Dans un entretien accordé au journal, le Premier ministre espagnol estime qu’un retour de la croissance se dessine dès le deuxième semestre de l’année et devrait même «être visible très clairement en 2014». Il en appelle également à l’Allemagne ainsi qu’aux autres pays créanciers pour promouvoir une politique tournée vers le soutien à la croissance.
Le quotidien cite une étude de Knight Frank faisant état d’un bond de l’investissement étranger au sein de l’immobilier londonien. Les intervenants étrangers ont en effet consacré l’an passé 2,2 milliards de livres à la construction de nouvelles habitations, contre 1,8 milliard en 2011. Les ressortissants de Hong Kong et de Singapour ont représenté respectivement 23 et 16% du montant total des investissements.
La société vient de mettre sur pied un fonds de «loans» pour financer les entreprises, et prévoit d'étendre cette offre à d’autres compartiments en 2013.
La Chambre des représentants a approuvé mardi un plan d’aide de 50,5 milliards de dollars pour indemniser les victimes de l’ouragan Sandy et financer la réparation des dégâts commis lors de son passage sur le Nord-Est des Etats-Unis fin octobre dernier. La Chambre a ensuite approuvé l’allocation de 33,5 milliards de dollars affectés à des projets de reconstruction à long terme.
Selon nos informations, le Régime Social des Indépendants (RSI) étudie la possibilité de se renforcer sur la stratégie actions faible volatilité (low volatility) et pourrait à ce titre formaliser une recherche de gérants spécialisés en 2013.
Lors d’une intervention devant le Parlement européen cet après-midi, le commissaire européen chargé du Marché intérieur et des services a salué le compromis obtenu sur l’encadrement des agences de notation, un an après la présentation de la proposition de la Commission.
Selon les données publiées par le département du Commerce, les ventes au détail ont progressé de 0,5% après +0,4% en novembre (+0,3% en estimation initiale). Les économistes avaient de leur côté anticipé une hausse de 0,2%. Hors automobile, essence et matériaux de construction, les ventes ont augmenté de 0,6%, contre 0,5% le mois précédent.
Les prix à la production aux Etats-Unis ont baissé pour le troisième mois consécutif en décembre, tirés notamment par les prix alimentaires, confirmant le reflux des pressions inflationnistes. L’indice des prix à la production corrigé des variations saisonnières a reculé de 0,2% le mois dernier. Hors alimentation et énergie, l’indice PPI affiche une hausse limitée à 0,1% par rapport à novembre.
La production manufacturière de la région de New York s’est contractée pour le sixième mois consécutif en janvier, en raison d’une baisse des commandes nouvelles et surtout des livraisons, a annoncé la Réserve fédérale de New York. Son indice «Empire State» est ressorti à -7,8 contre -7,3 (révisé) en décembre.
La Banque du Portugal a revu à la baisse ses prévisions économiques mardi, tablant sur une contraction du PIB de 1,9% en 2013, une croissance mondiale ralentie freinant la demande d’exportations, avec aussi une consommation intérieure en repli. La banque centrale portugaise avait tablé auparavant sur une baisse de 1,6 % du PIB cette année.
«Dans une zone euro en récession, il y a un équilibre à trouver entre la nécessité de minimiser l’effet négatif à court terme des efforts de redressement des comptes publics sur la demande et celle de préserver la crédibilité des plans d’ajustement à moyen terme», a déclaré le ministre des Finances Pierre Moscovici devant la commission des Affaires économiques de l’Assemblée nationale.
Le Fonds européen de stabilité financière (FESF) a placé 7 milliards d’euros d’obligations à sept ans. Le rendement est ressorti pour les investisseurs à 1,612%. Barclays , Nomura et SG CIB avaient été nommées chefs de file pour cette opération qui a attiré une demande de plus de 8,3 milliards d’euros.
Le montant définitif du nouvel emprunt à 15 ans de l’Italie sera de six milliards d’euros, ont indiqué deux banques chefs de file de l'émission. Le papier, qui arrive à échéance le 1er septembre 2028, offrira une prime de 30 points de base sur le BTP échéance mars 2026. Le Trésor a précisé avoir mandaté cinq banques - Banca IMI, Barclays Bank, Crédit Agricole, Goldman Sachs et JP Morgan Securities - pour piloter cette opération.
Konrad Hummler and Otto Bruderer, who heads of the former Wegelin bank, are suing Christophe Darbellay. The chairman of the Christian Dmocratic party (PDC) called them “traitors” for announcing that Wegelin’s fraudulent practices in the United States represented the norm among Swiss banks. Darbellay still maintains his position. “The statements of Mr. Hummler and Mr. Bruderer constitute a defamation of the Swiss financial market before the entire world. As a Swiss sitizen and politician and a representative of the Swiss economic centre, I feel that such an attitude is treason,” the member of Swiss parliament says, cited by Béatrice Wertli.
The Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has issued new quotas for a total of USD1.4bn to eight asset managers which have been licensed as Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII), including USD500m for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), and CNY18bn for holders of RQFII licenses (Hong Kong yuan-denominated funds), Asian Investor reports. As of 31 December, SAFE had awarded QFII quotas totalling USD37.4b to 169 asset management firms, and CNY67bn to 24 RQFII managers.The other five recipients of QFII quotas are Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, BOC Group Life Assurance Company (USD200m each), KB Asset Management (USD100m), the Church Pension Fund, and Duke University (USD50m each).For RQFII quotas, SAFE has increased by CNY5.8bn the quotas for China Asset Management and E Fund, and CSOP for a further CNY5bn, while ICBC Credit Suisse, China International Fund Management and GF Fund Management have received their first quotas for CNY800m each.
BlackRock is expected this week to announce the recruitment of Wang Hsueh-ming, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, as chairman of its operations in China, the Financial Times predicts. “ If we are asked, we plan to help the Chinese think about turning Chinese savers into investors by making the financial markets more robust ,” Larry Fink, the founder and CEO of BlackRock, tells the FT.
The China Investment Coporation (CIC), the Chinese sovereign fund, whose assets under management total about USD482bn, last year earned returns of over 10%, according to statements from the head of the fund, Lou Jiwei, the website Opalesque reports. “We don’t have final figures … but we are confident that our returns will be higher than 10%,” the head has stated.
finews.ch reports that J. P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) has appointed Philipp Pfenninger, who had previously served as head of distribution to banks, as country head for Switzerland, replacing Roland Vogel, who has left the business.JPMAM has also recruited an investment consultant from Bank Vontobel, Marc Schumacher, who will join the team to assist clients at the cantonal and regional banks.The news website also reports that Claudia Nägeli (formerly of RBS) joined JPMAM in October 2012 as senior sales executive, global liquidity. She will be particularly responsible for assisting corporate and institutional clients.
Switzeland’s asset manager GAM will acquire a minority stake of approximately 30% in QFS Asset Management, a US-based alternative asset management boutique that specialises in currency, global macro and fixed income strategies.The partnership will also see GAM and QFS work very closely together, with GAM being responsible for the global distribution and marketing of existing and new strategies managed by QFS.Moreover, following the formal closure of the agreement, GAM plans to introduce a UCITS product based on QFS’s flagship currency strategy in the coming months. Launched in March 1993 and trading in highly liquid instruments, the strategy has delivered net returns to clients of 10.75% per annum (as at 31 December 2012). GAM has USD48 billion in assets under management, while QFS has over USD1 bn of assets under management.
Carmignac Gestion further strengthens its fixed income expertise with the hiring of Pierre Verlé as credit analyst, bringing the fixed income team headed by Rose Ouahba to 6 fully dedicated members. He will take up this role on January 21 and will work under the responsibility of Keith Ney, head of credit. Verlé will be involved in the management of Carmignac’s four fixed income funds Carmignac Global Bond and Carmignac Sécurité, Carmignac Capital Plus and Carmignac Court Terme as well as the fixed income portfolio of flexible funds Carmignac Patrimoine and Carmignac Emerging Patrimoine. Before joining Carmignac Gestion, Pierre Verlé, 33, was co-manager of the distressed debt fund at Butler Investment Managers in London and an analyst covering special situations principal investments at Morgan Stanley. He focused on high yield bonds, bank loans and successfully negotiated numerous debt reorganizations. The asset management firm has also announced the arrival on 4 February of Edward Cole on the emerging market equity team as an analyst responsible for the markets of Eastern Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He will report to Simon Pickard, and will contribute to the management of the Carmignac Emergentes and Carmignac Emerging Discovery funds, as well as the flexible fund Carmignac Emerging Patrimoine, where he will contribute to the development of a theme for improving living conditions in emerging countries. Cole, 37, was co-manager of emerging market funds for six years, first at Ashmore Group, and then and Finisterre Capital. He previously served as an equity strategist for six year, in charge of the EMEA region at JP Morgan Securities.
Jonas Granholm, who left the Swedish pension fund Skanska on 11 January, and Gustav Lundeborg, who will be leaving his job on 18 January, are teaming up with the former CFO of the pension fund, Hans Biörck, to launch a hedge fund, the website IPE reports. Granholm will be CEO of the new firm, while Biörck will be its chairman. The hedge fund may be launched in October.
Santander Asset Management has received a license from BaFin, and in the next few weeks will open a branch office in Frankfurt, to be led by Stefan Jochum (most recently a member of the executive board at Staedel Hanseatic), with 11 employees.The Spanish group on 14 January announced that it already has EUR600m in assets under management for German institutional investors. Santander Asset Management Germany will start up with EUR100m in six open-ended funds (three equity products, three profiled funds) which have been on sale since 2012.Santander already has a network in Germany of 170 branches, and has over 1 million clients in the country.
Last year, German open-ended real estate funds which are not in liquidation invested EUR4.3bn, in 37 deals, including EUR1.1bn in Germany, EUR725m in Eastern Europe (almost entirely in Poland), EUR740m in the United Kingdom, EUR625m in France, and EUR400m in the United States.According to the Berlin-based rating agency Scope, the largest investments were made by the UniImmo: Deutschland fund from Union Investment (EUR1.3bn), the Deka-ImmobilienEuropa fund (EUR750m), the WestInvest InterSelect fund (also from Deka) and the UniImmo: Europa (EUR500m each).In terms of net subscriptions, Union Investment Real Estate has posted inflows of EUR1.9bn in January-October, putting it ahead of Deka (about EUR1bn) and RREEF (Deutsche Bank) with EUR618m). However, Commerz Real Investment has undergone net redemptions, with outflows of EUR566m from the hausInvest fund.
Holger Fahrinkrug, who had been chief economist at Portigon, formerly WestLB, will in February join Meriten Investment Management, formerly WestLB-Mellon Asset management (EUR23.6bn in assets), a joint venture in which BNY Mellon recently bought up the remaining stake held by Portigon.At his new firm, Fahrinkrug will again serve as chief economist, and will report to Werner Taiber, CEO. He succeeds Holger Sandte, who has left the firm.
The Hamburg-based asset management firm Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has recruited Martin Brühl, who resigned in August from his position as director of Cushman & Wakefield for Germany, as head of his international department, the Immobilien Zeitung reports. He will begin in the newly-created position on 1 May 2013, and will be responsble for the United Kingdom, the Americas and Asia.The appointment comes as part of a reorganisation of investment management at UIRE, which includes three other departments (Europe, shopping centres and hotels). The investment management unit is led by Frank Billand, one of the MDs.