Surtout connue et reconnue pour son expertise sur les marchés émergents, la société de gestion Comgest entend consolider ce pôle historique tout en développant ses autres pôles de compétences, notamment les Etats-Unis avec désormais une équipe dédiée de 4 personnes, a indiqué le 15 février le président de Comgest, Vincent Strauss, à l’occasion d’un point de presse. Le pôle émergent reste évidemment central, avec la nomination récente d’un responsable du développement en Asie (Newsmanagers du 6 février), mais Comgest veut optimiser ses résultats et éviter toute dilution, quitte à refuser des mandats si nécessaire.Les actifs sous gestion du pôle «Global-U.S.» s'élèvent désormais à 906 millions d’euros, au terme d’une année où la collecte nette s’est inscrite à 154 millions d’euros. Sur les marchés émergents, la collecte nette s’est élevée l’an dernier à 600 millions d’euros pour des actifs sous gestion de 10,5 milliards d’euros à fin décembre. Au total, avec un encours d’un peu plus de 2 milliards d’euros sur l’Europe, les actifs sous gestion de Comgest s’inscrivaient fin décembre à 13,5 milliards d’euros contre 15,5 milliards d’euros fin 2010. Un effet marché significatif est passé par là puisque la collecte nette représente 200 millions d’euros. L’environnement difficile n’a toutefois pas empêché la société de poursuivre son développement, l’effectif de la société s'élevant désormais à 85 personnes contre 79 fin 2010. Un gestionnaire des risques est en cours de recrutement. La société a par ailleurs décidé de créer une structure de type holding afin notamment de soutenir l’organisation avec des départements supports centralisés et améliorer la visibilité financière avec les résultats financiers consolidés et faciliter la gestion actionnariale du groupe. La mise en place de cette structure permet également d’assurer l’indépendance de la société, «fondamentale pour une boutique comme la nôtre», souligne Vincent Strauss, grâce à une réserve de trésorerie dédiée à l’achat des actions des partenaires quittant le groupe ou partant à la retraite. Jan-Peter Dolff, qui a largement contribué au développement de Comgest en Allemagne, devient directeur général de Comgest encadrant toutes les fonctions du groupe exception faite de la gestion de fonds. Sur le chapitre des prévisions pour 2012, Comgest se veut optimiste pour les pays émergents malgré la faiblesse de la croissance mondiale. «Nous anticipons des taux de croissance supérieurs à la moyenne en raison de facteurs structurels comme l’augmentation du revenu disponible d’une classe moyenne en croissance ou l’amélioration de la productivité», estime Vincent Strauss qui ajoute toutefois que la faiblesse des économies industrialisées pourrait fragiliser les économies émergentes à court terme. Comgest prévoit une croissance moyenne annuelle des bénéfices par action de 12% en 2012 et 2013 pour les sociétés en portefeuille. Par ailleurs, après la baisse des taux de change des devises émergentes en août 2011, Comgest considère désormais l’appréciation des monnaies émergentes comme une véritable opportunité, à l’exception de l’Europe de l’Est.

M&G vient de recevoir l’agrément de l’Autorité des marchés financiers pour commercialiser en France le M&G Global Macro Bond Fund, un fonds obligataire de type «total return». Lancé en 1999, le produit est géré par Jim Leaviss, le responsable obligataire de la société de gestion. Flexible, il peut être investi sur toutes sortes d’instruments de dettes sur un univers mondial.

Aberdeen Asset Management s’est vu confier un mandat de multigestion dans le domaine de l’immobilier européen de la part d’un fonds de pension américain, l’Employees Retirement System of Texas, annonce la société de gestion mercredi 15 février.Le portefeuille paneuropéen sera construit et géré par l’équipe de multigestion immobilière d’Aberdeen, qui gère actuellement environ 2 milliards de dollars de mandats en Europe.

Entrée en 2008 comme secrétaire général de la société de gestion de SwissLife Banque Privée (3 milliards d’euros d’encours), Laurence Pâris a été promue directeur général de cette entité en septembre 2011 et l’information a été communiquée mercredi.L’intéressée succède à Xavier Lespinas-Bertrand qui devient vice-président du conseil d’administration et directeur de la gestion actions."Dans le cadre de la poursuite du développement de la banque et de la société de gestion, Laurence Pâris participe au comité exécutif de la banque, ainsi qu’à l’élaboration et à la mise en œuvre de la stratégie. Elle contribue également au déploiement des synergies avec Prigest, société de gestion qui s’est rapprochée de SwissLife Banque Privée en juin 2011", précise le communiqué.

Allianz Global Investors a annoncé à ses partenaires de distribution le calendrier de changement du nom de 106 de ses fonds RCM destinés au retail, sachant que la marque RCM sera préservée pour le marché institutionnel.Les changements de nom seront effectifs progressivement, entre le 29 février et le troisième trimestre 2012. Newsmanagers publie en pièce jointe les codes Isin des fonds concernés, leur nom actuel et leur future dénomination avec le préfixe Allianz. Cela posé, les fonds «historiques» comme Fondak, Concentra ou Industria, hérités de ADIG/Commerzbank conserveront leur appellation actuelle, sans adjonction du préfixe Allianz.Il est également envisagé de rajouter le préfixe Allianz aux fonds de Pimco là où il n’est pas encore présent. Ce sera ainsi le cas à compter du 29 février pour le Allianz Emerging Markets Bond, qui deviendra Allianz Pimco EM Bond fund.

Le groupe Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV) a annoncé un bénéfice net de 301 millions de francs suisses au titre de l’exercice 2011, en recul de 4% d’une année sur l’autre.Les actifs sous gestion s’inscrivaient à fin décembre à 77,1 milliards de francs, en progression de 1,6% par rapport au 31 décembre 2010. Les actifs émanant de la consolidation de la Banque Franck Galland & Cie SA, pour un montant de 2,8 milliards de francs, et une collecte nette de 1,1 milliard de francs ont compensé l’impact négatif du recul des marchés.

ING IM vient de nommer Patrick Chia, un ancien d’Amundi, en tant que responsable du fixed income Asie, à Singapour, rapporte Asian Investor. Sa nomination intervient après le départ de Joel Kim en septembre, qui a rejoint BlackRock en tant que responsable du fixed income Asie.

Head of fixed income & currencies chez Amundi pour la région Asie-Pacifique, Patrick Chia a été recruté à Singapour comme head of Asian fixed income par ING Investment Management. Il sera responsable de l'équipe obligataire Asie ainsi que pour la partie le concernant de la gestion obligataire émergente mondiale, en coopération avec ses collègues de New York, Atlanta et La Haye.L’intéressé est subordonné à Rob Drijkoningen, co-head emerging market debt et à Grant Bailey, CEO d’ING IM pour la région Asie-Pacifique.

Le pôle banque privée d’Unmim a ouvert sa huitième agence en Espagne, annonce Funds People. C’est sa première implantation dans la capitale du pays. A fin 2011, les services de banque privée et de banque des entreprises géraient 1.927 millions d’euros, soit 4 % de plus qu’un an auparavant.

Selon le palmarès mensuel établi par Allfunds Bank et relayé par Funds People, sept catégories de fonds affichent une performance supérieure à 100 % sur trois ans à fin janvier. Il s’agit exclusivement de fonds d’actions, en grande majorité spécialistes des marchés émergents (voir tableau joint).Le meilleur fonds dans la catégorie actions Russie est le Raiffeisen Russland Aktien, avec un gain de 235 % sur trois ans. Parmi les fonds d’actions australiennes, le Parvest Equity Australia C arrive en tête avec une performance de 130,5 %. Dans le compartiment des actions PME Asie-Pacifique le meilleur produit est le Aberdeen Global - Asian Smaller Companies A2 Acc.Aux valeurs cycliques, le champion est le Julius Baer Luxury Brands-EUR B avec un gain de 153 %.Enfin, pour les actions Amérique latine, les deux fonds les plus performants sont Pinebridge Global Funds - Lat Am Sm&Mid Cap Eq A (+143%) et Aberdeen Global - Latin American Equity S2 Acc (+132%) tandis qu’aux actions Brésil, le HSBC GIF Brazil Equity AC USD s’adjuge 137 %.

M&G has received a license from the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) to release the M&G Global Macro Bond Fund, a total return bond fund, in France. The product, launched in 1999, is managed by Jim Leaviss, head of fixed income at the asset management firm. The fund is flexible, and may invest in debt instruments of all types from a global universe.

The asset management firm Comgest, known largely for its expertise in emerging markets, is planning to consolidate this historic unit, while developing other areas of expertise, including the United States, where the firm now has a team of 4 people, the chairman of Comgest, Vincent Strauss, announced on 15 February. The emerging markets unit remains central, with the recent appointment of a head of development for Asia (see Newsmanagers of 6 February), but Comgest is seeking to optimise its results and to avoid diluting them, even if this means refusing mandates if necessary. Assets under management in the Global-U.S. unit now total EUR906m, after a year of net inflows totalling EUR154m. In emerging marktes, net inflows last year totalled EUR600m, with assets under management of EUR10.5bn as of the end of December. Overall, with assets of slightly over EUR2bn in Europe, assets under management at Comgest as of the end of December totalled EUR13.5bn, compared with EUR15.5bn as of the end of 2010. Net inflows totalled EUR200m. The firm has decided to create a holding company, in order to support centralised organisation with supporting departments, and to improve financial visibility, with consolidated financial results, and to facilitate shareholder management at the group. Jan-Peter Dolff, who has made significant contributions to Comgest in Germany, becomes CEO of Comgest for all areas of operation except fund management.

Taimur Hassan, a former proprietary trader at Goldman Sachs, is planning to launch a hedge fund trading in commodities this summer, Financial News reports. His firm has been entitled Frere Hall Capital Management.

Aberdeen Asset Management has been awarded a European property multi-manager mandate from the Employees Retirement System of Texas. The Pan-European portfolio will be constructed and managed by the asset manager’s property multi-manager team. Aberdeen currently manages around EUR2bn in European property multi-manager mandates.

Volker Noack, who had been head of fund management at Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE), is handing over the position to the chairman of the managing board, Reinhard Kutscher. He has been appointed head of asset management for Europe, France, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific, which represent assets of EUR8.4bn; he will take over the responsibilities of Karl-Joseph Hermanns-Engel, who has resigned with effect from 1 February.Noack has been a member of the managing board at UIRE since 2010. The management team also includes Heiko Beck and Frank Billand.

The financial services provider Sun Life Financial has announced that it has strengthened its ties with the British arm of the Canadian firm Sun Life Financial [sic], to provide services on assets of over GBP11.5bn. Services provided by State Street include fund valuation, custody, performance measurement, compliance monitoring, OTC valuations, and collateral management.

Following the examples of France, Belgium and Italy, Spain’s CNMV has withdrawn a ban on short-selling of financial sector shares as of 16 February, which will allow bearish hedge funds once again to bet against Spanish financial sector groups such as Santander and BBVA, Cinco Días reports.The protected shares had included Banca Cívica, BBVA, Banco Sabadell, Banco de Valencia, Banesto, Pastor, Popular, Santander, Bankia, Bankinter, Caixabank, CAM, Catalana de Occidente, Mapfre, BME and Renta 4.The CNMV is maintaining a requirement that short positions totalling over 0.2% of capital in a publicly-traded business be notified.

Verazzano Capital, founded in France in October last year and licensed by the AMF in January, led by Guillaume Rambourg, former star hedge fund managers from Gartmore, is preparing to release two long/short equity funds in early March: Verazzano European Opportunties and Verazzano European Focus, Agefi reports. The funds will be based in Ireland. The former will be a low volatility fund, while the second will be more aggressive, with maximum leverage of 250%. Rambourg is hoping to reach USD500m in assets by the end of April. In the mid-term, the asset management firm is hoping to raise USD1.5bn, at which time it will hold a soft closing, the newspaper reports.

According to an SEC filing, the hedge fund manager John Paulson sold off 3 million shares in the SPDR Gold Shares fund in fourth quarter 2011, for an estimated total of USD600m, Handelsblatt reports. As of the end of December, Paulson & Co held 17.3 million shares in the fund. It had already sold off one third of its position in third quarter.The transactions may have been to meet redemptions from funds, but it could also be that Paulson is opting for direct investment in gold or gold derivatives, which he is not required to declare.Other investors, however, have subscribed, to the point that the gold stock of the fund increased by 2% in fourth quarter, to 1.25457 tonnes. Among the fund’s more eminent subscribers are George Soros, Pimco and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

The Market Vectors Unconventional Oil 7 Gas ETF (acronym on NYSE Arca: FRAK) was admitted to trading on 15 February. Van Eck Global says it is the first ETF listed in the United States to offer investors pure play exposure to new energies such as coal seam gas, shale gas, and shale oil.The new fund replicates the Market Vectors Unconventional Oil & Gas Index, which as of the end of January included shares in 43 companies.Management commission is limited to 0.54% until at least 1 May 2013.

With the rebound on the markets observed in January, long-term mutual funds (meaning all mutual funds excluding money markets) have posted a net inflow for the month of nearly USD34bn, MutualFundWire reports. According to the most recent statistics from Morningstar on fund flows, 54.36% of these inflows were absorbed by only three actors: Vanguard, with USD13.55bn (39.94% of the total), JP Morgan, with a total of USD2.53bn (7.47%), and DoubleLine, with USD2.36bn (6.95%).

Fund managers and subscribers rarely agree, but the SEC has managed to show them their common ground, with proposals to limit immediate redemptions to 95% or 97%, when a client wants to liquidate all assets in a money market fund, while the remainder would be payable only 30 days later, the Wall Street Journal reports.Fidelity, which manages USD433bn in money market funds, has undertaken a survey of retail clients: 23% say that they would no longer invest in money market funds, if 3% of their investment could not be redeemed for 30 days.The Investment Company Institute is concerned that the measures proposed would force some managers to close their funds. Federated Investors, which manages USD250bn in money markets, has already announced that it will be suing the SEC if the new regulations damage its business.

The European securities markets authority (ESMA) on 15 February launched a consultation on ways to outsource transactions for short-selling and certain aspects of CDS. ESMA will submit a report to the European Commission by mid-April 2012 on these issues, which will treat ownership of financial instruments in short sales, methods of calculating a net short position, and notification thresholds to apply to short positions on sovereign debt. The consultation will remain open until 9 March, and a hearing on the proposals included in the document is scheduled for 29 February.

Hedge fund managers had a dark year in 2011. Only a minority managed to remain in positive territory, according to annual rankings by Bloomberg Markets magazine covering the year up to 31 October, Les Echos reports. Of the top 100 hedge funds, only 1 out of 5 managed to make returns of over 10%. Bridgewater was the big winner of the 2011 vintage, as the fund, founded by Ray Dalio, not only made the largest gains in the industry thanks to its very good perfomance, but also become the largest hedge fund in the world, with nearly USD80bn in assets, overtaking Man Group.

For the third consecutive year, the British firm M&G last year led retail sales in the United Kingdom, according to the Pridham report, published by Fundscape. The British asset management firm attracted GBP4.3bn in assets in a year characterised by massive redemptions, particularly from equities. The success of M&G last year was favoured by a taste on the part of investors for bond funds, as two thirds of its gross sales went to fixed income products in fourth quarter. BlackRock takes second place in the rankings, with a total of GBP1.8bn for the year as a whole. In fourth quarter, BlackRock earned inflows of GBP278m, compared with inflows of GBP1.2bn for M&G.

Allianz Global Investors has released a calendar to its distribution partners for name changes to 106 of its RCM funds, aimed at retail clients, while the RCM brand name will be preserved for the institutional market.The name changes will gradually be applied between 29 February and third quarter 2012. Newsmanagers is publishing the ISIN codes of the funds concerned in an attachment, with their current name and future name bearing the Allianz prefix. However, “historic” funds such as Fondak, Concentra and Industria, which were inherited from Adig/Commerzbank, will retain their current names, without the addition of the Allianz prefix.The Allianz prefix will also be added to Pimco funds, where it is not already present. This will be done on 29 February for the Allianz Emerging Markets Bond fund, which will become the Allianz Pimco EM Bond fund.

HFR estimates that the performance of hedge funds in the first month of the year has been 2.63%, while Hennessee estimates the figure at 2.51%, and Lyxor puts it at 1.30%. BarclayHedge, for its part, reports that the 1,671 funds which have released results as of 15 February gained an average of 2.98%. Only the four equity short bias funds showed losses, averaging 10.48%. However, equity long bias (223 funds) has gained 4.93%, while emerging market strategies (280 funds) have gained 4.47%.

Ariane Tardieu has been promoted to the position of head of business development for France at Carmignac Gestion, the asset management firm announced on Wednesday. She will begin in her new position on 1 March. Since 2011, Tardieu had been deputy head of development for France at the firm based in the Place Vendôme in Paris, where she has been working for eight years. Tardieu will report to Davide Fragonese, global director of sales and marketing, and will direct a team of 10 people, a statement says. A spokesperson for Carmignac Gestion has told Newsmanagers that the appointment is a promotion, and that Tardieu is not replacing anyone.

S&P Indices on 15 February announced the launch of an index which is designed to provide exposure to non-US equities identified by S&P as high-quality shares in terms of growth and stability of profits and dividends. The S&P International Developed High Quality Rankings Index will be used by PowerShares to create ETP products.

Northern Trust has made several appointments to its unit dedicated to alternative management, “Northern Trust Alternatives Group,” which will allow it to enlarge its personnel in hedge funds and private equity. Anthony Zanolla has been promoted to the position of head of portfolio management. He had previously been a senior portfolio manager. Tony Lissuzzo, previously at Lakeview Investment Management, has been recruited as head of hedge fund research. Bob DiCarlo, previously at Aurora Investment, has been recruited as chief administrative officer. Aimee Wright, who recently served high net worth clients at Northern Trust, is appointed as an Investor Relations consultant for hedge funds. Brad Dorchinecz, who has been at Northern Trust for more than ten years, is appointed director of the private equity unit. He will oversee the unit’s investment process.