L’Agefi rapporte que Jamie Dimon, le PDG de JPMorgan, a fait part hier lors d’une conférence avec des investisseurs à Manhattan de la suspension d’un programme de rachats d’actions d’un montant de 15 milliards de dollars. Cette décision a été prise alors que l’action JPMorgan a perdu près de 20% depuis l’annonce de la perte, le 10 mai dernier, chiffrée pour le moment par la banque autour de 2 milliards de dollars. En revanche, le versement du dividende trimestriel ne sera pas modifié. Pour justifier cette suspension, la direction de la banque évoque l’impératif de Bâle 3. La perte ne devrait toutefois entraîner qu’un recul limité du ratio de fonds propres sur actifs pondérés, de 8,4% à 8,2% sous Bâle 3.

Depuis son lancement en mai 2011, l’ETF PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility a collecté environ 1,6 milliard de dollars, plus qu’aucun des 400 autres fonds lancé l’an dernier, et il a gagné 9,5 % contre une perte de 0,7 % du S&P 500 sur la même période, constate The Wall Street Journal. Cela semble valider la thèse selon laquelle les valeurs solides surperforment sans infliger le haut-le-cœur des hausses et des baisses aux investisseurs. Mais quelques indices montrent déjà que sa chance pourrait avoir tourné : son avance sur le marché large a fondu durant trois des quatre derniers mois.

Jay Rosoff a rejoint Thesis Fund Management, société de gestion commercialisant le fonds Thesis Flexible Fund. Il sera directeur de la distribution pour ce produit. Jay Rosoff occupait jusqu’en 2010 le poste de national sales manager au sein d’Allianz Global Investors aux Etats-Unis.

Le banquier Pascal Quiry vient de quitter BNP Paribas pour lancer un fonds d’investissement, rapporte Les Echos. Collaborateur de Paribas depuis 1986, il était ces cinq dernières années responsable des équipes d’exécution sur les fusions-acquisitions Europe et Amériques de la banque. Il était aussi membre du comité de direction international. L’objectif de la petite société de gestion qu’il est en train de monter - et qui devrait être opérationnelle en fin d’année -est d’investir dans des blocs de sociétés cotées jugées sous-évaluées, pour les détenir à long terme. Une équipe de trois ou quatre personnes est en cours de recrutement.

BNY Mellon annonce avoir été sélectionné par pour lui fournir des services d’administration, de comptabilité et de conservation pour 14 ETF de la gamme, qui totalisent plus de 500 millions de dollars.

La banque suédoise SBAB Bank, détenue par l’Etat, prévoit de lancer à l’automne ses trois premiers fonds, conçus et gérés par Öhman Fonder.Les produits seront tous les trois investis en actions, en obligations, sur les matières premières, dans l’immobilier et dans des hedge funds, avec des allocations et des horizons d’investissement différents, afin de répondre à divers profils d’investisseurs. Ainsi, le SBAB Sparfond Kort est investi à 20 % en actions, le SBAB Sparfond Medel à 50 % et le SBAB Sparfond Lang à 75 %.

Selon WealthBriefing Asia, State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) a recruté Ray Chan comme head of business development de son pôle ETf, SPDR, en Asie. L’intéressé était auparavant head of retail business, Greater China, chez BEA Union Investment après avoir travaillé chez Schroder Investment Management et chez Capital Group.SSgA affiche un encours de 12,7 milliards de dollars en ETF dans la région Asie-Pacifique.

Quelques semaines à peine après SEB Asset Management, qui a annoncé le 7 mai la liquidation du fonds immobilier offert au public SEB ImmoInvest, l’allemand Credit Suisse Asset Management Immobilien n’a pas été en mesure le 21 mai de faire face aux demandes de remboursement de parts du CS Euroreal (6 milliards d’euros, comme l’ImmoInvest). Ce fonds lancé le 6 avril 1992 sera donc liquidé d’ici au 30 avril 2017. Le gestionnaire prévoit des versements semestriels, le premier devant intervenir dans le courant du second semestre 2012, au plus tard avec celui du dividende en décembre.CSAM Immobilien précise que les demandes de remboursement concernant l’Euroreal (dont les sorties étaient gelées depuis deux ans) ont été supérieures aux liquidités disponibles de 1,6 milliard d’euros (soit 27 % de l’encours), dont 1,25 milliard provenant de souscriptions ainsi que de cessions d’actifs qui ont toutes été effectuées au minimum à la valeur vénale.

Le 21 mai, le gestionnaire écossais Martin Currie a annoncé l’ouverture aux investisseurs de la version OPCVM IV de sa stratégie Asian Long Term Unconstrained (ALTU), sous la forme d’un compartiment de sa sicav luxembourgeoise Martin Currie Global Funds. Il est disponible en parts libellées en dollars, en livres et en euros.Le Martin Currie GF – Asia Long Term Unconstrained Fund est géré par Jason McCay et Andrew Graham, qui sont déjà chargés des 441 millions de dollars de la stratégie ALTU. Le portefeuille «sans restrictions» (unconstrained) comportera entre 20 et 30 lignes et sera géré dans une optique de performance absolue sur le long terme, avec l’objectif de minimiser les coûts de transaction et de limiter la volatilité.Les gérants accorderont en particulier une grande importance à la transparence de la comptabilité et à la bonne gouvernance des entreprises sélectionnées.

Investec Asset Management a atteint 61,5 milliards de livres d’encours à fin mars, grâce notamment à des souscriptions nettes de 5,2 milliards de livres durant l’exercice 2011-2012, rapporte Investment Europe. Sur les trois dernières années, les rentrées nettes ont été en moyenne supérieures à 5 milliards de livres.

Barclays a annoncé le 21 mai la cession de sa participation de 19,6% au capital du groupe BlackRock. Une part estimée à un peu plus de 6 milliards de dollars. BlackRock achètera une partie du bloc, pour un montant d’un milliard de dollars. Barclays était entré au capital de BlackRock en juin 2009, lors de la cession de sa filiale Global Investors. Dans un article daté de ce jour, L’Agefi rappelle que l’environnement réglementaire peut expliquer cette opération. En effet, selon les nouvelles règles de Bâle 3, qui entreront en vigueur à partir de 2013, les participations minoritaires, notamment dans les sociétés de gestion, exigeront davantage de fonds propres. En outre, le titre BlackRock subit la volatilité des marchés actions, un phénomène qui affecte mécaniquement les finances de la banque. Céder une telle participation devrait donc à la fois rassurer les actionnaires de Barclays et renforcer les ratios de fonds propres réglementaires de la banque sous Bâle 3.

Paul Manduca, le créateur de Threadneedle, serait pressenti pour prendre les rênes du groupe britannique Prudential, qui, outre l’assurance, a aussi des activités de gestion d’actifs logées au sein de M&G, rapporte The Telegraph. Paul Manduca prendrait la succession de Harvey McGrath.Ces derniers jours, le nom de Paul Manduca aurait été transmis à l’Autorité des marchés britannique (FSA) qui doit s’assurer que l’impétrant dispose des «compétences appropriées» pour diriger l’un des plus importants groupes financiers britanniques.Prudential pourrait annoncer cette nomination dans les tout prochains jours. Paul Manduca devrait alors abandonner ses fonctions de chairman chez Aon pour prendre la direction de Prudential dans le courant de l'été.

The Environmental Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has issued a call for the creation of a genuine global environmental governance body in a statement which will be presented on Tuesday, addressed to the Rio+20 summit. If a genuine global environmental governance body is not created to further sustainable development objectives, with the power to take decisions and require adherence to them, future generations will be endangered, says Françoise Vilain, rapporteure for the statement to be released today. One month ahead of the UN summit scheduled for 20-22 June in Rio.

Jay Rosoff has joined Thesis Fund Management, an asset management firm which offers the Thesis Flexible Fund. He will be director of distribution for the product. Until 2010, Rosoff served as national sales manager at Allianz Global Investors in the United States.

BNY Mellon has announced that it has been selected by AdvisorShares to provide it with administration, accounting and custody services on 14 ETF funds in its range, which have total assets of over USD500m.

In April, equity markets lost 0..65%, while after six months of steep decline, implicit volatility increased month on month by 1.7 percentage point to 17.2%.In this environment, only two of the 13 strategies monitored by the Edhic-Risk Institute posted positive results, with monthly returns of 1.02% for short selling and 0.50% for bond arbitrage. The heaviest losses were for long/short equity, with 0.65%.Since the beginning of this year, the best returns were for distressed securities (6.2%) and long/short equity (5.5%), while the worst performer was short selling, with losses of 11.8%.Meanwhile, since the beginning of January 2001, the best two results, according to Edhec, were for distressed securities, with 10.4% per year (the only ratio with a Sharpe ratio of over 1, at 1.02), just ahead of emerging markets at 10.2% (with a Sharpe ratio of 0.60).

Only a few weeks after SEB Asset Management on 7 May announced the liquidation of the open-ended real estate fund SEB ImmoInvest, the German asset management firm Credit Suisse Asset Management Immobilien announced on 21 May that it was not in a position to satisfy all redemption demands for the CS Euroreal fund (EUR6bn in AUM, like ImmoInvest). The fund will therefore be liquidated by 30 April 2017. The asset management firm will issue payments every 6 months, with the first payment to come in the second half of 2012, along with December dividends at the latest.CSAM Immobilien states that redemption demands for the Euroreal fund (whose redemptions had been frozen for two years) exceeded available liquidity of EUR1.6bn (27% of assets), of which EUR1.25bn came from subscriptions and sales of properties at their market value or higher.

Since its launch in May 2011, the PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF has seen inflows of about USD1.6bn, more than any of the 400 other funds launched last year, and it has gained 9.5%, compared with losses of 0.7% for the S&P 500 in the same period, the Wall Street Journal reports. This appears to reinforce the argument that solid shares outperform without causing the wrenching ups and downs that many investors consider unnecessary punishment. But some indices already show that the tide may already have turned against the fund: its lead on the larger market has fallen in the past three to four months.

The banker Pascal Quiry has left BNP Paribas to launch an investment fund, Les Echos reports. Quiry, who has been a partner at Paribas since 1986, had for the past five years been in charge of execution teams in European and American mergers and acquisitions at the bank. He was also a member of the international board of directors. The objective of the small asset management firm which he is in the process of founding, and which is expected to be up and running by the end of the year, is to invest in blocs of shares in businesses which are considered undervalued, for the long term. A team of three to four people is in the process of being recruited.

Frédéric Lasserre and Christophe Cordonnier, two former managing directors of commodity market activities at Société Générale, have announced the launch of Belaco Capital, a commodity investment fund which will be managed in Paris. The official launch date for the fund is set for 4th quarter 2012. Lasserre built and led the research and strategy teams at Société Générale, while Cordonnier, who has worked with him for the past 15 years, set up and led the sales and commodity structuring teams at Société Générale, a statement says. They will be joined by François Beuzelin, who has spent 12 years at Société Générale, where he had been director of trading activities for metals, before working on an investment fund for the past 2 years.

AXA Investment Managers has announced the launch of a series of innovative corporate bond strategies. ‘SmartBeta’ strategies have been designed specifically for investors seeking low-cost credit exposure without the drawbacks of market capitalisation weighted index-based strategies. AXA IM’s SmartBeta strategies take an active approach to define the investment universe and therefore aim for a more attractive risk/return profile than that offered by passive index tracking strategies.Tim Gardener, Global Head of Consultant Relations, AXA IM commented: «We have seen significant interest from institutional investors and their consultants, who want a more intelligent and pragmatic approach to capture the market return within the corporate bond segment. SmartBeta offers a middle ground for those clients looking to harvest the return of the market whilst still avoiding the inefficiencies of a purely passive approach. It is a strategy that is designed with the aim of protecting portfolios from both systemic and event risk and to deliver a less volatile return."AXA Fixed Income’s Portfolio Manager Analysts begin by using a number of rules based and fundamental filters to arrive at the investible universe of bonds. The portfolio is then constructed to achieve an optimal level of diversification such that it is not unduly exposed to a tail risk at a stock, sector or country level. Using relative value analysis, those bonds that are deemed to be best value are purchased and equally weighted in the portfolio. Given that the purchase price of a bond is critical to overall return of a buy and hold strategy, this approach maximises the beta of the portfolio over the medium term.AXA IM’s approach boasts two differentiating features: it optimizes purchase costs by striving for best execution and also rebalances investments more optimally than standard index funds. Unlike with a purely passive approach in which the evolution of the index dictates the buying and selling of bonds potentially leading to overweighting the most indebted issuers, AXA IM’s approach strives to ensure that poorly valued or ‘at risk’ bonds are not purchased. In addition, regular monitoring by the AXA Fixed Income team aims to ensure that diversification and credit worthiness of the portfolio is maintained as the SmartBeta strategy rests on the premise that a bond held to maturity delivers its beta in full provided it does not default even partially.SmartBeta strategies will be managed by senior portfolio managers within AXA IM’s Fixed Income expertise. Mark Benstead, who is Head of AXA Fixed income for UK and Asia, will be responsible for managing SmartBeta portfolios across the sterling denominated corporate bond market. Anne Velot, Head of Continental Credit will manage European SmartBeta strategies, and Nicole Montoya, Head of Global Credit and Money Market will manage the strategy across the global universe of corporate bonds.The SmartBeta strategies will be managed by senior portfolio managers in the bond management team at AXA IM. Mark Benstead, head of credit in the United Kingdom, will manage the SmartBeta Sterling portfolios; Anne Veelot, head of credit for continental Europe, will be in charge of euro SmartBeta strategies, while Nicole Montoya, head of global credit and money markets, will manage global credit strategies.

Paul Manduca, founder of Threadneedle, may be nominated to take over as head of the Prudential financial group, which in addition to insurance, also has asset management activities at M&G, the Telegraph reports. Manduca would succeed Harvey McGrath. Recently, Manduca’s name is said to have been submitted to the British Financial Services Authority (FSA), who would then be required to ensure that the nominee has the “appropriate capabilities” to direct one of the largest British financial groups. Prudential may announce the appointment in the next few days. Manduca would then leave his position as chairman at Aon in order to take over as head of Prudential over the summer.

The British bank Barclays on 21 May announced that it has sold its 19.6% stake in the capital of the BlackRock group. This stake is estimated at slightly over USD6bn. BlackRock will buy a part of the bloc of shares, for a total of USD1bn. Barclays entered the capital of BlackRock in June 2009, when it sold its affiliate Global Investors.

Investec Asset Management reach GBP61.5bn in assets as of the end of March, largely due to net subscriptions of GBP5.2m in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, Investment Europe reports. For the past three years, net inflows have averaged over GBP5bn.

A London court has upheld fines levelled by the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) against two former advisers in the wealth management unit at the major bank UBS, the FSA announced in a statement on 21 May. The two former employees in 2007 and 2008 undertook rogue trades totalling several billions of pounds. The two former employees, whom the FSA has fined a total of GBP1.3bn, will not be allowed to work in the regulated financial services industry in the future, the FSA announced on Monday.

The Swedish bank SBAB Bank, which is owned by the Swedish government, is planning to launch its first three funds in autumn, all designed and managed by Öhman Fonder. All three of the products invest in equities, bonds, commodities, real estate and hedge funds, with different allocations and investment horizons, in order to meet the needs of a variety of investor profiles. The SBAB Sparfond Kort invests 20% in equities, while the SBAB Sparfond Medel invests 50%, and the SBAB Sparfong Lang invests 75% in this asset class.

WealthBriefing Asia reports that State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has recruited Ray Chan as head of business development for its ETF unit, SPDR, in Asia. Chan had previously been head of business, Greater China at BEA Union Investment, after working at Schroder Investment Management and Capital Group. SSgA has assets of USD12.76bn in ETFs in the Asia-Pacific region.

Losses at Spanish banks may total EUR260bn, and the sector may need a bailout of up to EUR60bn, according to the international institute of finance (IIF). In the basis of calculations comparing them with Irish banks, which also had to confront a collapse of a speculative bubble in the real estate market, economists at the Washington-based banking organisation estimated the losses at Spanish banks at EUR218bn to EUR260bn in 2012-2013. “A number of factors suggest that losses may be at the high end of the range. Macroeconomic outlooks in Spain are worse than those Ireland faced, particularly in terms of growth and unemployment,” they say in a note on the global economy published on 21 May. “The heaviest losses will be generated by real estate mortgages, which are concentrated at the Cajas,” the regional savings banks, they added.

According to statistics from the CNMV relayed by Cotizalia, Egerton has become the seventh hedge fund management firm to declare a short position, representing more than 0.5% of capital in the Spanish firm Indra. Overall, declared short positions on the shares represent 11.3% of its capital.Other asset management firms with short positions on Indra include Adelphi Capital, Antiopodean Advisors, Eminence Capital. Hoplite Capital. Morton Holdings and Odey AM.

According to a survey on German institutional funds (Spezialfonds) by the Kommalpha and Telos agencies, obtained in advance of its release by the Börsen-Zeitung, more than one in two institutional investors is disposed to change its asset mangement firm in the next twelve months. One year ago, in the previous edition of the survey, only one in three institutional managers said it was considering changing managers.