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14/12/2011

Morgan Stanley cuts a deal with investors in MSREF VII

In order to buy more time to invest the amounts committed by investors in the real estate private equity fund MSREF VII, Morgan Stanley has agreed to lower both its fee on investments and its management commission. The firm has also agreed to reimburse about USD700m to subscribers, who include the sovereign funds GIC (Singapore) CIC (China, which had invested USD800m), and the Canada Pension Plan, the Wall Street Journal reports.The size of the fund has been reduced from USD4.7bn to USD4bn, of which only USD2.5bn are already invested. In exchange, a majority of more than two thirds of subscribers have agreed to a 12-month delay to the deadline from which Morgan Stanley would be required to reimburse all the money if assets are not wholly invested, to the end of June 2013. Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds is reported to have initially sought an 18-month extension.
14/12/2011

CalPERS earns nearly USD700m on IT investment

The California pension fund CalPERS on 13 December announced that it has made gains of about USD695m on its investments in the GI Partners Fund I, a fund launched ten years ago, which has recently been closed. CalPERS had invested USD500m in the fund in 2001, in assets related to IT. The investment has generated annualised net returns of 31%, CalPERS says in a statement. CalPERS remains engaged with GI Partners, which invests primarily in North America and Western Europe. The Californian pension fund has invested USD500m in the GI Partners Fund II, and USD500m in the GI Partners Fund III. GI Partners manages over USD2bn in assets from the real estate portfolio of CalPERS CalEast.
14/12/2011

First State strenghtens international equity team

The British firm First State Investments has recruited two managers as additions to the team dedicated to international equities, Fundweb reports. Julie Thomas will concentrate on financial sector shares, while Ben Yeoh will specialise in the health sector. Thomas had previously worked at Oriel Securities, Threadneedle AM, ADIA and Morley AM. Yeoh had previously worked at Atlantic Securities.
14/12/2011

British pension funds highly conscious of risk management

British pension fund professionals are paying close attention to risk management, in an effort to confront market volatility, according to an annual survey by Baring Asset Management (Barings). Nearly 100% of professionals surveyed place risk management at the top of the list of their concerns when awarding a management mandate. In order to limit the effects of increased market volatility, one third of professionals have increased levels of risk/return analysis. 48% of respondents, meanwhile, say they are working on improved diversification of portfolios, while 26% give the priority to multi-asset class products. Multi-asset class products now represent 18% of portfolios, compared with only 3% last year. Meanwhile, exposure to equities has been lowered to 46%, from 55% previously, whlie exposure to bonds has increased to 26%. In the next two quarters, nearly 90% of professionals surveyed estimate that the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will be the largest macroeconomic challenge for investors, putting it ahead of excessive debt in the United States (48%), the potential for a bubble in China (31%) and high inflation in the United Kingdom (14%).
14/12/2011

Gamax Management develops presence in United Kingdom

The Luxembourg-based asset management firm Gamax Management has signed a distribution agreement with the insurer Legal & General International, by the terms of which Gamax funds will be available to British clients of the insurer, Investment Europe reports. This is the first entry into the British market for Gamax, which has been a part of the Italian financial services group Mediolanum since 2001. Assets under management at Gamax total about EUR500m. Funds are managed by the Munich-based firm DJE Kapital AG.
14/12/2011

GAM poaches two fund managers from CQS

Tim Love and Joachim Nogueira, who had managed a long/short equity portfolio focused on emerging markets at CQS, have joined GAM In London, as investment director and investment manager, respectively.The two men will be in charge of the management of a long-only, actively managed fund which will also be specialised in emerging markets, which GAM is planning to launch in first quarter 2012.Love, who will be the hierarchical superior of Nogueira, will himself report to David M. Solo, group CEO.
14/12/2011

Axa IM's Theodora Zemek hands management of a fund

AXA Investment Managers has announced that Nick Hayes, senior portfolio manager, AXA Investment Managers is now responsible for the management of the AXA Sterling Corporate Bond Fund. He has taken over the management of the fund from Theodora Zemek, global head of fixed income and a member of the AXA IM management board. Nick Hayes has managed the AXA Sterling Strategic Bond Fund since he joined AXA IM in June 2010. Theodora Zemek was last year appointed as a member of AXA IM’s management board. As global head of fixed income she is responsible for the management of the fixed income expertise, with a team of over 80 investment professionals who manage over EUR273bn in assets globally. The changes were effective from 1 December 2011.
14/12/2011

Threadneedle moves a manager to Asia

Threadneedle Investments has announced in a statement that its Asia-Pacific specialist manager Gigi Chan will now be based in Singapore rather than London, in order to support a local presence and the growth of the British asset management firm in that region of the world. Chan is the first manager at Threadneedle to be transferred to Asia, but others are expected to join her, in order to create a local team, the asset management firm says.
14/12/2011

Aberdeen CEO sells shares in firm

Martin Gilbert, CEO of Aberdeen Asset Management, has sold 148,456 ordinary shares (all the shares he received in 2008 through a long-term incentive plan), and 1,236,956 ordinary shares in the firm. The two transactions were completed on 6 December, at a price of 212 pence per share, which comes to a total of GBP2.93m. Following the transactions, Gilbert retains 0.62% of capital in the firm. Other Aberdeen executives have also sold shares, including Hugh Young.
14/12/2011

Somerset launches an emerging and frontier markets fund

The UK-based asset management firm Somerset Capital Management has launched an equity fund aimed at institutional investors, which will invest in companies active in emerging and frontier markets, with a total market capitalisation of USD1bn to USD7.5bn, Investment Europe reports. The US-domiciled fund, Somerset Emerging Markets Small Mid CapEM All Country Fund, has initial seed capital of USD30m. The ten largest positions in the portfolio may offer exposure to Taiwan, South fAfrica, Chile, the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, India and China. The fund will be managed by Edward Robertson, one of the co-founders of Somerset, and Timothy Hay, Somerset’s Latin America specialist. The minimal initial investment for European institutionals has been set at USD50,000.
14/12/2011

Fundstore fund supermarket hires a client manager

The Italian online fund supermarket Fundstore, in which Banca Ifigest is the largest shareholder, has announced the arrival of a new client manager, Valentina Zappa, Bluerating reports. She will handle commercial development of a platform owned by Banca Ifigest, which handles placement of funds to retail investors and management of commercial relations with asset management firms and foreign-registered funds.
14/12/2011

ADIA to buy a 9.9% stake in Kemble Water

The Abu Dhabi sovereign fund ADIA (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) is planning to acquire a 9.9% stake in the utility company Kemble Water Limited, the holding company for the Thames Water group, the SWF Institute reports. ADIA will buy the stake from a consortium of investors led by Macquarie.
14/12/2011

Pioneer launches a multi-asset class fund

Pioneer Investments has launched Pioneer Funds – Multi Asset Real Return, a flexible and global, multi asset classes fund. The Luxembourg based fund is a mirror of a US domiciled fund launched in May 2010. It will be managed by the same team as the US product which is led by Michele Garau as lead portfolio manager, together with Kenneth Taubes, head of investment management US, and Howard Weiss, associate portfolio manager"The portfolio management team select the optimal mix of assets for portfolio inclusion, based on their evaluation of economic growth and inflation levels. The fund is not constrained by single asset classes to hedge inflation, but can gain exposure to a broad spectrum of traditional financial securities and real assets through closed end funds. The portfolio management team can rapidly position the fund for changing market environments, significantly and substantially exploiting the most attractively valued assets and sectors opportunistically. The fund’s “go- anywhere” approach provides a more diversified, inflation-hedge complément», explains Pioneer. «We believe that the flexible, dynamic approach to asset allocation we use in this fund offers an advantage over a more limited inflation hedging strategy focused largely on TIPS,» adds Kenneth J. Taubes.
14/12/2011

Neptune IM plans to launch a Chinese equity fund

Neptune Investment Management plans to launch the Neptune China Max Alpha Fund on 15th December 2011. The new fund has an investment objective of generating capital growth from a concentrated portfolio of between 20-30 securities issued by Chinese companies, or in those issued by companies transacting a significant proportion of their business in China. It will be joint-managed by Robin Geffen, Douglas Turnbull and Adam Kelly. This team-based approach will see each member leveraging Neptune’s global sector research to contribute their top 8-10 Chinese stockpicks, regardless of the stock’s market capitalisation, to construct a highly concentrated portfolio of best ideas. The new Chinese equity product is launched as an extension to Neptune’s existing Max Alpha fund range, which already offers investors access to the Global, European, North American and Japanese markets.
14/12/2011

Madoff: gaping holes in reimbursement for victims

According to his most recent report, the court-appointed trustee in charge of gaining compensation for victims of the fraudster Bernard Madoff, has collected USD8.69bn, half of the estimated direct losses to victims, not counting the billions of dollars in losses for financial institutions and feeder funds. But he has paid out only USD325m, to 1,232 investors who lost money. This is a drop of water in the ocean compared with the gigantic USD64.8bn Pinzo scheme exposed in December 2008, based on client accounts. Reimbursement is subject to a web of appeals, and to laborious clarification of the chain of responsibility.
14/12/2011

SIFMA publishes a white paper on high-frequency trading

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which brings together the shared interests of hundreds of securities firms, banks and asset managers, has released a white paper addressing high-frequency trading (HFT).The paper notes the lack of a clear definition for high-frequency trading, but seeks to address the concerns being raised by members of the public and other market participants regarding HFT. It discusses current regulatory efforts to strengthen market structure, areas where regulators should conduct further study and possibly address through regulatory action, and regulatory proposals that SIFMA believes should not be pursued. The professional association also says it opposes the introduction of new taxes on financial transactions, and is opposed to a wholesale ban on high-frequency trading or other forms of computer-based trading.The white paper can be found at the following link: http://www.sifma.org/issues/item.aspx?id=8589936694
14/12/2011

USD9bn in outflows from hedge funds in October

According to statistics from BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research, in October hedge funds saw net redemptions of USD9bn, more than triple the USD2.59bn in outflows in September.Assets as of 31 October were down to USD1.66trn, from USD1.73trn as of 30 September.The largest losses in assets under management by percentage were from macro funds (-1.6%, or USD1.8bn), and long/short equity funds (-1.5%, or USD2.6bn). The only strategies in positive territory were equity long bias, with net inflows of USD600m, and merger arbitrage, with USD200m, 0.6% and 1% of assets, respectively.
14/12/2011

Les OPCVM français font le dos rond

Le rythme de décollecte a diminué en novembre sur toutes les classes d'actifs, les fonds monétaires enregistrant même un afflux d'argent
14/12/2011

La Réserve fédérale maintient le statu quo

Sans surprise ni saveur, le communiqué du dernier FOMC de la Fed reporte à 2012 un éventuel changement de cap. Pour l’heure, la banque centrale souligne que «l'économie a progressé à un rythme modéré, en dépit d’un certain ralentissement apparent de la croissance mondiale».
14/12/2011

Les gérants prudents sur la rentabilité des sociétés européennes

Le quotidien britannique, qui cite une étude réalisée par Bank of America Merrill Lynch, indique que 72% des gérants interrogés s’attendent à une dégradation de la rentabilité des sociétés de la zone euro. Pour un investissement en actions, les gérants privilégient ostensiblement les Etats-Unis ainsi que les marchés émergents.
13/12/2011

Nouvelle aggravation du déficit budgétaire grec en novembre

Le déficit budgétaire de la Grèce a augmenté de 5,1% sur un an le mois dernier, à 20,52 milliards d’euros. La récession alimentée par les mesures d’austérité n’ayant pas permis au gouvernement de lever les sommes escomptées de nouvelles mesures fiscales. Le gouvernement grec pourrait ainsi manquer son objectif 2012 d’un déficit budgétaire représentant 9% du produit intérieur brut (PIB), le contraignant ainsi à prendre des mesures d’austérité supplémentaires.

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