters. The funds replicated 285 indexes covering several asset classes and/or strategies. In the first half, the number of ETF funds listed rose by 20%, with 71 funds launched and 3 closures. In June, Euronext admitted 21 products to trading, of which 17 were from CASAM (bonds, strategies and global), and 4 strategic products from ETF Securities. Daily trading volumes fell 10% from their levels in May, to EUR294m, while the number of transactions fell 12% to 6,736. The average spread fell to 45.51 basis points, from 55.96 in May.

The British management industry is still very heavily affected by the financial crisis. Heavy falls on the markets in fourth quarter 2008 will have a marked impact on the entire sector in 2009, the British Investment Management Association (IMA) in its annual report for 2008. Despite mergers and acquisitions realised last year, the British management industry remains fragmented, the IMA reports. In 2008, total assets under management in the United Kingdom at IMA member firms totalled GBP3trn, compared with GBP3.4trn as of the end of 2007. Of this total, GBP1trn (an amount which remains unchanged since the end of 2007) is managed on behalf of international clients, while GBP500bn (down from GBP570bn) are in offshore funds, and GBP362bn (down from GBP468bn) are in funds domiciled in the United Kingdom. The proportion of the equities market held by British management firms was down to 43%, from 44% the previous year. Profits for management firms fell to GBP9.4bn, from GBP10.2bn in 2007.

Pioneer (groupe UniCredit) a ouvert depuis fin juin et jusqu’au 17 juillet la souscription du compartiment US Credit Recovery 2014 de sa Sicav luxembourgeoise Pioneer Funds. Il s’agit comme son nom l’indice d’un fonds d’obligations d’entreprises américaines à échéance 2014, avec un profil de risque moyen. Il est disponible en deux classes de parts avec un régime de frais différent mais toutes deux avec une couverture du risque de change. Le droit d’entrée ressort à 2 % et la commission de gestion à 1,1 % tandis que des pénalités de sortie dégressives sont prévues entre 2 % pour la première année et 1 % pour la cinquième. Il est prévu une commission de 10 % sur la surperformance par rapport au rendement du US Treasury N/B 4.2% 15/08/14 plus 100 points de base.

Gary Withers, qui était head of global iinvestors après avoir été head of asset management, EMEA, chez Credit Suisse, a été recruté comme regional managing director EMEA (Europe, Moyen-Orient, Afrique) par First State Investments.

Selon The Independent, le fonds d’investissement Resolution, conseillé par Credit Suisse, a annoncé que sa proposition de rapprochement avec Friends Provident Group avait été rejetée par le conseil d’administration de l’assureur-vie britannique.Resolution a toutefois ajouté avoir reçu «un retour constructif» de Friends et de ses conseillers et qu’il réfléchissait à la suite à donner à sa proposition. Selon Resolution, son offre, si elle est effectivement présentée, sera vraisemblablement pour l’essentiel un échange d’actions assorti d’un élément en numéraire.

Les fonds souverains pourraient délaisser les titres du Trésor américain pour donner la préférence aux actions et à la gestion alternative. C’est en tout cas l’opinion de 56% des 146 gérants qui travaillent régulièrement avec les souverains et qui estiment que leur allocation actions devrait prendre du poids au cours des cinq prochaines années, selon une enquête réalisée le Oxford University Center for Employment, Work and Finance («Analyzing SWFs Through Proxy : The Oxford Survey of SWF Asset Managers») co-sponsorisée par Pensions & Investments.L’immobilier pourrait également occuper une plus grande part de l’allocation des souverains pour 53% des gérants interrogés. Les perspectives sont moins encourageants pour le private equity, 42% de l'échantillon estimant que la poche dédiée au capital investissement pourrait augmenter et 27% affirmant même qu’elle pourrait diminuer au cours dese cinq prochaines années. A noter toutefois que selon 72% des répondants, la croissance des fonds souverains a jusqu’ici surtout profité au private equity.Ces classes d’actifs ne seront pas les seules à bénéficier du moindre intérêt des investisseurs souverains dans les titres du Trésor américain. Les fonds souverains accordent de plus en plus de mandats sur des obligations d’entreprises, des MBS ou encore des obligations à haut rendement. Du côté des perdants, l’obligataire et les hedge funds seront les classes d’actifs les plus affectées, selon 43% et 42% respectivement des gérants interrogés. Et les trois quarts de l'échantillon estiment que les fonds souverains devraient réduire leur exposition aux obligations du Trésor US. Selon State Street, l’encours des actifs des fonds souverains pourrait s'établir dans une fourchette comprise entre 4.850 milliards de dollars et 6.930 milliards de dollars d’ici à 2012, en fonction notamment de l'évolution des prix du pétrole. Dans tous les cas de figure, une modification de leur allocation de quelques points pourrait se traduire par des transferts de centaines de milliards de dollars.

Selon les calculs d’IPE, l’encours des 400 principaux gestionnaires d’actifs mondiaux se situait fin décembre à 26,5 billions d’euros, ce qui représente une chute de 21,8 % en un an. Pour les 120 grands gestionnaires institutionnels européens, la contraction de été dans le même temps de 20,7 % à 4,6 billions d’euros.Vingt-huit des gestionnaires institutionnels européens ont perdu entre 0 et 20 % de leurs actifs sous gestion par rapport à fin 2007, tandis que 36 ont perdu entre 20 et 40 % et que 13 ont perdu plus de 40 %.Seuls 16 d’entre eux ont affiché une hausse de leurs encours, UFG se classant premier, avec un bond en avant de 79,3 % à 5 milliards d’euros, devant Pimco (Allianz), dont l’encours a gonflé à 103,9 milliards d’euros contre 59,5 milliards. DB Advisors (Deutsche Bank) s’est classé second par l’ampleur de l’augmentation, avec un accroissement de 5 milliards d’euros ou de 3,9 %. Deux autres groupes ont enregistré une augmentation de leurs actifs sous gestion supérieure à 2 milliards d’euros : le suisse Vontobel, dont l’encours a conflé de 2,9 milliards d’euros ou de 65 % pour atteindre 10,2 milliards d’euros en fin d’année, et Putnam, dont les encours institutionnels ont augmenté de 35 % ou de 2,6 milliards d’euros à 6,4 milliards.En revanche, BlackRock et Barclays Global Investors (BGI) ont accusé un plongeon de plus de 91milliards d’euros mais ils arrivent ensemble 363 milliards d’euros gérés pour le compte d’investisseurs institutionnels, derrière toutefois Crédit Agricole Asset Management/SGAM, qui -pris ensemble- se seraient classés en tête avec 439,2 milliards d’euros fin 2008.

Barclays Wealth vient de nommer Sharad Nair au poste de Director des activités de private banking internationales au Moyen Orient. Sharad Nair travaillait précédemment à la Bank-Sarasin-Alpen (ME) Ltd à Dubai où en tant que managing director, il avait en charge ces trois dernières années les activités de private banking dans les Etats du Golfe et l’Asie méridionale.Sharad Nair est directement rattaché à Soha Nashaat, CEO de Barclays Wealth pour le Moyen Orient et l’Afrique du nord.

Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (EDRIM) met la dernière main à l’ouverture d’une succursale à Madrid, qui interviendra lorsque toutes les autorisations nécessaires auront été obtenues, rapporte Funds People. Sébastien Senegas et María García Fernández seront chargés de la clientèle institutionnelle. Le premier sera le directeur ; il vient du siège parisien, d’où il desservait le marché espagnol. La seconde était directrice des ventes institutionnelle ches Selinca.Le groupe a par ailleurs demandé l’enregistrement de sa gamme de fonds par la CNMV.

Selon Absolute Return, les hedge funds n’ont gagné que 0,4 % en juin, sur la base de 43 % de l'échantillon habituel, et la performance du premier semestre serait ressortie à 6,33 % contre une perte de 12 % en janvier-juin 2008, rapporte Hedge Week. Le meilleur résultat est affiché par la stratégie arbitrage de converitbles, avec une performance de 21 %.