Invesco on 17 November announced the recruitment of Gregory McGreevey as head of Invesco Fixed Income (IFI), effective from 28 November. In his new role, McGreevey will have operational responsibility for fixed income activities. He will be based in Atlanta, and will report directly to Karen Dunn Kelley, senior managing director. McGreevey has previously worked as chairman of Hartford Investment Management Company, and executive vice president and chief investment officer at The Hartford Financial Services Group. IFI employs more than 150 investment professionals worldwide, who as of the end of September, managed over USD200bn in assets.

BlackRock has announced that its iShares division has launched the first ETF which allows investors access to preferential equities from developed countries outside the United States on the NYSE Arca platform. The fund is the iShares S&P International Preferred Stock Index Fund (acronym: IPFF), which is the international version of its US sibling, the iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index Fund (PFF), which has already attracted USD7.2bn in assets.The new product is aimed at investors seeking regular returns outside the US market. It replicates the S&P International Preferred Stock Index, a cap-weighted index, which is “rebalanced” every quarter. The heaviest exposures are currently to Canadian, British and New Zealand equities. The index has a strong bias in favour of the financial sector.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Caymans’ fiduciary services industry, which provides the boards of hedge funds with professional independent directors, is coming under pressure, according to the Financial Times. Some of the world’s biggest investors in hedge funds are demanding transparency over exactly how many directorships individuals on the islands hold. The numbers can be high, accordint to an investigation by the Financial Times. A document from an international bank from 2006 reveals one Cayman individual on more than 560 boards. Analysis of current US regulatory filings shows another person with more than 250 directorships and several others holding more than 100.

On 17 November, Deutsche Börse admitted eight new ETC and eight ETN products from Commerzbank to trading on the Xetra electronic trading platform. The ETCs on high-grade brent crude and natural gas are available in bull and bear versions, either neat or with leverage of 2. They bring the number of ETC products listed in Frankfurt to 210, with an average monthly trading volume of EUR900m. ETNs replicate the evolution of futures on the HangSeng and HangSeng China Enterprises indices, also in long and short versions, as well as neat or with leverage of 2. Frankfurt now lists 83 ETN products, and trading volumes in this segment total EUR100m per day.

Hedge fund strategies recovered in October, according to monthly statistics from the Edhec-Risk Institute. Event-driven and long/short equity strategies posted gains of 2.97% and 4.30%, respectively, their best results of recent years. Returns have not entirely offset losses in September, nor since the beginning of the year, as event-driven shows losses of 2.8%, and long/short equity shows losses of 3.8%. Despite its limited exposure, the market neutral strategy has earned gains of 1.58%, which offset losses in September. Since the beginning of this year, the strategy has gained 0.8%. Good results for emerging markets strategies and distressed securities have also brought returns of 3.91% and 2.98%. Funds of funds earned returns of 1.22% in October, but since the beginning of the year, they show losses of 4.2%.

Warren Buffet is going to welcome analysts for the first time at Berkshire Hathaway’s next annual meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal. Three research analysts have been invited on May 5. It might be a sign he views his company as overlooked by investors.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the hedge fund management firm Centerbridge Partners (USD10bn in assets) acquired bank debts from MF Global for USD15m, just after its collapse. David Tepper, who manages about USD14bn at Appaloosa Management, has also invested nearly USD50m in equities, bonds and bank debts from MF Global. The hedge fund management firm Elliott Management is on the creditors’ boardat MF Glboal, and is reported to hold a significant amount of MF Global debts. Other hedge funds also say they have bought MF Global shares, which were trading at USD0.13 per share on Friday, compared with USD8.00 six months ago. These are very high risk bets, and that is why hedge funds are engaging less than 1% of their portfolios. But it could be a very good deal for them, if at least part of the missing USD600m are found.

On 15 November, at a general shareholders meeting for the Luxembourg Sicav fund Luxalpha, which channelled money to the fraudster Bernard Madoff, trustees announced that it is filing a second lawsuit against UBS, Ernst & Young and Access, Les Echos reports.

Although in 2011, J.P. Morgan Asset Management is expected to succeed in retaining a level of 83% of its 2006 revenues, of which 61% currently come trom equities, it is necessary to adapt to the new market situation and to investor expectations. To this end, JP Morgan AM is planning to scale up its efforts in asset classes which are currently sustaining investor interest in Europe, particularly on the part of institutional investors. These investors are a clearly-identified target for the asset management firm, Jamie Broderick tells Newsmanagers.

The Swiss bank Wegelin, a specialist in quant strategies, is preparing a new investment approach in bonds, in close collaboration with the Ecole polytechnique fédérale in Zurich. The concept is to develop a new strategy on sovereign debt, based on an index which measures the quality of the debt. “In government bonds, the traditional index is not very intelligent, insofar as it gives priority to the quantity of debt. The higher the amount of debt, the higher its weighting. We will rather take into account the quality of the debt,” explains Magne Y. Orgland, managing partner at the Swiss bank. In addition to the quality of the debt, Orgland also insists on the importance of variable liquidity. Based on these two essential factors, a range may be created in the first month of 2012. Assets under management at the bank total about CHF25bn, olf which two thirds are in private banking, and one third from institutional clients. Since the beginning of the year, inflows have been near zero, Orgland says. This development is linked to a desire on the part of the bank no longer to sers US clients, due to the FACTA regulations. That process is underway, and means that the firm will need to replace CHF500m in assets. In France, the bank has gained some notoriety for its double product range: on the one hand, its flagship strategy Active Indexing, available in France since November 2010, and on the other the Global Diversification strategy, launched in mid-June 2011, which is based on an equally-weighted risk allocation. Assets under management in the Global Diversification fund total slightly over EUR200m, while assets in the Active Indexing strategy total about EUR1.5bn.

The Bavarian pension fund for self-employed persons Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK, EUR50bn in assets) on 16 November awarded the Munich-based UBS Real Estate Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbh an initial mandate of EUR500m for a real estate fund of funds. The fund will invest in core portfolio funds, as well as in niche products, with the objective of avoiding overlap with other real estate investments by BVK as much as possible.In order to do that, the management firm will explore new segments, such as hotels, parking facilities, properties under construction, and major shopping centres. It may also move into risk classes such as “value add” and “opportunistic.”BVK has stipulated that UBS RE much also invest in funds which themselves invest in BRIC coutnries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), where BVK does not yet have any holdings. Daniel Just, vice-chairman of the managing board and chief investment officer at BVK, says that the mandate comes as an addition to direct real estate investments (which currently total EUR3.2bn), and investments in institutional real estate funds (EUR2.7bn).

The worsening euro zone debt crisis, and the approaching deadline for debt reduction in the United States are driving investors to remain on the defensive in mid-November.In the week to 16 November, investors favoured ETFs dedicated to US large caps, commodity funds specialised in precious metals, and dividend funds, EPFR Global reports.Equity funds have posted net inflows of USD1.51bn in the week under review, of which USD870m are in dividend funds. Since the beginning of the year, outflows have totalled USD92bn. This total would be much larger if there were not such hunger for dividend funds, which ave attracted over USD24bn since January 2011.Bond funds earned net inflows in the week under review of USD2.37bn.Since the beginning of the year, inflows total USD112bn, compared with USD384.3bn in the corresponding period of 2010.EPFR Global also reports, without providing exact figures, that there has been growing interest in the past few weeks in inflation-linked bond funds.

Expansión relays reports in Funds People that Bankia has appointed Isabel Bastit, one of the regional heads at Caja Madrid, to head of its asset management unit, Bankia Fondos, replacing Luis Gabarda, who becomes head of Bankia Bolsa. Bastit will report to Fernando Sobrini, head of the retail bank. Bankia Fondos was born of the merger of Gesmadrid, Bancja Fondos and Ges Laetana, and has assets under management as of the end of October of EUR6.34bn, making it the fourth-largest Spanish asset management firm, after, in order, Santander, AM, BBVA AM, and Invercaixa. The private banking unit of Bankia Banca Privada has an asset management firm of its own, Bankia Banca Privada Gestión, which has assets of EUR1.31bn in 189 Sicav funds.

Despite USD500m in net outflows in ten days in September, total assets in the emerging market debt strategies from Pictet Asset Management currently total USD18bn, compared with USD17bn as of the end of September. This total includes, in addition to mandates, five UCITS-compliant, Luxembourg-registered funds with a total of EUR11.18bn, in euros and strong local currencies.The Swiss asset management firm is keeping a close eye on subscriptions. After a period of soft closing, which resulted in a temporary limitation to EUR1m per day in net inflows per client, Pictet has slightly relaxed its vigilance, due to outflows in September. Monitoring is concentrated mostly on the Pictet-Emerging Local Currency Debt fund, which already has EUR6.654bn in assets (as of 14 November).Similarly, the funds managers (14 people in Singapore and London) would like to see an increase in the proportion of institutional assets in the products, as these clients are more “sticky” (loyal), up to 50% from 35% currently, says Eugene Choi, product specialist, in Paris.Choi says the objective is to generate outperformance of 1 to 3 percentage points over a period of 5 years. Management relies on top-down and bottom-up approaches, and Pictet has teams managing currencies and rates separately. Choi also tells Newsmanagers that, despite the significant scale of assets in emerging market debt, Pictet does not yet need to invest in illiquid products such as structured notes.

Discretionary activities by independent financial advisers are likely to grow strongly in the next few years, from 59% of assets in 2011 to 71% by 2013, according to estimates by Cerulli («The Cerulli Edge : Advisor Edition, 4Q 20011»).This likely development is a sign of a desire on the part of advisers to increase their discretionary portfolio management activities.From the point of view of the broker/dealer, use of pre-fabricated investment solutions by financial advisers allows for economies of scale and a reduction in exposure to risk. Advisers agree that outsourcing the construction of portfolios may have an impact on the effectiveness of the portfolio, but despite that, they remain hesitant to engage this appraoch. “Our research shows that advisers prefer the freedom of programmes which are open to pre-fabricated solutions,” says Patrick Newcimb, a senior analyst in the managed accounts practice at Cerulli.From another point of view, results of a partial analysis of the capacity of advisers for allocation do not argue in their favour. Pre-fabricated equity offerings have seen setbacks in 2008-2009, but their post-recession returns are encouraging. Package solutions do not yet appear to be favoured by advisers.

The British press reports that the local arm of Axa IM has announced plans to place an international strategic bond fund which will be launched in 2012 to Nick Hayes, formerly of New Star and Henderson, who since June 2010 has been manager of the Axa Sterling Strategic Bond Fund. Hayes will be assisted by Chris Iggo, CIO for bonds.

The British asset management firm JP Hambro is planning to launch a long/short fund, but has no plans to move into the fixed income sector, or absolute returns, Money Marketing reports. “We are going to launch a long/short fund. That’s a strategy that falls within our area of expertise, and which could represent a way to diversify our offerings. We have launched four new funds in the past twelve months, and launching new products next year is unlikely. We remain an equity management firm, and we are not going to get involved in fixed income,” says Gavin Rochussen, CEO of JP Hambro.

Alliance Trust Asset Management has confirmed plans to launch the Global Thematic Opportunties fund, which will be managed by Ilario Di Bon, head of global equities, in December. Fundweb reports that the former head of institutional global equities from Fidelity will be assisted by Jürgen Lanzer, senior investment manager.

Joseph “Skip” Skowron III, former hedge fund manager at FrontPoint Partners, was sentenced on 18 November to five years in prison, the Wall Street Journal reports.Skowron confessed to using insider information in 2008 about the results of clinical trials of Hepatitis C medication from Human Genome Sciences, which was supplied to him by a French doctor, Yves Benhamou. The insider information allowed the manager to avoid USD30m in trading losses.

The IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund and the Plumbers & Pipefitters’ Local #562 Pension fund have sued seven banks which the two US pension funds accuse of having misled them about MF Global’s USD6.3bn exposure to European government debt, the Telegraph reports. The defendants are RBS, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Jefferies.

Banif Banco Privada, convinced of the advantages that investment funds offer, has launched five unit-linked profiled pension funds, which will be managed by Santander Asset Management. Each retirement savings receptacle product will invest its portfolio in 10 to 20 different funds, Funds People reports. The profiles selected are Conservador (80-100% bonds), Moderado (60-100%), Equilibrado (40-100%), Dinámico (10-50%), and Agressivo (0-60%). All of these products carry a performance commission of 9%, in addition to management commissions ranging from 1.10% for the first product to 1.35% for the last three, while the Moderado fund charges management fees of 1.20%.

Sovereign funds and other institutional investors are increasingly turning to short positions on ETFs, Asian Investor reports. This trend is likely to continue in the next few months. Short-selling ETFs is common in the United States, where USD34.9bn in ETF assets were on loan as of the end of September, compared with only USD923m in Asia, and USD15.7bn Europe, according to the financial data provider Data Explorers. ETF providers are in favour of short-selling of their products, since it provides liquidity and increases interest in ETF vehicles. However, hedge funds have not yet embraced this trend in Asia, Asian Investor notes.

Thierry Brevet, Directeur du fonds de dotation du Louvre est revenu sur les principaux faits marquants des derniers mois au niveau de la gestion financière et les évolutions à venir en termes de stratégie de placements: Nous sommes investis sur la quasi totalité des classes d’actifs désormais à l’exception des small caps. La très forte volatilité récente des marchés ne nous encourageait guère à effectuer cette diversification. Si l’environnement économique et financier s’améliore, alors on remettra ce chantier sur la table. Aucune modification n’a été faite et aucune modification n’est envisagée en dehors de la sélection d’un ou deux fonds d’actions émergentes. Nous souhaitons privilégier une approche régionale (par exemple en Asie et au Brésil) en sélectionnant des fonds de sociétés de gestion locales de taille moyenne qui investissent notamment dans les mid caps. Mais il est très difficile d’identifier de telles sociétés de gestion avec un bon degré de confiance. Un investissement à travers des fonds globaux restent donc l'éventualité la plus probable à ce stade, en veillant à la qualité du stock???picking. La baisse des marchés actions n’a pas totalement été compensée par la hausse des obligations AAA, ce qui ne nous a pas permis d’accroître naturellement la valeur du portefeuille. Par ailleurs, nous avons reçu en 2011 un premier don important de la part de Mme Elahé Omidyar, présidente de la fondation Roshan aux Etats???Unis, et nous attendons d’ici la fin de l’année un premier don d’un jeune entrepreneur français. Rétrospectivement, la mise en place de forte contrainte d’investissement dans le mandat géré par BNP Paribas AM a été très payante : la sur-représentation des obligations AAA et la sous-représentation ou l’absence des dettes périphériques ont très fortement contribué à la performance pendant la période de stress des derniers mois.

Gamco Investors (USD31.3bn in assets as of the end of September) has announced that its affiliate, Gabelli Funds, is launching a second UCITS-compliant sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Gamco International, entitled Gamco Merger Arbitrage, Hedge Week reports. The product, managed by Mario Gabelli and Ralph Rooco, will initially be available to retail investors in Switzerland, Germany and Italy. It allows investors access to the mergers and arbitrage strategy from Gamco.

L’assureur Groupama vient d’enregistrer plusieurs défections importantes, rapporte Les Echos. La dernière en date, annoncée vendredi aux représentants du personnel, est celle d’Isabelle Calvez, la directrice des ressources humaines. Helman le Pas de Sécheval, le directeur général de la caisse régionale Groupama Centre-Atlantique, et Frédérique Granado, la directrice de la communication, vont également s’en aller dans les prochaines semaines. Par ailleurs, Michel Baylet, l’un des barons du groupe mutualiste, a démissionné de son poste de vice-président de Groupama SA, selon le quotidien.C’est dans ce contexte que la nouvelle équipe de direction poursuit la revue des actifs que Groupama pourrait éventuellement être contraint de céder. Generali France et Covéa seraient candidats à un rachat de GAN Assurances, selon «Le Journal du dimanche» d’hier, qui mentionne également un intérêt d’AXA et d’Allianz France. Faute d’avoir reçu vendredi réponses sur la situation financière de l’assureur, l’intersyndicale (CFDT, CFE-CGC, CGT) a, de son côté, confirmé la procédure de droit d’alerte.

Hugau Gestion a lancé le 20 mai High Yield Recovery, un fonds obligataire qu’elle a encore peu activement commercialisé et médiatisé.Il s’agit d’un FCP obligataire coordonné de droit français de 20-25 lignes, des valeurs de sociétés dont l’activité permet de dégager des cash flows récurrents pour faire face à leur dette. Le fonds est un «high yield prudent» qui investit dans des obligations «5B», à la frontière entre la catégorie investissement et du haut rendement (BB-/BBB-), un univers dont la volatilité est de 3,3 % contre 9,1 % pour le high yield.Le fonds, qui n’affiche pour l’instant que 13,1 millions d’euros d’encours (dont 20 % provenant de particuliers) répond aux besoins d’investisseurs qui cherchent un complément de rémunération à un placement obligataire court/moyen terme euro, en essayant de capter la surperformance engendrée par des émetteurs ne souhaitant pas de notation (comme Lagardère), des émetteurs non-investment grade avec profil de catégorie investissement (Pernod), des risques de dégradation déjà anticipés par le marché (Lafarge) ou des aberrations de marché de la zone euro (flux vendeurs sur les corporates PIIGS).L'équipe de gestion essaiera de tirer parti des ventes «réglementaires» d’obligations par des investisseurs contraints de se séparer de titres dès l’annonce d’une dégradation. Elle sera aussi acheteuse lorsque des émetteurs sont passés en haut rendement suite à une opération de croissance externe considérée comme créatrice de valeur mais financée par dette ou, enfin, lorsque les émetteurs sont sur le point d'être promus en «qualité investissement».Caractéristiques Dénomination : Hugau High Yield Recovery Code Isin : FR0011033984Frais de gestion : 1 %

Ne disposant pas de joint-venture (JV) en Chine continentale, Fidelity ne peut actuellement pas participer au marché domestique chinois de gestion collective. Pour Mark Talbot, directeur général Asie hors Japon de Fidelity, interrogé par La Tribune, il faut noter que le marché domestique « retail » ne constitue qu’un élément parmi d’autres dans la stratégie globale sur la Chine «et qu’il est actuellement bien plus petit que le marché institutionnel chinois qui investit à l'étranger et que nous pouvons cibler sans avoir de JV». Particulièrement actif sur ce marché, Fidelity travaille notamment avec les principaux fonds souverains et compagnies d’assurances, souligne Mark Talbot.

Les stratégies de hedge funds se sont redressées en octobre, selon les statistiques mensuelles communiquées par l’Edehec-Risk Institute. Les stratégies event driven et long/short equity ont ainsi enregistré des gains de respectivement 2,97% et 4,30%, affichant leurs meilleurs résultats depuis ces dernières années. Ces performances n’ont toutefois pas effacé les reculs de septembre si bien que depuis le début de l’année, l’event driven accuse une baisse de 2,8% et le long/short equity une perte de 3,8%. Malgré son exposition limitée, la stratégie equity market neutral a dégagé un gain de 1,58% qui a compensé les pertes de septembre. Depuis le début de l’année, cette stratégie marque un gain de 0,8%. A noter par ailleurs les bons résultats des stratégies marchés émergents et distressed securities avec des performances de 3,91% et 2,98%. Cela dit, depuis le début de l’année, elles reculent respectivement de 6,9 % et 1 %. Enfin, les fonds de fonds ont dégagé une performance de 1,22% en octobre, Cependant, depuis le 1er janvier, ils restent dans le rouge à hauteur de -4,2%.

Après 500 millions de dollars de sorties nettes sur une décade de septembre, l’encours total de la stratégie dette émergente de Pictet Asset Management ressort actuellement à 18 milliards de dollars contre 17 milliards fin décembre 2010. Ce total comporte, en plus des mandats, cinq fonds coordonnés de droit luxembourgeois pour un total de 11,18 milliards d’euros aussi bien en monnaies dites fortes qu’en monnaies locales.Le gestionnaire helvétique surveille de très près les souscriptions. Après une période de «soft closing», qui s’est traduite temporairement par une limitation à 1 million d’euros par jour des rentrées nettes par client, Pictet a relâché quelque peu sa vigilance, du fait des sorties de septembre. Cela posé, la surveillance concerne surtout le Pictet-Emerging Local Currency Debt, qui pèse déjà 6.654 millions d’euros (au 14 novembre).Il n’en demeure pas moins que le vœu des gérants (14 personnes à Singapour et Londres) serait d’augmenter la part des actifs institutionnels, plus «collants» (fidèles), à 50 % contre 35 % actuellement, comme l’a souligné Eugene Choi, spécialiste produits, lors d’un passage à Paris. Cette dernière a rappelé que l’objectif consiste à générer une surperformance de 1 à 3 points de pourcentage sur une période de 5 ans. La gestion s’effectue autant en top-down qu’en bottom-up, l’originalité de Pictet, selon elle, étant que les équipes gèrent séparément les devises et les taux. Eugene Choi a également précisé à Newsmanagers que, malgré la taille importante de ses encours en dette émergente, Pictet n’est pas obligé pour l’instant d’investir dans des produits peu liquides comme les notes structurées.

Depuis le 17 novembre, la Deutsche Börse a admis à la négociation sur sa plate-forme électronique Xetra huit ETC et huit ETN supplémentaires de la Commerzbank.Les ETC sur le pétrole brut qualité Brent et le gaz naturel sont disponibles en bull et en bear, simples ou avec un effet de levier de 2. Ils portent le nombre d’ETC cotés à Francfort à 210 unités, pour un volume de transactions mensuel moyen de 900 millions d’euros.En ce qui concerne les ETN, ils répliquent l'évolution des futures sur l’indice HangSeng et HangSeng China Enterprises, également en long et short ainsi qu’en simple ou avec un effet de levier de 2. Francfort cote ainsi désormais 83 ETN et le volume de transactions sur ce segment se situe en moyenne à 100 millions d’euros par jour.