A new asset management firm has appeared on the French market. Flornoy & Associés Gestion received its business license a few weeks ago. The firm, founded by former employees of the Eurofin bank and Quilvest & Associés, is starting up with the support of a major player. La Française AM has acquired a 25% stake in the capital of the new asset management firm, which is primarily aimed at private clients, congregations and federations.The team at Flornoy & Associés Gestion is composed of five people, all of whom are partners in the capital of the firm: Olivier Flornoy, chairman, Didier Bouchard, CEO, Christophe Bonasse, head of sales, and Marc Antoine Brabant and Stéphane Le Rai, portfolio managers.The range on offer to clients includes two funds, Flornoy Valeurs familiales and Flornoy Allocation.
The former Quilvest & Associés Gestion d’Actifs, currently known as Q&A Gestion d’Actifs, is now adopting the name Alma Capital & Associés, following an acquisition of 51% of its capital by Alma Capital, while two of its three founders, François Genovese and Florence Albaret, retain 40% and 9% of capital, respectively. The third founder, Thierry Bourgain continues to serve as a director of the firm, but has sold his stake.Alma Capital is specialised in private equity and distribution of unique niche products, to institutional investors. It launched a fund in November (Alma USD Convertibles), a sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Alma Capital Investment Funds (ACIF), which is presently legally managed by a local affiliate of La Française AM. The product is managed under an outsourcing contract by Shenkman Capital Management, a specialist in convertible bonds in the “best part of high yield.”Q&A, for its part, is a portfolio management firm which has been licensed since 2005 by the AMF, and which offers personalised service mostly to high net worth individuals and families. Its assets, in private and collective management, total about EUR200m.
Results at the French investment firm Eurazeo moved into negative territory last year, as predicted at a publication of half-yearly results, with a net loss for the part of the group of EUR97.5m, according to a statement released on 16 March. The firm earned profits of EUR134.6m the previous year, in adapted figures.Earnings in the 2011 fiscal year totalled EUR4.2bn, compared with EUR3.8bn in 2010. As of 8 March, reevaluated net assets totalled EUR57.2 per share, well above the share price of EUR38.33 as of Thursday evening.
The Qatar Holding fund, controlled by the oil-rich Gulf state, has acquired 1.03% in the capital of LVMH, Les Echos reports. The entry into the capital of the French firm took place in 2011, the reference document released by LVMH, and published yesterday by the French financial market authority, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), indicates. The stake is valued at about EUR680m. The new shareholder is required to declare to the group controlled by Bernard Arnault that it has entered its capital at the general ahareholders’ meeting on 5 April, as it has passed the statutory threshold of 1%.
Fidelity a lancé un fonds démographique investi sur les sociétés dans le monde qui vont profiter des développement sociologiques de long terme, rapporte Money Marketing.Le Fidelity global deographics, de droit luxembourgeois, sera géré par Hilary Natoff et Nicky Stafford. Il s’agira d’un portefeuille sans contrainte de 50 et 80 valeurs, couvrant un univers de 1.000 entreprises.
Joseph Pacini, head of alternative investments at JP Morgan Private Bank (Asia), is joining BlackRock Alternative Investors (BAI) as head of the strategy group Asia-Pacific ex Japan, Hedgeweek reports. He will be based in Hong Kong, and will report to Mark McCombe, chairman of BlackRock Asia-Pacific, and Rick Arney, head of hedge funds in the strategy group at BAI.As of the end of December, alternative assets under management by BlackRock totalled USD105bn worldwide (hedge funds, private equity and real estate).
The British asset management firm Schroders has recruited Katja Börger, who will focus on insurers and businesses, for institutional client relationship management. She will report to Carlos Boehles, head of the institutional team in Frankfurt.Börger has over 20 years of experience in investment banking, including 18 years at Commerzbank, where she was most recently head of capital markets, North America, before becoming an independent financial adviser in the area of financing optimisation, derivative risk management and corporate finance.
According to the British MEP Peter Skinner, cited by Reuters, a last-minute agreement in the European Parliament will allow for the reinsertion into the Solvency II directive of clauses easing the capital requirements for insurers, Agefi reports.
ESMA has announced that it considers the regulatory frameworks for credit rating agencies (CRAs) of the United States of America, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore to be in line with European rules. The EU Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies requires ESMA to assess whether the requirements of third-country CRA regimes are “as stringent as” the European ones.Today’s announcement allows European financial institutions to continue using for regulatory purposes credit ratings issued in these countries after 30 April 2012. ESMA’s assessment of third-country CRA regimes is an important tool for enhancing internationally consistent supervision of CRAs in the interests of protecting financial markets and investors in the EU.
Two months after taking over as global head of BBVA AM, Paloma Piqueras has reshuffled teams and apointed Luis Megías as director fo Europe, after serving as head of Goldman Sachs Quartix for the Iberian peninsula in London, Funds People reports. Megías had been head of sales at BBVA AM until mid-2010.Eduardo García Hidalgo has been appointed as chief investment officer for Europe, replacing Olivier Asselin, who has left the business. Hidalgo was head of the Quality Funds unit (fund platform). He will be replaced by Belén Blanco, head of innovation and product development.
Polaris has selected H2O Asset Management to manage a sub-fund of its Luxembourg-registered Polaris fund, the Italian website Bluerating reports. The mandate is worth EUR100m, and is for a total return bond strategy.
Fidelity Worldwide Investment has launched a Global Demographics Fund to tap into social trends such as the world’s population getting bigger, wealthier and older.Fidelity Funds Global Demographics Fund, managed by Hilary Natoff and Nicky Stafford, is an unconstrained portfolio of around 50-80 stocks where demographic trends are the dominant influence of the earnings power of a company. The universe of around 1,000 companies is currently weighted towards healthcare and consumer stocks where many companies are set to benefit from an ageing population and the emergence of middle classes in emerging markets. However, investment opportunities are not confined to these sectors, the fund managers have also identified ideas in other industries including IT, agriculture-related businesses, aerospace companies.The fund will invest in two types of company. The first are called the ‘winners of today’. These are primarily global leaders, dominant in their respective areas. The second type of company is described as the ‘winners of tomorrow’. These are typically leaders in new growth markets, or innovators bringing new products to market which will play directly into demographic themes with the potential for strong future growth prospects.Fidelity Funds Global Demographics fund is a Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV.
In order to protect retail investors who rely on the services of a family office, Luxembourg is preparing a law to determine which professionals are allowed to provide this service, making the Grand Duchy the first European country to regulate these activities, Funds People reports. The Bill on the activities of family offices explains in its preamble that creating these regulations will make Luxembourg a centre of excellence in this area.The bill was submitted on 1 December, and will soon have concluded its way thorough Parliament. It limits family office activities to credit institutions, investment advisers, wealth managers, certain lawyers, notaries, auditors and accounting experts, and creates a PSF Family Office license.
The global equities team led by Ilario Di Bon at Alliance Trust Investments has gained the addition of Adrien Bommelaer (formerly of Matrix Corporate Capital) and James Twyman (formerly of AllianceBernstein), Fundweb reports.
According to reports in Investment Week, Liontrust Asset Management has made redundant Ian Furtado, director of sales at its new affiliate Occam, acquired in October. The other two sales personnel at the boutique, David Shephard and Edward Ford, remain at the firm, and will be in charge of international sales.
Dans un communiqué, La Française AM a annoncé une prise de participation à hauteur de 25% dans le capital de Flornoy & Associés Gestion. Cette dernière est une société de gestion de portefeuille indépendante avec une majorité de son capital détenu par les associés fondateurs et des clients partenaires.
Selon le département du Travail, les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué pour s'établir à un plus bas de quatre ans aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 10 mars, à 351.000 contre 365.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 356.000 inscriptions au chômage.
Les espoirs de reprise se répercutent sur les taux des titres d’Etat américains qui ont pris près de 30 points de base en cinq jours. Certains analystes estiment que la Fed renoncera à toute forme de QE3 et reviendra sur sa politique de taux proches de zéro plus tôt que prévu.
«C’est le bon moment pour investir dans les actifs européens dépréciés et sous-évalués, la dette européenne et les obligations de la zone euro» a confié au quotidien Lee Kuan Yew, conseiller senior du fonds souverain singapourien GIC et ancien Premier ministre de la ville-Etat de 1959 à 1990. Et de rappler que « la Chine a 3.180 milliards de dollars de réserves de change ».
L’opérateur de la Bourse de Londres entend poser son empreinte aux antipodes. Le London Stock Exchange est en pourparlers, dans le sillage de l’annonce de son projet de rachat de la chambre de compensation LCH.Clearnet, avec les opérateurs boursiers singapourien (Singapore Exchange) et australien (ASX) afin de mettre en œuvre des cotations croisées.
Le gouvernement japonais aurait réuni un groupe de travail visant à mettre en place un marché extérieur pour stimuler les échanges en yuan, sur le même modèle que le marché «offshore» de Hong Kong pour la Chine, selon le quotidien nippon. Une initiative qui fait suite à l’autorisation délivrée par Pékin au gouvernement japonais d’acheter pour 10,3 milliards de dollars d’obligations d’Etat chinoises.
«A mes yeux, la solidarité de ses partenaires européens donne au Portugal le temps nécessaire pour la mise en oeuvre des réformes», a déclaré Olli Rehn, commissaire aux Affaires économiques et monétaires, devant le parlement portugais après qu’il lui a été demandé si Lisbonne avait besoin d’un deuxième plan d’aide après le premier, de 78 milliards d’euros, décidé l’an dernier.
Selon le département du Travail, les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué pour s'établir à un plus bas de quatre ans aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 10 mars, à 351.000 contre 365.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 356.000 inscriptions au chômage.
Ljubljana subira une contraction économique de 0,9% cette année, en raison d’une baisse des dépenses de consommation et de la demande à l’exportation, avant d’enregistrer une croissance de 1,1% en 2013 et de 2,2% en 2014, a annoncé jeudi l’institut de macroéconomie du gouvernement. En janvier, ce dernier projetait une croissance de 0,2% en 2012 et de 2% en 2013.
Baromètre très suivi du secteur industriel, l’indice «Philly Fed» des conditions d’activité manufacturière de la région de Philadelphie a progressé plus que prévu en mars, malgré un ralentissement des commandes nouvelles. Il ressort à 12,5 contre 10,2 en février et dépasse le consensus qui le donnait à 12,0.