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09/01/2012

Union Investment sells a property to TF1

The German investment firm Union Investment Real Estate has sold the office property Aile Sud (7,315 square metres) in Boulogne-Billancourt, for an undisclosed sum, to TF1. UIRE bought the property in 1999 for the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Europa. The asset management firm states that the property, which is leased directly to TF1, has generated significant returns for the fund during those twelve years.Karl-Joseph Hermanns-Engel, a member of the board of directors at UIRE, says that the transaction is a sign of the firm’s continued active asset management policy in France, where the objective is now to sell properties acquired in the first investment phase between 1999 and 2004, which no longer are in line with current strategy.In 2011, UIRE resold French properties with gains for a net of about EUR450m. The proceeds of these sales will be reinvested in Paris and in French regional markets in the next 12 to 15 months.
09/01/2012

Swiss Life reshuffles staff in Paris

Jean-Pierre Grimaud, chief investment officer at Swiss Life France, in charge of the administrative and financial department, the securities investment department and the real estate department at Swiss Life France, and also chairman of Swiss Life Asset Management (France) since 2007, as well as Swiss Life Immobilier and of the supervisory board at Viveris Reim, on 1 December became director of a new special unit dedicated to third-party asset management (TPAM). The structure, which will report to the management of the Swiss Life group, will aim “to assist Swiss Life in its ambitions in Switzerland, France, Germany and Luxembourg,” the group says in a statement.Thierry Van Rossum, chief operating officer (COO) at Swiss Life France since 2008, succeeds Grimaud as chief investment officer (CIO). Van Rossum had previously been chief financial officer (CFO) at Swiss Life Belgium from 2002 to 2008.Cécile Mérine succeeds Van Rossum as chief operating officer, and will retain her responsibilities as director of marketing and product development, a position she has held since 2008 at Swiss Life France, where she began in 2002.
09/01/2012

Black Diamond Capital Management appoints a managing director

The alternative asset management firm Black Diamond Capital Management (BDCM), with assets under management totalling over USD10bn, has appointed Kenneth Rubin as senior managing director and hedge fund portfolio manager. Rubin will be responsible for the hedge fund platform, alongside Stephen Deckoff, a partner at BDCM.
09/01/2012

Lombard Odier nabs one more big wheel from ING IM

Paranay Gupta, who had been chief investment officer (CIO) at ING Investment Management Asia Pacific, has been recruited by Lombard Odier (USD160bn) as CIO for Asia and global head of investment solutions. He will be based in Hong Kong, and will report to Vincent Duhamel, head of Asia.At ING IM, Gupta had been responsible for the investment of assets totalling USD85bn. He also belonged to the global investment leadership team, which supervised the placement of USD484bn at the manager.Before joining ING IM, Gupta has also been deputy CIO at Pearl Group, and a senior member of the management team at ABP Investments.This is the second major recruitment from ING IM at Lombard Odier Investment Management (LOIM). Less than a month ago, LOIM announced the recruitment of Jan Straatman as CIO, the same position which he had previously held at ING. In addition, he had been CEO and CIO of Pearl Group from 2006 to 2008 (see Newsmanagers of 13 December 2011)...
09/01/2012

Julius Baer recruits from Sarasin

The Swiss private bank Julius Baer has recruited a team of eight people from its rival Sarasin, Asian Investor reports. The move comes following Julius Baer’s failure to acquire a majority stake in Sarasin from Rabobank; the stake was ultimately acquired by the Safra group. The team will cover Greater China, and will be led by Elina So, who left Sarasin in late 2011 to join Julius Baer. So began in her new position on 3 January as senior client partner. She will be based in Hong Kong.
09/01/2012

Assets under management in China down

Assets under management in China have fallen 13% in 2011, from CNY2.479trn as of the end of 2010 to CNY2.169trn, according to Z-Ben Advisors. The decline was particularly marked for equity funds, where assets contracted from CNY927bn to CNY704bn, and for balanced funds, which declined from CNY741bn to CNY544bn. However, the fixed income category saw an increase in assets, from CNY302bn to CNY464bn. The majority of this has gone to money market funds, where assets total CNY295bn. Between September and December 2011, this category saw a 133% leap in its assets. But the trend is expected to reverse in early 2012, Z-Ben Advisors predicts. Pessimism about the markets has led to a decline in interest in funds on the part of investors, Z-Ben Advisors notes. During the final three months of 2011, the average product launch attracted assets totaling just CNY1bn, compared with CNY2.6bn in fourth quarter 2010. However, the lower level is also due to a 43% increase in the number of funds launched in 2011.
09/01/2012

Anthony Bolton loses GBP1m on Chinese fund

Anthony Bolton has personally lost more than USD1m due to heavy losses from his China fund last year, the Financial Times reports. The decline represents one third of the value of his 2.5 million shares in the Fidelity China Special Situations fund. The fund, which raised GBP460m at its launch in April 2010, saw a decline in its share price of one third in 2011.
09/01/2012

Hildebrand scandal: Sarasin files charges against employee

In the scandal over personal forex trades conducted by Philipp Heldebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank (BNS), Banque Sarasin has announced that on 5 January it filed criminal charges in a Zurich court against the employee the firm dismissed on 3 January.The firm states that the former employee “stole” screenshots revealing the portfolio and transactions of the Hildebrand family, and sent them to a lawyer he knew, rather than reporting the trades which appeared to him subjectively to be dubious to his line manager or to the compliance department.The charge is infraction of the law of banking confidentiality and commercial secrecy. It also names third parties for inciting these infractions.Banque Sarasin states that it reserves the right to file other legal proceedings, including civil proceedings seeking damages and interest, and/or a filing before the Swiss Press Council for erroneous reporting of the facts by a Swiss weekly newsmagazine (possibly Weltwoche; see Newsmanagers of 5 January 2012).
09/01/2012

Iridian Asset Management closes a hedge fund

Iridian Asset Management has closed its largest hedge fund, the Iridian Opportunity fund, following a decline in assets and disappointing returns in 2010 and 2011. The fund lost 8,90% between January and October of last year, Absolute Return Alpha reports. The global equity hedge fund was launched in 2005 by former managers from Arnold and S. Bleichroeder Advisors.
09/01/2012

Life insurance returns down sharply in 2011

Returns on funds in euros are expected to fall again, Les Echos reports. The average rate paid out in 2011 is expected to be about 3%, compared with 3.4% in 2010 and 3.7% in 2009. The return rate, a historic barometer of the market, will be released tomorrow by Afer, the French association of savings investors. The profession is not expecting much in the way of inflows in 2012.
09/01/2012

LGIM enters ETF market

Legal & General Investment Management is expected to announce the launch of its first ETF this Monday, in partnership with Source, according to reports in Financial Times Fund Management. The new product will be a commodity ETF. It will track a composite of four commodity indices from Barclays Capital, Citi, JPMorgan and UBS.
09/01/2012

Stenham launches a global macro fund

Stenham Asset Management has launched a new Global Macro fund of hedge funds – Stenham Helix. The investment manager has been invested in Global Macro hedge funds since the 1980s and its flagship macro fund of hedge funds, Stenham Trading, has achieved an annualised return of +9.07% since inception compared to the HFRX Macro Index which has posted a return of 6.51% and the MSCI World Equity Index which was 4.13% over the same period.The Stenham Helix fund aims to invest in similar types of macro managers but to assemble a portfolio where the liquidity provided by the underlying managers allows Stenham to offer monthly liquidity with 35 days’ notice. The fund will consist of a concentrated portfolio of around 15 managers with a target return of Libor +5% to 6% and low volatility. The minimum investment is US$ 25,000 with no lock up period. The Stenham Helix fund has launched with USD 36 million and is available in USD, GBP and EUR share classes.Stenham has over USD 1.1 billion invested in Global Macro hedge funds and has USD 2.7 billion invested in hedge fund strategies overall.
09/01/2012

Funds will benefit slightly from tax increases

An increase in taxation on savings in Spain will make investments in the form of shares in investment funds more competitive, since the subscriber will deal with the tax office only when selling off the investment. In addition, the investor will remain able to modify the investment profile without paying taxes, as trades between funds retain a tax exemption, Cinco Días reports.These advantages will prove more important if the higher taxes on savings are truly limited to two years, as announced.Cinco Días reports that the investment fund sector has suffered considerably due to the crisis, with assets now back to their 1996 levels.
09/01/2012

Bond manager leaves BlueBay

Cian Walsh, an emerging markets bond manager, has left BlueBay, where he had spent seven years, according to reports in Citywire Global. Walsh has gone to Norway, where he has joined DNB Markets, in a position as a broker in the currencies, fixed income and commodities team.
09/01/2012

Axxion creates a valuation affiliate

The Luxembourg-based firm Axxion, a specialist in fund administration (Master KAG), on 6 January announced that it has created a specialised affiliate which will internalise fund valuation, navAXX SA. This arrangement will allow the firm to offer custom products.The new affiliate began its operations at the beginning of the year, calculating the net asset value of 70 funds, and Axxion predicts that the number of funds it currently administers will reach 150 by the end of first half.The IT partner for navAXX is Diamos AG.
09/01/2012

Le taux du Livret A pourrait stagner

Malgré une inflation attendue au-delà de 2,1% en décembre, le taux du Livret A pourrait rester à 2,25% le 1er février. Le gouverneur de la Banque de France, Christian Noyer, doit invoquer des «circonstances exceptionnelles» afin de déroger à la formule de calcul du taux: «ça ne servirait à rien que le taux augmente légèrement pour rebaisser immédiatement ensuite», l’inflation devant reculer dans les six prochains mois. Reste à savoir si Bercy, seul décisionnaire, assumera un statu quo à quelques mois des élections.
09/01/2012

Un fonds de pension sud-coréen pose pied en Chine

Le fonds de pension public sud-coréen National Pension Service a indiqué avoir reçu de Pékin l’autorisation d’acquérir localement des actions A, par le biais de l’obtention du statut d’investisseur institutionnel étranger qualifié (QFII). Le fonds souhaite investir 20% de ses actifs à l’étranger en 2016, contre 12,9% à fin novembre dernier.
09/01/2012

Pékin en guerre contre la spéculation sur les IPO

Citant un haut responsable du régulateur boursier chinois, le Shanghai Securities News assure que les pouvoirs publics entendent lutter contre la spéculation lors des introductions en Bourse. Assistant du président de la CSRC (China Securities Regulatory Commission), Zhu Congjiu, assure au quotidien que Pékin souhaite notamment accroître la part réservée aux institutionnels.
06/01/2012

S&P nuance l'impact d'une éventuelle dégradation de la France

Le chef économiste pour l’Europe de l’agence de notation Standard & Poor’s nuance l’impact d’une éventuelle dégradation de la note souveraine de la France, expliquant que les marchés traitaient déjà le pays comme s’il était noté BBB et non AAA.

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