Ken Hsia has taken over as manager of onshore and offshore European equity funds at Investec, as part of a reshuffle at the South African asset management firm, InvestmentEurope reports. Hsia, who has been at Investec for seven years, will be responsible for equity funds, including the European (GBP27.6m in assets under management) and Continental European (GBP60m in assets). He replaces Nigel Hankin, who will continue to serve as sectoral head in the 4Factor equities team at Investec.

The hedge fund sector has done well in first quarter, but has not really shined, according to information from the major press agencies. Third Point Partners by Daniel Loeb gained 7.1% in first quarter, with the Third Point Ultra fund posting gains of 10%. Greenlight Capital by David Einhorn has posted gains of 6.9% for the first three months of the year. There are many good results, but no exceptional ones. Hedge funds have earned an average of about 2.3% in first quarter, according to analysts at BofA Merrill Lynch, compared with gains of 12% for the Standard & Poor’s 500. The hedge fund giant John Paulson is a good illustration of the muted mood for hedge fund quarterly results. The oldest portfolio from the management firm, Paulson Partners, has earned gains of 6.6% in first quarter, and the Paulson Enhanced Fund has gained 13.3%. But the Advantage fund lost 1.05%, and its leveraged version Advantage Plus lose 2.23%. The Glod fund lost 13.41% in March, and has lost 6.37% over the quarter.

The German life insurer Stuttgarter Lebensversicherung has launched unit-linked retirement insurance policies which invest in five ETFs from iShares, Das Investment reports. The funds in question are the following: iShares MSCI World, iShares Dax, iShares Euro Stoxx 50, iShares S&P 500, and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets.

Union Investment Real Estate, an affiliate of the central asset management firm for the German co-operative banks, has acquired the office property Rosmarin Karree, located on Friedrichstraße in Berlin, for an undisclosed amount for the portfolio of its UniImmo: Deutschland open-ended real estate fund.The property, with 11,76 square metres of office space, 3,196 square metres of rental apartmnets and 2,61 square metres of shops, is leased for the long term to the DSGV association of savings banks, which now controls 100% of DekaBank, the central asset management firm for the savings banks.

The European financial market regulator is in the home stretch to impose new regulations governing exchange-traded funds (ETF) and all UCITS funds which use index replication or securities lending techniques, from second quarter this year. Professionals responded to a consultation launched earlier this year. According to Agefi, the major actors in the sector, Lyxor Am and BlackRock, are satisfied overall with the framework proposed. For example, BlackRock would like to see securities lending, counterparty risks and potential conflicts of interest mentioned in product prospectuses. Actors appear sceptical of ESMA’s collateral diversification proposals.

The US bank JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay USD20m to the commodity futures trading commission (CFTC), the Financial Times reports. The US regulator accused the firm of illegally managing the separate accounts of Lehman Brothers clients.

Switzerland and Germany on 5 April signed a new tax agreement, according to a statement released by the Swiss federal finance department (DFF). The protocol comes as an amendment to an agreement signed in September 2011, and defines the tax rate for regularising offshore assets. The tax rate, initially planned to be between 19% and 34%, will now be between 21% and 41%. The entry into force of the new regulations will take place at the start of next year. The law is extended to apply to inheritances taking place after the entry into force of the agreement. In case of succession, the heirs may choose either to pay a tax of 50% or to declare the assets, the DFF states. Meanwhile, the maximum number of authorised requests for information from the time the agreement comes into effect will be raised from 999 to 1,300 for a period of two years. There will no longer be a way to transfer assets from German taxpayers in Switzerland to other third-party countires without declaring the transfer. The DFF claims that the agreement is a significant contribution to tax equality. It respects the protection of the privacy of banking clients in Switzerland, while guaranteeing that legal taxes are recovered in Germany. There are also plans to improve procedural aspects related to activities between the two states in the financial sector. Strengthened collaboration of the surveillance authorities in the two countries and respect for national legislation will allow for improvements to banking procedures for Swiss banks in Germany, making them simpler and faster. The changes will have little effect on the opinions of the German opposition, who hold a majority in the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German Parliament, which represents the regions, and is planning to block the passage of the bill.

Following the departure of David Gagnon in January, Anthony Swift, his deputy, becomes AsPac head of transition management & product development at BlackRock, Asian Investors reoprts. Swift has been a member of the transition management team since December 2009, after spending a decade at Barclays Global Investors (BGI).

Rathbone Investment Management, an affiliate of Rathbone Brothers, has acquired the wealth management firm RM Walkden & Company, Investment Week reports. The cost of the acquisition is said to have been GBP948,393. Assets under management at Rathbone Investment Management total GBP15.8bn.

According to a study by Russell Investments of British defined-benefit pension funds, conducted in July and August 2011, trustee boards and investment boards dedicate an average of 15.6 hours per year to investment questions, and never more than 26 hours, equivalent to one half-hour per week for the largest and most complex funds. This appears to be very little for strategic decisions about, for example, liability-driven investment (LDI), overlays, portfolio structuring, or selection and monitoring of managers.However, the study finds that there has been increasing use of investment committees, and more appointments of fiduciary managers than in the 2009 edition of the study, with large funds more likely to select the investment committee solutions, while smaller funds often opt for a fiduciary manager. In the latter case, the percentage of small funds using a fiduciary manager has risen from 15% in 2009 to 26% in the 2011 study.Russell also points out that despite the installation of investment committees or the appointment of fiduciary managers, these structures are rarely able to take investment decisions: 75% of trustee boards retain control of selection of managers, and the trustee is cited by less than 70% of respondents as the decision-maker for all points in the survey.Lastly, the study finds that over 80% of trustees are convinced on every point raised that the decision-making structures at their fund meet the needs for their purpose, and particularly that they are able to respond to rapid changes in the business environment. This appears paradoxical, as there is no indication of a change in the frequency of meetings (generally quarterly meetings of the investment committee) or an increase in delegation to entities which are better equipped to respond in “real time”.

The British asset management firm M&G Investments has overtaken Invesco Perpetual to become Britain’s largest asset management firm in terms of assets under management, according to statistics from the British investment management association (IMA). Invesco had held the top spot since October 2007. M&G has earned excellent returns in the past year, and its net inflows rose last year by GBP4.4bn, at a time when the sector as a whole was seeing net outflows of nearly GBP70bn. IMA rankings of the top ten asset management firms in the United Kingdom in terms of assets under management (February 2012) M & G Securities Limited £39,464,246,537 1 Invesco Perpetual £39,431,441,702 2 Fidelity Worldwide Investment £26,878,568,253 3 Schroder Investment Management Ltd £25,991,973,342 4 BNY Mellon Fund Managers Limited £25,824,063,802 5 St James’s Place Unit Trust Group Ltd £25,428,811,572 6 Threadneedle Investment Services Ltd £25,379,523,918 7 BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited £24,211,271,760 8 Henderson Global Investors £24,092,777,014 9 Legal & General (Unit Trust) Managers Limited £23,916,470,986 10

The British activist investment fund The Children’s Investment fund (TCI) has decided to file a lawsuit against the Indian government and the state-run business Coal India for failure to respect the interests of minority shareholders, Les Echos reports. The coal producer Coal India was IPOed in 2010, in order to reduce India’s budget deficit. The British fund bought 1.01% of Coal India, which makes it the second-largest shareholder in the group, which is 90% controlled by the Indian government.

One of the largest commodity hedge funds, BlueGold Capital, is liquidating its portfolio and returning capital to investors, the Financial Times reports. The fund is hoping to be able to repay 98% of invested capital by May. Last year, the portfolio of BlueGold lost 34% of its value. After assets one year ago of about USD2.4bn, assets under management have fallen to slightly over USD1bn.

The bottom line for March published by the German BVI association of asset management firms (see Newsmanagers of 5 April) finds that three of the major asset management firms have posted net inflows to open-ended securities funds, with net subscriptions in first quarter totalling about EUR1.15bn. The firms are Allianz Asset Management, which alone attracted EUR2.86bn, largely thanks to Pimco Europe, the DWS/DB Advisors/DB family (Deutsche Bank), which took on EUR515.1m (including EUR504.5m for ETFs from db x-trackers), and Union Investment (co-operative banks), with net inflows of EUR114m.However, Deka (savings banks) underwent net outflows of EUR1.43bn in January-March, while BlackRock, with its iShares brand ETFs, saw outflows of nearly EUR1bn, ComStage (ETF provider from Commerzbank) has seen net redemptions of EUR289m.For ETFs, the provider for the Deka group, ETFlab, has posted net subscriptions of EUR64.5m.

La Société Générale aura mis une semaine à comptabiliser les voix des 160 actionnaires d’Altamir-Amboise s’étant exprimé à l’assemblée générale du 29 mars dernier. Les taux d’approbation ont été plutôt bas pour la validation des comptes (72,5%), la fixation du dividende (68,4%), les conventions réglementées (71%) et les renouvellements de deux administrateurs (72,2%). La proposition de dividende à un euro présentée par Moneta et l’Adam a été approuvée par 31,3% des actionnaires, mais 49,8% des actionnaires hors la participation de Maurice Tchenio, patron d’Altamir, et des associés Apax.

La Banque d’Angleterre a maintenu sans surprise son taux directeur à 0,5%, son niveau depuis mars 2009, et laissé sans surprise inchangé le montant de son programme de rachats d’actifs, alors que se multiplient les signes augurant d’un retour à la croissance de l'économie britannique.

L’économie russe tournerait au-dessus de son rythme de croissance potentielle, selon un porte-parole du FMI. «L’augmentation prévue du déficit non pétrolier en 2012 pose un risque de surchauffe» a estimé Gerry Rice. Il ajoute que «le gouvernement devrait tirer profit du prix élevé du pétrole pour réduire son déficit non pétrolier et mettre dans le fonds de réserve les revenus tirés du pétrole».

Les prix alimentaires mondiaux ont augmenté pour le troisième mois consécutif en mars et cette hausse devrait se poursuivre, selon l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO). L’indice de la FAO s’est établi en moyenne à 215,9 en mars, contre 215,4 (chiffre révisé) en février. S’il est encore inférieur au pic de 237,9 atteint en février 2011, il dépasse le niveau auquel il se trouvait lors de l’envolée des prix alimentaires en 2007-2008.

Les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué moins que prévu aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 31 mars mais elles sont néanmoins tombées à leur plus bas niveau depuis près de quatre ans, à 357.000 contre 363.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente, a annoncé le département du Travail. Les inscriptions de la semaine au 24 mars ont été révisées en hausse par rapport à une estimation initiale de 359.000.

La production manufacturière britannique a accusé sa plus forte baisse en près d’un an en février, prenant les prévisionnistes à contre-pied et jetant un doute sur le scénario d’une hausse modeste de l’activité au premier trimestre qui permettrait au pays d'échapper à la récession. L’Office national de la statistique a annoncé jeudi une baisse de 1% de la production manufacturière en février après un recul de 0,3% (révisé) en janvier.

La production industrielle allemande a reculé plus que prévu au mois de février, la vague de froid ayant pénalisé l’activité dans la construction, selon les données publiées par le ministère de l’Economie. L’activité dans l’industrie s’est contractée de 1,3% d’un mois sur l’autre en février après une croissance de 1,2% en janvier (révisée de +1,6%).

La France a émis dans de bonnes conditions 8,439 milliards d’euros de dette à long terme, soit dans le haut de ses objectifs, au lendemain de l'échec d’une adjudication espagnole qui a alimenté des craintes sur l’opération française. Les taux moyens pondérés des obligations assimilables du Trésor (OAT) offertes - 4,25% 2017, 3,0% 2022, 3,5% 2026 et 4,5% 2041 - ont été légèrement plus élevés que lors des précédentes adjudications mais sont ressortis soit en ligne, soit inférieurs à ceux du marché secondaire.

Les ETF dédiés aux actions du Vieux Continent ont subi des sorties de 600 millions de dollars au premier trimestre 2012

Michelin et PSA viennent de vendre leur siège parisien, l'un vide, l'autre loué. Quelques transactions similaires seraient dans les tuyaux

Les acteurs sont globalement satisfaits du cadre proposé par l'Esma même s'il veulent notamment clarifier l'information contenue dans les prospectus

La consultation lancée début 2012 par le régulateur européen, l’Esma, sur l’encadrement des fonds indiciels cotés est terminée. Le nouveau cadre réglementaire, censé apporter plus de transparence, devrait être finalisé au deuxième trimestre. Les professionnels sont plutôt satisfaits.

Les volumes d'investissement en Ile-de-France, ténus au premier trimestre, pourraient rebondir au deuxième

Les volumes d'investissement en Ile-de-France, ténus au premier trimestre, pourraient rebondir au deuxième

La BNS a dû voler au secours du seuil de 1,20 franc pour un euro, que le marché des changes a brièvement testé hier

Le ministre de l’Economie s’est inquiété du niveau des spreads, qui ont dépassé les 400 pb avec le Bund allemand et «ne seront pas tenables longtemps»