Mutual Fund Wire relays reports in Bloomberg that a few final candidates are in the running to acquire the asset management arm of Deutsche Bank (excluding DWS in Europe), which the group is planning to sell. The bidders are said to include Ameriprise, Invesco, New York Life and Principal. Recently, another newspaper had also cited Aberdeen, BlackRock, BNY Mellon, JPMorgan and State Street.

Aviva Investors France is not giving way to panic; quite the opposite. Despite a difficult economic and political environment, the asset management firm of the Aviva group does not subscribe to a scenario of a double-dip recession, nor does it predict that the euro zone will implode. It has even chosen to invest in risky assets, more particularly equities. Compared with a balanced portfolio composed of 50% equities and 50% bonds and money markets, with a preference for the European market and overweight positions on the banking and industrial sectors, “the equity markets, which have integrated an extremely pessimistic scenario, are inexpensive. There are very good points of entry, particularly on the European market, which is completely undervalued. That’s the market we are preferring currently,” says Pascal Heurtault. In terms of credit, Heurtault steers clear of German government bonds and is neutral on Spanish and Italian bonds. He prefers corporate issues, particularly from the banking sector. “We are lucky to belong to a major insurance company, which has made us safe from major redemptions,” says Heurtault. Aviva Investors France can therefore confront and consider long-term investments. “Our parent company is confident in our management teams, which have been in place for many years. We know that we have to accept some temporary declines, as this is a difficult period, but it will allow us to prepare for future gains,” says the chief investment officer at Aviva Investors France.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) on 1 December announced the appointment of Bertrand Valet in Paris as managing director in charge of relations with investment funds in France. In the business banking activity at BofAML, Valet will assist in the development of French investment fund clients and international funds which invest in France. Valet will be based in Paris, after a 5-year career in Dubai, 12 years in London, and 18 months in San Francisco. In Dubai, Valet had since 2008 been head of development for sovereign fund and investment fund clients of BofAML in the Middle East/North Africa region.

Frédéric Laurent, chairman of the board at Federal Finance, will this Friday announce to clients and partners of Federal Finance that the firm has appointed Gérald Claudel as head of external development and key accounts. Claudel will begin in his new role from 2 January 2012. He will also be in charge of deploying the firm’s international distribution policy. Claudel joined Federal Finance in 2004, as head of institutional diversified management. He was primarily in charge of asset allocation and institutional mandates.

The Cogefi group has recruited Marie Damourette as head of wealth engineering. Damourette’s primary mission will be to assist private clients of the group in optimising protection, development and transmission of their wealth, via personalised legal and tax advising, a statement says. Damourette had previously been head of a private management service in a notarial study. She has also served as a wealth engineer at Patrimoine Management et Associés and Cortal Consors Select.

The Atrium Select platform, a new affiliate of the Crystal Group, was founded in association with a real estate professoinal, Philippe Khemili. The Crystal Group is hoping to centralise direct real estate supply for all entities of the group with the creation of Atrium Select, with the goal of becoming a significant presence in this market segment. Atrium Select, based in Montpelier, has six employees. It is led by Bruno Narchal, while Philippe Khemili is chief operating officer. In addition to tax minimisation programmes, Atrium Select targets its product range to an overall wealth management approach (constitution and valuation of wealth, creation of complementary revenue streams, organisation of inheritance). The platform also acts within specific service mandates for the full range of clients of the Crystal Group. Atrium Select works with a selection of quality promoters to offer a restricted selection of programmes, reserved for particular networks, in metropolitan France and DOM-TOM, where there is real demand for rentals, and these respond to an international probematic for clients of Crystal Finance. The sale of properties offered is also undertaken by Crystal Finance advisors, along with IFA partners of the Union Financière George V and other partnerships. The objective for the group is to make three hundred sales by the end of 2012.

The US asset management firm Eaton Vance has posted a net outflow for the third quarter of its fiscal year, ending on 31 October, of USD2.7bn. This is the first time in 22 quarters that Eaton Vance has finished a quarter with net redemptions. For the fiscal year to the end of October as a whole, Eaton Vance shows a net inflow of USD3.9bn.

November was the eighth consecutive month of net outflows for Spanish securities funds, with EUR850m in outflows, compared with EUR891m in October, EUR681m in September, and EUR699m in August, according to initial estimates from the Inverco association of asset management firms.Total assets fell 3.3% in November compared with October to a total of EUR125.156bn. This time, only about 20% of the decline is due to net redemptinos, whie the remaining 80% are related to negative market effects.Of the twelve largest asset management firms by volumes of assets under management, only Bestinver Gestión and Popular Gestión show net subscriptions, of EUR236m for the former and EUR6.5m for the latter.However, the two leaders in the sector, Santander Asset Management and BBVA Asset Management, have seen net outflows of EUR346.83m and EUR182.5m, respectively. InverCaixa Gestión has seen net redemptions of EUR84.49m, and Bansabadell Inversión has experienced net outflows of EUR73.19m.

On 29 November, the Chinese securities commission (CSRC) issued an operating license to the 69th Chinese fund management company, Essence FMC.The firm, which has also been issued a license to manage “segregated” accounts, has capital of CNY200m. It is 49% controlled by Essence Securities, 36% by Minmetals Investment, and 15% by China Guangdong Nuclear GFC.The CEO of the firm is Wang Lianzhi, vice chairman of Essence Securities, Z-Ben Advisors reports.

Credit Suisse has appointed Giorgio Riccucci as its new head of private banking for Italy, Bluerating reports. He will replace Franco Müller on 1 January 2012. Riccucci had previously been at UBS Italia.

Pioneer, the asset management firm of the Italian UniCredit group, on Wednesday unveiled the outlines of its five-year plan. The strategy, developed over the summer and finalised in the past few weeks, is focused on three major areas, explains Sandro Pierri, head of the firm for western Europe and international activities. The first area, already presented by CEO Roger Yates in September, is to create a major emerging markets management centre in London. This will include the existing capacities of the group in this area (equities and bonds) and will also be enriched with some recruitments, including two people who have recently joined the group. This unit will represent about EUR7bn in assets. The second area will be to expand Pioneer’s distribution capacities in Asia and Latin America. This development will be realised entirely organically, says Pierri, who rules out any acquisitions. However, he has not spelled out a list of the countries concerned. “We will develop in a country only when we estimate that we have a product range which is suitable for local clients,” he says. The firm is now present in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, China, and India, in Asia; and in Chile and Argentina in Latin America. In the third area, Pioneer is planning to “build a more solid operational infrastructure,” meaning that the firm will close come activities which are too “marginal” such as in Russia. In terms of objectives, Pierri says only that Pioneer, which had EUR162bn in assets under management as of the end of October, is aiming for double-digit growth in profits in the next four years. He adds that the plan will be completely self-financed. The five-year plan follows several months of uncertainty for Pioneer, which had undergone a strategic review in the course of which several options, including a sale of the business, were studied. That phase was completed in April this year, when UniCredit decided that the asset management firm would concentrate on organic growth.

The Lyxor ETF focused on Greece will be changing its benchmark index and its name, according to Bluerating. The new index is the FTSE/ATHEX 20 Net Total Return Index, calculated by FTSE, which replaces the MSCI Greece index, composed of only 10 positions. The product will become known as the Lyxor ETF FTSE ATHEX 20.

Germany’s BaFin and Austria’s FMA have issued a sales license for the new Currency Diversifier sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav UBS (Lux) Bond Sicav, which invests in bonds from industrialised countries which present solid public finances, denominated in seven solid global currencies. The product was launched on 4 November, but the share class denominated in euros was opened on 1 December.The fund, managed by David Ric, is currently invested in Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden, with a strong concentration on the 1-3 year segment. The portfolio may also be invesfted in money market instruments and corporate bonds rated at least “A.”Currently, the fund has assets of USD78m.CharacteristicsName: UBS (Lux) Bond Sicav - Currency DiversifierISIN code: P (acc) sharesin euros: LU0706127809in dollars: LU0659916679P (dist) sharesin dollars: LU0659904402Management commission: 0.90 %

A group of US hedge funds are threatening to sue the Irish government if it goes through with plans to make them pay up to 100% of losses on Bank of Ireland subordinated bonds held by the funds. The bonds held by the hedge funds, including Appaloosa Management, total about USD300m, the Financial Times reports.

Not all US investors believe that the euro zone will implode, including hedge funds, Les Echos reports. At a conference on hedge funds held by Bloomberg on 1 December in New York, many professionals admitted that a resolution to the European sovereign debt crisis would take time. But, they also added that the chances of a collapse of the euro were unlikely. Some funds such as Davide Serra, founder of Algebris Investments, estimate that European policies will have ot solidify before Christmas. Others, such as George Papamarkakis, CEO of North Asset Management, are convinced that the meetings on the 8th and 9th December (ECB and council of heads of state and the European government) will not be decisive, but rather additional steps in a process what will take a lot of time.

A class action lawsuit filed against a Geneva-based asset management firm was dismissed by a New York judge on 29 November. The case, filed in early 2009 in New York, was related to losses by the Thema fund of USD1.1bn. The class action suit, launched by a shareholder in the fund, also named HSBC, JP Morgan, UniCredit, Bank of New York Mellon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, all of whom were accused of negligence in relation to the fraud orchestrated by Bernard Madoff. The south New York district judge, Richard Berman, dismissed all charges in the class action filing in question, except those against HSBC, at the express demand of the bank. Fundamentally, the judge found, the case should not be heard in the United States, but in Ireland, as the fund and its depository bank, HSBC, were domiciled there, and the two were cooperating under an Irish contract.

According to a recent study, more than 100 analysts have left rating agencies in the past five years to join the financial sector companies they had previously rated, the Wall Street Journal reports. The news is a sign of potential conflicts of interest at a time when the SEC is putting the finishing touches on proposals to strengthen controls on rating agencies.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the SEC is planning to investigate the way in which private equity firms value their investments. The objective for the US regulator is to uncover potential fraud, the Financial Times reports.

The asset management firm Kames Capital, formerly known as Aegon Asset Management, will soon be opening an office in Hong Kong, Asian Investor reports. With this in mind, Kames has appointed James Cooper as head of development for Asian activities. Kames is initially planning to develop its presence serving Asian clients in its strong areas, such as bonds, real estate and multi-asset class products. Cooper, who had previously worked at a consulting firm, will construct an Asian team in the next 12 to 18 months, including the installation of local managers. Kames Capital, whose assets under management totalled GBP47bn as of the end of September, has nearly 250 employees.

The Japanese asset management firm Nikko Asset Management has called off plans for an initial public offering on the Tokyo stock exchange on 15 December, due to the high volatility of the markets, Agefi reports. According to the near-exclusive shareholder in Nikko Asset Management, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, the firm will wait for a more favourable environment.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s office has accused Michael Balboa of ordering two of his colleagues to artificially inflate the value of a Nigerian government warrant, the Wall Street Journal reports. At the time (January-October 2008), Balboa was managing director of the London-based Millennium Global Investments.

Deutsche Bank and Omega Advisors have teamed up to launch a long/short equity hedge fund that complies with the UCITS directive for its db alternatives platform, Citywire reoprts. The product, entitled DB Platinum Omega, will be managed by the billionaire Leon Cooperman.

Goldilocks, the Swiss fund dedicated to gold and currencies, is now available to investors on a permanent basis, Hedge Week reports. The fund, launched in January 2010, is advised by Insch Capital Management; it had originally been closed. In the first eleven months of the year, the fund has earned returns of 9.66%, and 11.01% in the past twelve months.

The China Construction Bank (CCB) has appointed BNY Mellon Asset Servicing as the global custodian for its new qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) fund, launched in China by Fortune SG Fund Management Co on 29 September. The CCB is the local custodian for the fund. Fortune SG is a joint venture of Hwabao Trust (an affiliate of the Baisteel group) and Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale group). The fund concerned, the Fortune SG S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Select Industry Index Fund, is the third QDII fund from Fortune SG, and the second to use the services of BNY Mellon as global custodian, after the Fortune SG Overseas Growth Equity Fund (since May 2008). So far this year, BNY Mellon AS has won five more global custody mandates for QDII funds.

The European Capital Markets Institute (ECMI) on 1 December announced the publication of its “2011 Statistical Package,” which covers the full range of European capital markets in the wake of the financial crisis. The body of statistics is divided into six major chapters: equity markets, debt markets, ETF markets, over-the-counter derivative markets, asset management, and comparative international data. The institute says that for the first time in 2011, statistics required by the MiFID directive for pan-European and national trading platforms have been included. The chapter on debt markets has been enlarged, with data on securitisations, while the asset management chapter now includes data on pension funds and insurance companies.

The collective investment organism (OPC) industry in Luxembourg has posted a positive variation in the month of October, to a total of EUR39.86bn, according to statistics from the financial sector surveillance commission (CSSF). This increase is due to the positive impact of markets for EUR47.56bn (+2.34%), partly offset by a net outflow of EUR7.70bn (0.38%). All categories of equity OPC have posted net redemptions, excepting the category of OPC investing in European equities.As of 31 October 2011, the overall net assets in OPC and specialist investment funds totalled EUR2.07194trn, compared with EUR2.032077trn as of 30 September 2011, an increase of 1.96% in one month. Over the past twelve months, the volume of net assets has fallen 1.69%.

La société se prépare au lancement de son troisième fonds. Avec un objectif de levée entre 300 et 350 millions d’euros, le futur FCPR sera lui aussi dédié à l’investissement dans des entreprises françaises des segments small et lower mid caps, principalement en mezzanine. Capzanine a par ailleurs annoncé la nomination de Laurent Bénard comme associé.

Après 18.100 milliards déjà votés, la nouvelle rallonge sera d’au moins 2.000 milliards de yens mais pas financée par de nouvelles émissions

Elle pourrait atteindre 10 milliards la semaine prochaine sur la base des opérations similaires menées en 2009 et 2010

Selon la BCE, les sociétés de moins de 250 salariés des pays périphériques se plaignent le plus d'une dégradation de l'accès au crédit