Parce qu’elle semble bon marché, la volatilité implicite du Bund offre l’opportunité de jouer le débouclement de la crise

L'AMF vient de rendre un avis favorable sur le projet. Les autres régulateurs nationaux et ministres européens doivent encore se prononcer

Un accord provisoire évitera des ondes de choc sur les marchés mondiaux, mais ne sera pas sans répercussions sur la croissance économique

Les transactions ont rebondi à Londres après deux ans de baisse, alors qu'elles se stabilisent sur des niveaux historiquement faibles à Madrid

Choisi par Twitter, le «Big Board» a coté presqu'autant de groupes technologiques que le Nasdaq depuis début 2011, sur des montants bien moindres

La demande placée a chuté de 18% sur les neuf premiers mois de l’année, en l’absence de transactions sur le marché des grandes surfaces

Les sénateurs, qui devaient être suivis dans la foulée par les représentants, ont voté hier un texte permettant de mettre un terme à l’impasse budgétaire.

Un accord bipartisan a été conclu hier au Sénat. Le président républicain de la Chambre et Barack Obama ont apporté leur soutien

...

La CARMF a réalloué fin août deux fonds obligataires aggregate zone euro (60% Investment Grade et 40% High Yield) suite à une consultation restreinte. « Compte tenu des conditions de marché actuelles, nous avons décidé d’investir cette année nos flux d’investissement dans le crédit, précise Michel Manteau, responsablede la gestion Taux à la CARMF. Il nous reste un reliquat à investir que nous avons l’intention de consacrer aux obligations convertibles en nous renforçant dans un de nos fonds dédiés existants. Pour cela, nous espérons voir se dégager une fenêtre d’entrée d’ici à la fin de l’année ». Les deux fonds dédiés obligations aggregate que la CARMF vient de créer sont de taille globalement équivalente et représentent un encours total de près de 70 millions d’euros. Ils sont gérés par HSBC et Aviva Global Investors. Mais la CARMF n’a pas attendu la création de ces deux fonds dédiés pour profiter de certaines opportunités qui se sont présentées sur le crédit fin juin. « Nous avons investi dans un fonds ouvert Investment Grade le 24 juin et nous en sommes sortis fin août », ajoute Michel Manteau.

TPG Capital et Ivanhoe Cambridge, le bras armé du fonds de pension du Québec dans l’immobilier, ont annoncé le rachat de PointPark Properties. Ce dernier, basé à Prague, détient 48 plates-formes logistiques et entrepôts en Europe, et près de 1,5 million de mètres carrés. Propriété d’Arcapita, un fonds bahreïni en faillite, P3 avait été valorisé en 2012 à 760 millions d’euros lors d’un projet de cotation qui n’a finalement pas abouti, selon des doucments cités par Bloomberg.

BlackRock affichait 4.096 milliards de dollars sous gestion au 30 septembre, une hausse de 12% sur un an et de 6% par rapport à la fin juin 2013. Le gestionnaire d’actifs américain a dégagé 2,4 milliards de dollars de revenus sur le trimestre écoulé (+7% sur un an) pour un résultat net de 730 millions.

At a time when the position of London as the major foreign offshore centre for the Chinese yuan outside Hong Kong has recently been strengthened, the Chinese and British authorities have announced three major agreements during a visit to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Les Echos reports. Firstly, Chinese banks will be allowed to operate in the City as branches. The second agreement signed by the British delegation is an additional quota for direct investment in Chinese publicly-traded equities for British companies. Its maximum has been set at GBP8.2bn. Lastly, the two countries have agreed that the pound becomes the fourth currency, after the US dollar, the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen, to be allowed to be traded directly with the yuan, on markets in Shanghai and in licensed offshore centres. A timeline has not yet been set.

German asset management firms posted net subscriptions in August of EUR3.4bn, of which EUR2.8759bn were for institutional funds, and EUR839.2m for open-ended funds, while mandates saw net outflows of EUR313.6m. In July, net inflows totalled EUR17.66bn, according to the German BVI association of asset management firms, of which EUR9.26bn went to Spezialfonds, EUR5.29bn to Publikumsfonds, and EUR3.1bn for mandates.However, in the first eight months of the year, net subscriptions totalled EUR62.4bn, comapred with EUR48.72bn in the corresponding period of 2012, of which EUR44.97bn, compared with EUR40.52bn for Spezialfonds and EUR16.87bn compared with EUR10.02bn for open-ended funds.The BVI states that as of the end of August, assets in open-ended and institutional real estate funds totalled EUR121bn, distributed over 3,300 properties in 35 countries. The portfolios include about 1,800 properties located in Germany, representing 63% of assets in institutional funds, compared with 42% of open-ended funds. France is the top destination country abroad, with 263 properties, followed by the Netherlands, with 247.In terms of asset management firms, Allianz Asset Management in the first eight months of the year has posted net inflows of EUR5.1447bn for open-ended securities funds, out of a total of EUR13.238bn for the sector overall. The Deutsche Bank group, for its part, has posted net inflows of EUR2.9254bn, less than Universal-Investment, a white label product specialist, which attracted EUR5.0364bn. These three asset management firms alone have thus posted more in net inflows than the entire profession combined.Union Investment is still has not put up with the loss of a mandate in April for EUR4.4bn outside the perimeter of the BVI, and shows net outflows of EUR2.1678bn. Deka has had net redemptions in the first eight months of the year which are down to EUR1.2741bn, from EUR1.38bn as of the end of July.

M&G Investments has registered its M&G Short Dated Corporate Bond fund in Italy, Bluerating reports. The fund is 80% invested in short duration investment grade corporate bonds (0-3 years).

Dexia Asset Management has announced the launch of the UCITS IV Equities Global Optimum fund. The fund, which is aimed primarily at institutinoal investor clients such as pension funds, mutuals and insurers, may be exposed via a flexible allocation ranging from 0% to 200%. The portfolio is invested in global equities via derivatives, primarily options. The objective for the product is to “allow institutional investors subject to the constraints imposed by regulations to benefit from equity markets while limiting capital charge,” a statement says. “Let’s take the example of insurers: while traditional investment in equities implies an SCR of 39%, the management strategy used for the Equities Global Optimmum limits the SCR to less than 25% while seeking returns higher than those of the MSCI World hedged in euros with dividends reinvested,” says Nagi Nasr, head of alternative investment solutions at Dexia AM. Characteristics ISIN code: FR0011535897 (capi). Front-end fee: 1.00% Withdrawal penalty 1.00% Ongoing fees: 1.45%

Dexia Asset Management has announced the launch of the UCITS IV Equities Global Optimum fund. The fund, which is aimed primarily at institutinoal investor clients such as pension funds, mutuals and insurers, bay be exposed via a flexible allocation ranigns from 1% to 200%. The portfolio is invested in global equities via derivatives, primarily optins. The objective for the produc is to “allow institutional investors subject to the constraints imposed by regulations to benefit from equity markets while limiting capital charge,” a statement says. “Let’s take the example of insurers: while traditional investment in equities implies an SCR of 39%, the management strategy used for the Equities Global Optimmum limits the SCR to less than 25% while seeking returns higher than those of the MSCI World hedged in euros with dividends reinvested,” says Nagi Nasr, head of alternative investment solutions at Dexia AM. Characteristics ISIN code: FR0011535897 (capi). Front-end fee: 1.00% Withdrawal penalty 1.00% Congoing fees: 1.45%

Currently, La Financière Responsable has about EUR90m in assets under management, compared with EUR62m at the end of last year, and has posted net inflows of about EUR20m since the beginning of 2013. The “historic FCP” from the firm, LFR Euro Développement Durable, as of the end of September had EUR51.43m, and was 99.5% exposed to equities, of which 61.3% were French stocks. Since 31 December 2009, the fund has posted returns of 22.30%, compared with losses of 2.42% for the EuroStoxx 50 Price, and a gain of 11.06% for the EuroStoxx 50 Total Return, with volatility over 52 weeks of 12.59%, compared with 14.99% and 14.94%, respectively. The portfolio includes 35 positions and the turnover rate stands at about 33%. These results are consistent with the SRI strategy of La Financière Responsable, while on Tuesday, its chairman, Olivier Johanet, declared that “at the end of the day, SRI is a question of financial performance.” With that said, it needs to be demonstrated that extra-financial considerations are not counter-financial, and the difficulty for SRI or ESG managers is obtaining extra-financial information, and then enriching the data (LFR is now working with 63 indicators), and then take into account and justify extra-financial factors. Basic criteria (personnel, shareholders, companies, environment, partners, providers, clients, governance) allow for a eco-social footprint to be calculated, which is then used as a basis for financial judgements. In the construction of portfolios, capitalisation and weight biases are eliminated, stresses Stéphane Prévost, CEO.

State Street Global Advisors has suggested that it may double the number of ETFs which is manages in Europe, Ignites, a service from the Financial Times, reports. Scott Ebner, global head of product development at SSgA, thinks that there is room for about “100 ETFs” in the range from the company. SPDR, the ETF arm of the firm, currently has 52 products, compared with 13 when it restarted its European activities in 2010.

London-based asset manager Finisterre Capital has injected USD55m of seed capital into its new long/short bond fund dedicated to emerging market debt, the Finisterre Emerging Market Debt Fund, Citywire reports. It is an Irish-registered product which has a sales license in most European countries. The managers are Paul Crean, co-founder and CIO of Finisterre, and Christopher Watson.The portfolio will invest in all bond segments (government, corporate, high yield, hard or local currncies) with a more diversified long/short strategy and a lower turnover than for other hedge funds from Finisterre. It will also have a longer investment horizon.

To widespread surprise, Lithuania, which currently holds the European Union presidency, has accelerated the process of the UCITS V directive, increasing the likelihood that the controversial measure to cap bonuses will be dropped, Financial Times fund maangement reprts. In July, the European parliament rejected a proposal to limit bonuses to 100% of fixed salaries and to forbid performance commissions for UCITS funds by a vote of 348 to 341. Due to the tightness of the vote, many thought that it might be overturned by the parliament formed after the elections in May 2014. Lithuania has formed a working group for 21 October, which suggests that the planned directive may be completed by spring, meaning that the new parliament will not have a chance to review it.

Bruno Gatella, director of wholesale distribution at Clariden Leu and Credit Suisse Asset Management, on 1 Octber joined DJE Finanz, the Swiss affiliate of the Munich-based Dr. Jens Erhardt group (DJE Kapital) as director of fund distribution in Switzerland, finews reports. DJE Kapital manages about EUR10bn (as of 30 September).

Assets under management in sovereign wealth funds are approaching the USD6trn threahold, according to statistics communicated by the SWF Institute.In October this year, assets under management in SWFs totalled USD5.9998trn. Of this total, slightly over USD3.500trn were in sovereign funds depending on oil and gas resources.

Syed Elias Alhabshi, senior advisor at Threadneedle Investments in Singapore since September 2011, has been appointed as chairman for Malaysia by UK asset manager Threadneedle, which is planning to offer Sharia-compliant products to institutional investors (sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers, government and semi-government entities, businesses and charities).Mohd Farid bin Kamarudin (CEO of Malaysia) is also taking over the duties of senior fixed income fund manager, and will be based in Malaysia. He will report to Clifford Lau, head of fixed income Asia Pacific, Alhabshi and Andrew Chan, chief administrative officer, Asia Pacific. He will be responsible for putting Sharia-compliant investment capacities in place. He will be a senior member of the global investment team. He had previously been executive director and head of sukuks and alternative investments at AMIslamic Funds Management in Malaysia.Lastly, Sabrina Wong has been recruited as a fixed income analyst in Malaysia, and will report to Mohd Farid bon Kamarudian and Clifford Lau. She was previously a fund manager at Investec Asset Management, and also at Bank Negara.

Philipp Orth, Nadejda de Lousanoff and Umberto Prandi have been recruited for the institutional sales team at Pimco for the German and Austrian markets, and will report to Frank Witt, executive vice president and head of institutional customer relationships for Germany and Austria.The first of these becomes vice president and CRO. He had previously been director of customer relationships at Vescore. De Lousanoff joins from Banesto, where she had been head of distribution of structured products in Germany and the Scandinavian countries for the Spanish firm Santander. She is appointed as head of clients at Pimco.Lastly, Prandi is leaving Infineon Technologies, where he had been manager for mergers and acquisitions, to become a client adviser at Pimco.

According to NDR info radio, the Landesbank of Schleswig-Holstein and Hambourg, HSH Nordbank, in August sold its division HSH Real Estate for a symbolic one euro. That includes real estate funds with assets of EUR2bn and properties valued at EUR320m. A spokesperson for HSH Nordbank declined to comment on the reports, Fondsprofessionell says.

Specialist advisers manage nearly two times as many assets on average than advisers overall, according to a study carried out by Cerulli Associates in “The Cerulli Edge – Advisor Edition” (Fourth quarter). As of the end of June 2013, assets under management by specialists represented about 29% of total assets for advisers. “The great majority of financial advisers are generalists. Only 15% of advisers carry out their activities for a single client category, institutionals, corporate retirement programmes, or high net worth (HNW) investors,” says Bing Waldert, director at Cerulli. According to Cerulli, specialists clearly limit the market for an adviser but improve the degree of success in the development o the activity. By targeting a very small market and setting up a range of services which is tailored to it, advisers have more chances of winning requests for proposals when they are competing with a generalist.

Hedge funds and “distressed” asset managers are buying Puerto Rican debt, taking advantage of sales by traditional investors, the Financial Times reports. “Many traditional funds are selling these securities at a discount, and since several entities in Puerto Rico sell bonds, the liquidity is good. That is unusual in the municipal bond market,” says one manager. The monthly trading volumes on Puerto Rican bonds have increased to USD30bn at the end of September, compared with an average of UDS3-5bn, according to Citigroup.

Norges Bank Investment Management manager of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, and Axa Real Estate Investment Managers have entered a European commercial real estate loan co-investment programme.The programme will target investments in large size senior loans, of up to EUR600 million, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom, France and Germany.