The CNMV on 29 June issued a sales license for Spain to the Santander 95 España 2 fund, a product which guarantees at least 95% of capital, which would represent a maximal loss of 1.6952% per year, at maturity on 31 July 2015. However, as a complement, Santander AM offers a maximal remuneration of 170% of the performance of the Ibex 35 index between 31 July 2012 and 17 July 2015, up to a limit of 20%, which would be equivalent to a maximal return of 29%, or 8.8587% per year.Until 31 July, the fund will invest at least 75% in repos and cash, while the remainder will be invested in corporate bonds. During the guarantee period, the portfolio will be invested in debt issued or guaranteed by European Union governments in cash, while the allocation to corporate bonds from companies domiciled in the EU is limited to 35%.CharacteristicsName: Santander 95 España 3, FIISIN code: ES017492005Maturity: 31 July 2015Front-end fee: 5%Management commission: 0.3% until 31 July 2015, 1.3% thereafterEarly withdrawal penalty: 5% from 1 August 2012Minimal subscription: EUR30,000

On 29 June, the CNMV issued a sales license for Spain to the French-registered fund Edmond de Rothschild Eastern Europe, managed by Gegham Ananyan, with Thomas Gerhardt, head of emerging markets equity and commodity management (see Newsmanagers of 26 April 2012).

First State Investments has announced the appointments of Will Oulton as global head of socially responsible investment (in London), and Pablo Berrutti as global head of socially responsible investment (in Sydney). The appointments follow the arrival of Amanda McCluskey on the Asia-Pacific Equities and global emerging markets team at First State Stewart, which is based in Singapore. Oulton, vice president of the European socially responsible investment forum (EUROSIF) and director of the British socially responsible investment forum (UKSIF), previously worked at Mercer Investments London, as head of socially responsible invesment for the EMEA region. Berrutti previusly served as head of socially responsible investment at Perpetual in Sydney. He is currently president of the research group at the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and director of the Australasian socially responsible investment association.

At its general meeting in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) has appointed four new members to its board:Philippe Zaouati, deputy CEO in charge of development and responsible investment at Natixis Asset ManagementPhilip Armstrong, director of the Global Corporate Governance ForumHeloisa Belotti Bedicks, CEO of the Brazilian Institute of Corproate GovernanceJon Feigelson, senior managing director and general counsel & head of Corporate Governance, TIAA-CREFThe four replace Arnaud de Bresson (Paris Europlace), Sandra Guerra (Better Governance), Dr. Nasser Saidi, (Hawkamah Institute for Corporate Governance in Dubai) and Christy Wood (ICGN).

In first quarter 2012, total financial assets of insurance companies and pension funds in the euro zone totalled EUR7.222trn, compared with EUR6.935trn the previous quarter, according to statistics from the European Central Bank. In the same period, technical insurance claims, the largest category of liabilities for insurance companies and pension funds, increased, from EUR6.136bn to EUR6.267bn. This increase is due in nearly equal parts to positive transactions and valuation effects. In terms of ventilation of the overall balance sheet for insurance companies and pension funds in the euro zone, assets in securities other than equities as of the end of March 2012 represented 39% of total financial assets in the sector. Shares in mutual funds represented the second-largest exposure, with 24% of total financial assets. Lastly, equities and other participations represented 11% of the total.

Pimco and Source on 3 July announced that the Pimco German Government Bond Index Source ETF (or “Bund”), which since 25 June has been available for trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra platform (see Newsmanagers of 26 June 2012), is now licensed for sale in the United Kingdom, Austria, France, Finland and Italy (only for institutional investors), the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Bund is the seventh fund to join the Pimco Source physically invested ETF range. The range, launched last year, includes MINT strategies – the first actively-managed bond ETFs in Europe – and the first bond ETFs to weight various countries by their GDP, in order to optimally reproduce the benchmark indices of emerging market government bonds denominated in local and European currencies.

The British insurer Legal & General (L&G) is planning to lay off 70 people as part of a restructuring of its distribution platform, whose personnel would be reduced from 160 to 90, Money Marketing reports. This restructuring is related to the entry into force of RDR legislation at the beginning of 2013.

The scandal over manipulations of the Libor interest rate by the British Barclays Bank claimed another victim on 3 July, in the person of the CEO of the bank, Bob Diamond, who became the shameful emblem of the crimes of the City. The chairman of the board of directors at Barclays, Marcus Agius, had announced his resignation the day before, in an effort to calm the scandal, which had ignited public opinion and British political decision-makers. “External pressure on Barclays has reached a level which risked damaging the venture, and I couldn’t let that happen,” the American director said in a statement to explain his shock immediate resignation. “I am very disappointed because the events of last week give an image of Barclays and its employees which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Diamond adds.

The director of sales and marketing at Old Mutual Asset Managers (OMAM), Simon Wilson, will be leaving the group, FundWeb reports. The decision follows the announcement in late April of a merger of OMAM and Skandia Investment Group to form an entity led by the head of OMAM, Julian Ide. Wilson joined OMAM in 2004.

The British alternative management group Man has recruited Judy Sanders as senior adviser in its British institutional unit, Investment Europe reports. Sanders previously spent seven years as chief investment officer for the public pension fund for the West Midlands, whose assets under management total GBP8.7bn. The recruitment is motivated, at least in part, by a growing interest on the part of institutional investors in alternative management. Between 2009 and 2011, allocations by British pension funds to hedge funds increased from 1.8% to 4.1%, according to statistics from the national pension fund association. And a recent survey by SEI found that 38% of institutionals were planning to increase their investments in hedge funds, more than twice as many as were planning to reduce their exposure. While employed at the West Midlands pension fund, Saunders developed an allocation dedicated to alternative investments, up to 35%, of which 10% was allocated to absolute return strategies.

Shortly before the summer holiday, the European Commission finally unveiled a group of three legislative proposals to improve consumer protection in the area of financial services, and to address a lack of confidence on the part of the public.The three parts of the whole include proposed legislation on key investor information documents (KIID) for retail investment products, a revised Directive on Insurance Intermediation (DII) and last but not least, a proposal to strengthen protections for subscribers to investment funds, currently protected by the OPCVM directive.Following the publication of these proposals, five major professional associations, the CFA Institute (investment professionals), EuroFinuse (an association representing the users of financial services), FECIF (an association representing financial advisers and intermediaries), EFAMA (the European association of fund and asset managers) and AILO (an association representing cross-border life insurance companies) welcomed the initiative by the Commission, and insisted on the need for KIID documents to cover the widest possible range of savings products.The five associations agree on the point that one of the major challenges of KIID legislation is the format and contents of key investor information documents. They need to be as standard as possible to allow retail investors to compare th characteristics, returns on investment, risks, and costs of various savings products. With this in mind, the CFA Institute, with the support of EuroFinuse and FECIF, is currently setting up a research project on a standardised cost presentation format for the KIID. The research will be published in autumn.OPCVM/UCITSModifications to current rules for mutual funds proposed by the Commission are based on lessons drawn from the financial crisis, so as to continue to guarantee the safety of investors and the integrity of the market. In particular, the proposal will aim to ensure that the OPCVM label continues to inspire confidence, by ensuring that the obligations and responsibilities of the depository (the entity which guarantees the assets) are clear and uniform throughout the EU3.The proposal includes three parts: A precise definition of the duties and responsibilities of all depositories acting on behalf of a mutual fund; clear rules concerning remuneration of mutual fund managers: the way in which they are remunerated must not encourage excessive risk-raking. Remuneration policy will take long-term investor interests and the realisation of the investment objectives of the mutual fund better into account; and A common approach to ways to sanction major infractions of the legal framework governing mutual funds, introducing joint standards for administrative fee levels, so that these will always be higher than the potential profits of violating the regulations in force. Key Investor Information Documents/KIIDThe Commission’s proposal in relation to retail investment products would inform consumers in an easy-to-understand way, introducing a new, innovative standard for product information, expressed in clear language, much more comprehensible to the consumer. The document is known as a Key Investor Information Document (KIID). The proposal would require that each designer of investment products (investment fund managers, insurers, banks) to produce these documents for each investment product.

In the United Kingdom, pension funds managed by specialists earn better results than those which are managed by diersified managers, according to a 20-year study which will soon be published in the Journal of Finance, the website IPE reports. The superior performance of specialists is particularly pronounced in UK equities, the most popular asset class with British pension funds, the study finds. According to professor David Blake, co-author of the report and head of the Pensions Institute at the Cass Business School in London, “specialists in UK equities have earned a average alpha after commissions of 35 basis points per year, while diversified managers earned a negative alpha of 54 basis points.” Another finding of the study is that putting managers in competition with each other produces a sharp increase in returns. “Pension funds which have abandoned the use of only one specialist in favour of several specialists have increased their performance by an average of 131 basis points,” says Blake. The same trend can be observed for diversified managers, where a transition from one to several managers improves performance by 63 basis points. In both cases, fees increased by only 3 basis points.

Michel Barnier, le commissaire européen aux services financiers, a présenté mardi un paquet de trois propositions législatives. La première est un règlement sur les documents d’information clés concernant les produits d’investissement de détail (Prips), la deuxième une révision de la directive sur l’intermédiation en assurance (IMD) et la troisième une proposition visant à renforcer la protection des acheteurs de fonds d’investissement, OPCVM 5. S’agissant de Prips, La proposition prévoit l’obligation, pour chaque concepteur de produits d’investissement (gestionnaires de fonds d’investissement, assureurs, banques), de produire un document d’information clé (Kid) pour chaque produit.

Les nouvelles commandes à l’industrie aux Etats-Unis ont progressé plus que prévu en mai, un signal encourageant pour le secteur industriel qui était apparu plus vulnérable à la crise de la dette en Europe. Les commandes à l’industrie ont progressé de 0,7% au mois de mai, selon les chiffres publiés mardi par le département du Commerce.

Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB) annonce le lancement d’Alpha Metals, une nouvelle plate-forme de trading électronique sur les contrats à terme échangés sur le London Metal Exchange (LME). Alpha Metals permet aux clients de la banque d’avoir un accès direct sur LMEselect et de bénéficier de ses capacités de teneur de marché sur les contrats à terme et les «spreads» de contrats à terme LME sur l’aluminium, le cuivre, le plomb, le zinc, le nickel et l’étain.

Le gouvernement français prévoit une croissance économique plus faible qu’escompté, à 0,3% en 2012 et 1,2% en 2013 contre 0,5% et 1,7% prévu dans le programme de François Hollande, a annoncé mardi le Premier ministre, Jean-Marc Ayrault. «Nous avions anticipé pendant la campagne la faiblesse de la croissance en 2012 : estimée à 0,7% par le gouvernement précédent, elle sera en réalité de 0,3%. Pour 2013, la prudence et la sincérité nous conduisent à anticiper une croissance de l’ordre de 1,2%», a-t-il dit dans son discours de politique générale.

Le gouvernement va prendre les mesures nécessaires pour ramener le déficit public à 4,5% du PIB fin 2012, alors qu’il atteindrait 5% sans mesure correctrice, a déclaré mardi le ministre français des Finances, Pierre Moscovici, à la veille de la présentation du projet de loi de finances rectificative. Lors d’un forum Paris Europlace, la place financière de Paris, il a confirmé l’objectif d’un déficit à 3% du PIB fin 2013 et d’un retour à l'équilibre fin 2017, ce qui serait une première pour un gouvernement français depuis 1974. Le déficit public était équivalent à 5,2% du PIB fin 2011.

Les prix à la production ont baissé un peu plus rapidement que prévu en mai dans la zone euro, avec la chute des prix de l'énergie, ce qui renforce le scénario d’une baisse des taux directeurs en Europe, a annoncé Eurostat mardi.Ces prix ont baissé de 0,5% en mai, soit une hausse de 2,3% annuellement, alors que les économistes interrogés par Reuters anticipaient -0,3% et +2,5% respectivement.

L’Irlande va revenir jeudi sur le marché de la dette à court terme pour la première fois depuis septembre 2010, tâchant de tirer parti d’une vive hausse de la confiance des investisseurs à l'égard du pays pour lancer un processus de retour de plain-pied sur le marché des capitaux. A la suite de cette décision, le rendement des obligations irlandaises à 10 ans a vivement baissé sur le marché secondaire, évoluant à 6,358%, soit à peu près au même niveau que le rendement espagnol (6,348%).

La Banque de Réserve d’Australie a laissé mardi son taux d’intervention à 3,5%, préférant voir si les détentes monétaires déjà opérées suffiront à préserver l'économie locale du marasme économique mondial. «La conséquence des décisions prises antérieurement est qu’il y a eu un assouplissement notable de la politique monétaire ces six derniers mois», explique le gouverneur Glenn Stevens.

Le secteur des services chinois a connu en juin sa croissance la plus marquée en trois mois, l’indice calculé après enquête auprès des directeurs d’achat ressortant à 56,7 contre 55,2 en mai. Le sous-indice des contrats nouveaux s’inscrit à 53,7, son meilleur niveau de l’année. Le secteur des services chinois résiste bien mieux que son homologue industriel à la crise mondiale jusqu'à présent.

Le fonds d’investissement a signé un protocole d’accord avec l’armateur CMA CGM et sa maison mère Merit en vue du rachat de la Compagnie du Ponant. «Cet accord offrira à La Compagnie du Ponant les moyens de ses ambitions pour poursuivre sa croissance et franchir une nouvelle étape dans son développement à l’international», indique le communiqué. Les parties se sont données jusqu’à la fin août pour finaliser l’opération.

L’entité française de l’assureur crédit a décidé de céder sa participation dans la société de gestion Perfectis Private Equity à HLD, holding de participations industrielles et de services. «Ce changement d’actionnaire fait suite à la volonté d’Euler Hermes France de se recentrer sur son cœur de métier d’assureur-crédit», souligne le communiqué. Dans le cadre de cette opération, le management augmente sa participation au capital.

La présidente suisse, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, a indiqué espérer un accord avec les Etats-Unis concernant les comptes d’Américains logés en Suisse et échappant à l’impôt d’ici novembre prochain. Onze établissements suisses font l’objet d’une enquête de la part des autorités américaines dans le cadre de suspicions d’aide à l’évasion fiscale.

La Banque populaire de Chine va offrir, via des opérations de prise de pension (reverse repo), 38 milliards de yuans (4,7 milliards d’euros) à 7 jours et 105 milliards à 14 jours dans le cadre de ses opérations d’open market qui se tiendront aujourd’hui, selon des traders. La semaine dernière, la PBOC a déjà injecté 197 milliards de yuans sur le marché monétaire et offert 125 milliards lors d’opérations de reverse repo.

Les Etats et municipalités des Etats-Unis ont plus de 2.000 milliards de dollars de déficit dans le financement des retraites, selon une enquête réalisée par Moody’s. Selon les estimations de l’agence, le montant total des engagements en versements de retraite pour l’année fiscale 2010 était de plus de trois fois supérieur à celui annoncé par les gouvernements.

L’ancien responsable de la division «coton» chez Glencore, Mark Allen, a entamé des poursuites à l’encontre de Louis Dreyfus Commodities, accusant la société de trading de matières premières et plusieurs de ses filiales de manipulation de cours du coton entre les mois de mai et juillet 2011. Mark Allen a été licencié de Glencore après avoir accusé une perte de 330 millions de dollars.

La société a décidé d’ouvrir un bureau de conseil en banque d’investissement outre-Rhin, cherchant à tirer profit d’une vague d’opérations de restructuration. «Nous souhaitons nous focaliser sur les institutions financières en Allemagne, le Mittelstand (le tissu de PME allemand), et sur la restructuration», a indiqué John Studzinski, responsable mondial de Blackstone Advisory Partners.

La Cour constitutionnelle allemande examinera le 10 juillet les plaintes déposées contre le Mécanisme européen de stabilité financière (MES), le fonds d’urgence permanent de la zone euro. Approuvé vendredi par les deux chambres du Parlement allemand à une large majorité, le MES doit normalement entrer en vigueur le 9 juillet, soit à la veille de l’audience prévue par le tribunal de Karlsruhe.

Le gouvernement chypriote a acheté pour 1,79 milliard d’euros d’actions de Cyprus Popular Bank afin d’aider la banque à respecter un ratio minimum de fonds propres. L’Etat chypriote s'était engagé en mai à garantir le bon déroulement de son augmentation de capital de 1,8 milliard.