Selon L’Agefi, la société d’investissement Wendel, via sa filiale Oranje-Nassau, a finalisé le rachat de Mecatherm, le leader mondial des équipements pour la boulangerie industrielle, pour une valeur d’entreprise d’environ 170 millions d’euros. Wendel, qui a investi à hauteur de 110 millions d’euros sur ses fonds propres, contrôle désormais 98% de Mecatherm, le solde appartenant à la direction de la société, relève le quotidien.

Dans un communiqué diffusé hier, mardi 4 octobre, la Banque Dexia a annoncé que l’aggravation de la crise des dettes souveraines européennes et les tensions induites sur le marché interbancaire l’ont conduit à accélérer son plan de restructuration en mai 2011. «Cependant, dans l’environnement actuel, la taille du portefeuille d’actifs non stratégiques pèse structurellement sur le groupe en dépit de la bonne qualité de crédit de ses actifs, précise la banque. C’est pourquoi le conseil d’administration a demandé à l’administrateur délégué de préparer, en concertation avec les Etats et les autorités de contrôle, les mesures nécessaires pour résoudre les problèmes structurels qui pénalisent les activités opérationnelles du groupe et ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives de développement à ses franchises commerciales historiques en Belgique et en France."Dans ce cadre, des cessions et alliances sont au programme, rapportait le même jour le site du magazine Le Point. La gestion d’actifs et la gestion privée, qui ont généré un milliard d’euros l’an passé, auraient ainsi déjà trouvé preneurs, selon le magazine.

BNY Mellon a renouvellé son partenariat avec Eureko B.V. et continuera donc de fournir des services de conservation pour l’ensemble des actifs du groupe financier néerlandais, qui totalisent plus de 38 milliards d’euros.

N+1 SYZ, l’entité de banque privée espagnole du groupe SYZ & CO, a annoncé le 4 octobre le renforcement de sa présence en Espagne, avec l’arrivée à Barcelone de deux nouveaux banquiers privés, Jordi Grau et Sergio García. La société compte désormais 3 bureaux en Espagne (Madrid, Barcelone et Bilbao) et gère 850 millions de francs suisses avec une équipe de 15 banquiers privés expérimentés.N+1 SYZ a lancé sa division de banque privée il y a un an et demi et regroupe actuellement une équipe de professionnels qui cumulent plusieurs années d’expérience dans la banque privée. L’entité a augmenté ses effectifs ces derniers mois dans les trois villes où elle est présente. Jordi Grau et Sergio Garcia occupaient auparavant des postes de direction dans la banque privée chez Caixa en Catalogne.

La CNMV a enregistré le compartiment DWS Invest Top Dividend Premium LC pour la vente en Espagne, un produit de droit luxembourgeois (LU0616849567) qui pesait 8,34 millions d’euros le 3 octobre et qui a été lancé par DWS Investments (groupe Deutsche Bank) le 11 août 2011.Il s’agit d’une version optimisée des fonds DWS Invest Top Dividend, une stratégie de sélection d’actions sur un critère de dividendes durablement élevés qui pèse environ 6 milliards d’euros confiée à Thomas Schüssler et qui comporte notamment un compartiment luxembourgeois de 405,38 millions d’euros. Le gérant du nouveau fonds, Jens Labusch, pratique une stratégie d’options couvertes qui doit générer un surcroît de revenus en venant se greffer sur le portefeuille du Top Dividend. L’objectif est de servir un dividende annuel de 7 %.

Pour soutenir Gian Luca Giuliani, responsable du marché ibérique, qui monte une structure pour mieux servir les clients espagnols, Pimco a recruté à Londres Victoria Caro, qui travaillait dans la division banque privée de Gold Sachs et couvrait l’Espagne et le Portugal, rapporte Funds People.Avec l’adoption récente du dispositif séparant les gestions de Pimco et d’Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) sous l’ombrelle unique d’Allianz Asset Management, José María Concejo se concentrera désormais en Espagne sur la commercialisation des produits Allianz Global Investors.

L’allemand Bank Sarasin AG, filiale du suisse Banque Sarasin & Cie (groupe Rabobank), a annoncé le 4 octobre deux recrutements dans le domaine du conseil en Allemagne.Dagmar Bottenbruch (ex responsable de l’Allemagne chez Rabobank) et Ulrich Hähner (ex-responsable de l’activité banque privée chez Delbrück Bethmann Maffei à Düsseldorf) vont être subordonnés à Frank Niehage, président du directoire de Bank Sarasin AG. Il s’agit de deux créations de poste.Dagmar Bottenbruch est désormais directrice du «corporate advisory» et donc du conseil aux entreprises, notamment pour les questions d’héritage, de financements alternatifs et de mise d’entreprises en réseau. Pour sa part Ulrich Hähner prendra en charge le conseil aux family offices et aux fondations. Il devient directeur «special solutions/fondations» et opérera dans toute l’Allemagne à partir de Cologne.

La Deutsche Bank a indiqué le 4 octobre dans un communiqué que les pôles Private Clients and Asset Management et Global Transaction Banking devraient enregistrer un résultat record au troisième trimestre.La banque souligne toutefois que les résultats des pôles Corporate Banking & Securities et Corporate & Investment Banking ne seront pas à la hauteur des attentes. En banque d’investissement, les effectifs devraient même être réduits de 500 au quatrième trimestre 2011 et au premier trimestre 2012. Les résultats du groupe au troisième trimestre devraient cependant être satisfaisants, de même que les résultats sur l’ensemble de l’année. L’objectif d’un résultat avant impôts de 10 milliards d’euros dans les activités clés de la banque n’est toutefois plus d’actualité compte tenu des ajustements en cours et de la persistance des turbulences de marchés, précise la banque. Les résultats complets du troisième trimestre seront présentés le 25 octobre prochain.

Horst Schmidt, président du directoire de la banque privée Delbrück Bethmann Maffei, a annoncé qu'à compter du 4 octobre, dans un souci de simplification, cette filiale allemande du groupe ABN Amro a changé sa raison sociale en Bethmann Bank.La banque privée Delbrück & Co avait été achetée par le groupe néerlandais en 2002, puis fusionnée avec Bethmann Maffei en février 2004.La nouvelle Bethmann Bank a enregistré au premier semestre 2011 des rentrées nettes d’environ 1 milliard d’euros, après un doublement à 1,3 milliard en 2010. Actuellement, les actifs sous gestion représentent environ 17 milliards d’euros.Tout récemment, Delbrück Bethmann Maffei a annoncé l’acquisition de LGT Bank Deutschland (lire notre article du 30 septembre).

An extraordinary general shareholders’ meeting for Sparinvest SICAV (14 sub-funds), held on 30 September, voted to bring the Sicav fund into compliance with the UCITS IV directive, following the issuance of a license to the asset management firm Sparinvest S.A. by the CSSF in July this year. Shareholders also approved the appointment of a new board of directors, with the aim of internationalising the fund. Sparinvest has announced the appointment of three influential people in the world of finance to the board of directors at Sparinvest SICAV. They are Torben Nielsen, chairman, who is a former governor of the Danish central bank (Danmarks Nationalbank), Benedicte Vibe Christensen, former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Peter Reedtz, director and owner of the Danish asset allocation institute.

Axa Investment Managers has announced the launch of Axa World Fund Framlington Natural Resources, a global equity fund designed to capture the long termpositive trends in commodity prices. The fund seeks performance across every commodity type, actively investing in companies operating in the energy, industrial metals, precious metals and soft commodity markets. It invests in companies engaged in activities that span the entire value chain, such as exploration and refining within the oil sector or from fertiliser to machinery within the agricultural sector.The portfolio aims to hold between 70 and 90 stocks with market capitalisations ranging from approximately USD1 to USD350 billion. The stocks are selected based on the fund manager’s strongest convictions shaped by a combination of company analysis and a topdown commodity and macroeconomic view.The fund is managed by an investment team - Sebastien Lagarde, senior portfolio manager and Olivier Eugene, portfolio manager - which also manages the AWFFramlington Hybrid Resources and AWF Framlington Junior Energy portfolios.

Due to “structural problems” at the French-Belgian firm Dexia, selloffs and alliances are on the menu, the website of Le Point magazine reports. As a part of the plans, asset management and private management, which generated EUR1bn last year, are reported already to have found buyers, the magazine reports.

Jean-Luc Bianchi is joining Ecofi Investissements (Crédit Coopératif group) as director of institutional clients, the firm announced on 4 October.Before joining Ecofi Investissements, Bianchi was director of clients for French-speaking Europe at Olympia Capital Management.Bianchi’s “arrival will allow the firm to consolidate and develop a long-term partnership with institutional investors, who are at the core of our history and our expertise,” Ecofi says in a statement.

Parisian assets of the US management firm Muzinich now total over EUR1.1bn, of which more than EUR450m are in France, while the remainder comes from Geneva, Luxembourg and Belgium. At the beginning of this year, assets under management totalled about EUR650m. Since the beginning of this year, Muzinich-Paris, led by Eric Pictet, has posted net inflows of EUR520m, despite net outflows of EUR27m in July-September. In the first nine months of the year, gross inflows totalled EUR1.35bn, of which EUR500m were in third quarter.

Benjamin Melman, director of the absolute return unit at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (Edrim), who is in charge of the management of the Quadrim 4 and Quadrim 8 funds, has announced that assets in the funds have fallen by about EUR100m since the beginning of the year, due to losses of 0.5% for the former and 2.86% for the latter fund, which are honourable results in light of the highly adverse evolution of the markets, and the skittish mood of some segments of clients.The only current directional bet is a 6% allocation to emerging markets, which the manager admits was made a bit early, although positions have been reduced since. However, “the discount of emerging markets, following a major correction, has returned to its levels at the beginning of the last decade, and emerging markets equities are really inexpensive.” In general, Melman says that he has adopted an «ultra-prudent» management policy: he is not limiting himself to macro strategies, but is also using quantitative IT tools such as trend monitoring and currency volatility. He adds that “the only real way to diversify is not over asset classes but over styles;” and Edrim constantly deploys ten strategies.

The European fund and asset management association (EFAMA) published on October 4 a report undertaken by Strategic Insight, which aims to give investors greater transparency and understanding of cost breakdown within the total expense ratio (TER) of European mutual funds. As a part of its campaign to promote investor education and information, the professional association says that greater transparency is needed to reveal the breakdown of fees within the TER of funds so investors understand what they are paying. In Europe, investors in retail equity funds pay an average of about 175 basis points in commissions (TER), while for subscribers in bond funds, the average fee level stands at about 117 basis points. On average, UCITS fund managers retain around 42% of the TER. Distributors claim about 41% of the TER in retrocessions, with the remaining 17% is allocated to other operating services such as custody and fund administration. In insurance and banking distribution chains, equity and bond managers apply 47% and 45%, respectively, of annual charges in management fees. 53% and 55% of fees, respectively, go to distributors in retrocessions. After commissions are paid out to distributors, management fees for European FCP funds total an average of 74 basis points for actively-managed equity funds, and 49% for bond funds. The study funds that when three major US fund management firms are not taken into account (American Funds, Fidelity and Vanguard), whose assets under management may be as high as USD1trn each, average management commissions in the United States are only 3 basis points greater than in Europe. Taking these three US heavyweights into account, management fees in the US are 11 points lower than those charged in Europe. However, the US market still largely depends on independent financial advisers. More than 50% of sales of US funds are made via IFAs, who make their money through commissions on the basis of assets at a level of 1% to 1.5%, in addition to the TER for the funds. The report says in its conclusions that the development and maturing of the asset management sector in Europe will come with operational improvements which may also have an impact on costs. The UCITS IV directive will favour economies of scale, with cross-border mergers and master-feeder structures. Regulatory changes in the United Kingdom, with the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), and other regulatory evolutions worldwide (Australia, United States, and India) will also have an influence on European initiatives in the future.

BNY Mellon Asset Management is launching BNY Mellon Liquidity Funds, a range of short-term money market funds managed by BNY Mellon Cash Investment Strategies, the division of BNY Mellon Asset Management dedicated to money market and short-term bond management, with USD536bn in assets under management. The range is composed of four funds: BNY Mellon Euro Liquidity Fund, BNY Mellon Sterling Liquidity Fund, BNY Mellon US Dollar Liquidity Fund, and BNY Mellon US Treasury Fund. The strategy of the fund, which is rated AAA by Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, is based on a conservative money market management approach relying on high quality investments and daily liquidity.

Eaton Vance Management on Monday, 3 October announced the launch of the Eaton Vance Bernstein All Asset Strategy Fund. The product, managed by Richard Bernstein with a macroeconomic approach, invests worldwide in a variety of asset classeds (equities, bonds, commodities, currencies, and others).

Guillaume Rambourg, a former star manager from Gartmore, is preparing to launch his own hedge fund firm in Paris, according to reports in the Financial Times. The structure, to be entitled Verazzano Capital, will aim to raise USD1bn. Rambourg will be assisted by four partners: the head of the Delta One division of Goldman Sachs, Karim Moussalem; the founder of Lyxor Asset Management, Murielle Maman; a director from the hedge fund division at UBS, Tim Williams, and a former Gartmore senior manager, Tomás Pintó.

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has registered six fixed income ETFs on Nyse Euronext in Paris, Agefi reports. The SPDR-branded funds, which have been licensed for sale in France for a few months, and are already listed in London and/or Berlin, invest in public or corporate debt from the euro zone or the United States, and in corporate bonds from emerging markets in local currencies.In order to boost sales, two ETF sales specialists will also join the asset management firm at the end of October, the firm has announced, adding that it is also hiring for two more general positions by the end of this year.

Candidates to acquire the private equity firm Axa PE, which Axa is studying the possibility of selling, have until Tuesday to submit preliminary bids. The US funds TPG and KKR have come forward as candidates, as has the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by La Tribune.

The FPPM group has raised EUR2.1m in its third round of fundraising in 18 months. This time, the Alto Invest funds, which are new entrants in the capital of the group, invested a total of EUR1.6m in equities and bonds, alongside CDC Entreprises, which has increased its position by EUR1.5m in bonds. The FPPM group, founded in 1989 by René Camart and based in Paris (75), is originally a leader in advising on the use of natural resources. It now has two affiliates, Européenne de marbre (EDM Projets) et la Pierre de France (deposits and careers unit). Camart comments that “this third round of fundraising is essential to ensure the development of our group, both for its activities via EDM, and our deposits unit, for the consolidation of that profession, so as to allow it a wider internatinoal audience.” FPPM is projecting earnings in 2011 of about EUR75m, compared with EUR52m last year, of which 30% were from exports.

The US firm Morgan Stanley on 3 October announced the launch of FX Gateway, a multi-manager platform which aims to provide institutional investors with access to a selection of currency managers, and to provide managers with a more diversified client base. As a part of this process, Morgan Stanley is acting as FX prime broker and distributor for the platform.

With a restructured team in the Asia-Pacific region, Morgan Stanley Investment Management (Morgan Stanley IM) is planning to increase its assets under management to at least USD100bn in the next three to five years, from USD34bn at the end of 2010, Asian Investor reports. A tripling of assets under management will be made easier by an enriched product range, including long-only and private equity funds.

East Capital Explorer announced on Tuesday, 4 October that it has recruited Mia Jurke as CEO. Jurke will join the firm on 15 October, after serving as CEO of East Capital Asset Management. Jurke replaces Tiivas Gert, who will join the private equity investment activities of East Capital for the Baltic countries, once the new CEO has begun in her new role. East Capital Explorer was created to allow shareholders to benefit from the expertise of East Capital as an investor in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and turkey, by investing in high-performance businesses in the region which are not publicly traded.

The Julius Baer private banking group, which is seeking to make Asia its second-largest market after Switzerland, has recruited for its team in the Greater China region. Victor Chao Tzu-Ping has joined the group effective immediately, Agefi Switzerland reports. In addition, Catherine Tseng will direct a new strategic initiative in the region which will aim to develop the Key Client segment. Tzu-Ping has over 25 years of experience in private banking, and was most recently head of the Private Wealth Management China division at Deutsche Bank.

Threadneedle Investments has added to its team in Italy with the recruitment of Paolo Tommasino as senior sales manager. He will be in charge of developing activities serving retail clients, family offices and private banks. Before joining Threadneedle, Tommasino worked at Franklin Templaton as senior manager for retail distribution. “The arrival of Paolo Tomasino as a part of our team represents a further step in our development on the Italian market,” Alessandro Aspesi, country head of Italy at Threadneedle, explains. The UK asset management firm arrived in Italy in 2008.

BNY Mellon has renewed its partnership with Eureko B.V., and will thus continue to provide custody services for all assets of the Netherlands-based financial group, which has over EUR38bn in total assets.

As Gian Luca Giuliani, head of the Iberian market, is building a structure to better serve Spanish clients, Pimco has recruited Victoria Caro, who had worked in the private banking division of Goldman Sachs serving Spain and Portugal, for its London office, Funds People reports. Following the recent enactment of a decision to combine the management activities of Pimco and Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) under the single name of Allianz Asset Management, José María Concejo will now concentrate on sales of Allianz Global Investors products in Spain.

N+1 SYZ, the Spanish private banking entity of the SYZ & CO group, on 4 October announced that it has reinforced its presence in Spain, with the addition of two new private bankers in Barcelona, Jordi Grau and Sergio García. The company now comprises three offices in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao), and manages EUR700m with a team of 15 senior private bankers. N+1 SYZ launched its private banking division a year and a half ago and now incorporates a number of executives combining a broad experience in private banking at a national and international level. In the last few months, the entity has increased its teams of private bankers in all three cities where it is present.Jordi Grau and Sergio García were both previously senior executives at La Caixa’s private banking division in Catalonia.