CalPERS a annoncé le 14 décembre qu’il avait sélectionné la société Meketa Investment Group en tant que conseil pour son programme d’investissement dans les infrastructures.Fondée en 1974, cette société basée dans le Massachusetts fournit des services de conseil pour environ 70 milliards de dollars d’actifs institutionnels. Depuis 2006, Meketa évalue les stratégies d’investissement dans des projets d’infrastructures.CalPERS a dégagé 700 millions de dollars dans sa poche des actifs liés à l’inflation lancée en 2008 qui comprend également les commodities, les forêts et les obligations indexées. De nouveaux investissements dans les infrastructures sont en cours d’examen. L’allocation infrastructures peut représenter jusqu'à 1,5% du total des actifs de CalPERS d’ici à la fin de 2010. Ce qui autorise un engagement potentiel jusqu'à 7 milliards de dollars sur cinq ans. L’objectif de performance est de 5% au-dessus de l’indice des prix à la consommation (CPI).

Selon Les Echos, les pertes liées à l’immobilier commercial continuent de peser sur les banques qui tiennent toujours serrés les cordons du crédit. Depuis le début de la crise, les banques américaines ont perdu 1.600 milliards de dollars selon Goldman Sachs qui estime entre 2.100 et 2.600 milliards les pertes totales de crédit pour le secteur… Ce qui veut dire qu’il resterait encore un tiers de pertes à reconnaître. Une bonne part viendrait des crédits immobiliers, résidentiels et commerciaux, le reste des crédits à la consommation et des crédits aux entreprises.

Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI) indique avoir signé les Principes de l’investissement responsable des Nations-Unies (UB-PRI). Parallèlement, PREI a récemment adhéré au programme Energy Star de l’Agence américaine de protection de l’environnement (US EPA). A fin mars 2009, l’encours brut en actifs immobiliers de PREI, filiale de Prudential Financial, se montait à 43,3 milliards de dollars pour le compte de 490 clients.

Dimanche, Chris Browne a succombé à une crise cardiaque. Il passait pour le pape de la gestion value. Il était senior advisor et ancien managing director de Tweedy Browne. L’annonce a été faite par les quatre managing directors restants, son frère Will Browne, Thomas Shrager, John Spears et Robert Wyckoff Jr, rapporte Mutual Fund Wire.

Dès lors que Mary J. Miller a été désignée pour devenir secrétaire adjoint au Trésor pour les marchés financiers (lire notre dépêche du 7 octobre), T. Rowe Price a promu Mike Gitlin comme director of fixed income, avec la responsabilité d’un encours voisin de 100 milliards de dollars (sur un total de 366,2 milliards à fin septembre). L’impétrant était jusqu'à présent head of global trading. Il a rejoint T. Rowe Price en 2007.

Cameron Pettigrew, relationship manager pour la clientèle privée du bureau de Fidelity Investments à Westlake, a été licencié, de même que trois autres employés, pour avoir joué à un jeu de foot virtuel (football fantasy), selon le Star-Telegram du 11 décembre. L’intéressé, qui était commissaire de sa propre ligue de foot, savait que Fidelity était contre les jeux de football au bureau. Mais il affirme que cette politique n’avait pas vraiment été diffusée et qu’elle était ignorée par la hiérarchie, indique le journal.

Funds People reported on Tuesday that the French asset management firm UFG-LFP has launched the LFP Libroblig fund. The product is invested in European subordinated bonds. It is a UCITS fund with weekly liquidity, which aims for annualised performance of 8% in the long term, with a portfolio of 30 positions with no predetermined volatility objective. The fund, managed by Paul Gurzal, has no real benchmark, but uses the Iboxx Eurofinancials Subordinated index as a reference. Its highest exposure is to France, the market which the management team knows best. There is no German or British paper in the portfolio presently. In Spain, only the best paper is included in the portfolio, which also includes Belgian and Dutch “lower tier 2” rated securities.

On Tuesday, three new ETFs from iShares (BlackRock) were added to trading on the XTF segment of hte Xetra electronic platform (Deutsche Börse). They are German-registered corporate bond funds, each of which charges a management commission of 0.20%: iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials, iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials 1-5, and iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond 1-5, which replicate the corresponding Barclays indices. The three new products bring the number of ETFs available on XTF to 547.

In a statement, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that it has ordered refunds of USD418m to subscribers in Fair Funds who lost money due to market timing transactions by certain Invesco mutual funds advised by the Invesco Funds Group (IFG) to be unfrozen. The majority of the money, USD325m plus USD39m in interest, will come from IFG, but Bank of America Capital Management, BACAP Distributors, and Bank of America Securities, LLC Fair Fund, will pay a total of USD45.8m, and USD8.7m will come from the Bear Stearns & Co. Fair Fund.

China Universal Asset Management has recruited Sheldon Gao and Doria Wong to join its Hong Kong office. Gao, previously CEO of Schroders in Shanghai, will direct the office, while Wong, currently CIO in the Hong Kong office of Standard Life Investments, will be in charge of product sales, Asian Investor reports. The Hong Kong office of China Universal Asset Management will open in February 2010.

Fitch Ratings has assigned an Asset Manager rating of “M2” to Société Générale Asset Management (SGAM) for its traditional asset management activities, and then withdrawn the rating, due to the merger of the asset management firm with Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM), which will be completed in January 2010, and which will mark the end of SGAM’s existence as a distinct entity. The rating will cover all asset management activities based in Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong, excepting the activities of SGAM Alternative Investment (SGAM AI) and other alternative management operations. Trust Company of the West (TCW) is also excluded from the perimeter of the rating. “The M2 rating mirrors the solidity of the operational platform at SGAM, which is based on Decalog, the central position maintenance tool now used for all portfolios, whose ability to connect with brokers, administrators and depositories has recently been upgraded. The rating also reflects the rigorous risk control and compliance system at SGAM, the high technical level of fixed income management, and the diversity of asset classes covered, and the reach of the investor base. The last two elements reduce the risk of revenue volatility, despite net redemptions in 2008 and 2009,” the ratings agency says. The rating “also takes into account the deterioration of profits at the firm in the past three years, due to significant losses related to support lent to dynamic money market and hedge funds.” Fitch also counts among the negative factors that “the imminent merger with CAAM will weaken the stability of teams and processes, due to the climate of uncertainty engendered by the merger and the facilities for internal mobility within the Société Générale group, which have resulted in departures on several levels from the asset management firm.”

On Sunday, Chris Browne suffered a cardiac arrest. He was widely viewed as a high priest of value management. He was senior advisor and former managing director of Tweedy Browne. The announcement was made by the four remaining managing directors, his brother, Will Browne, Thomas Shrager, John Spears, and Robert Wyckoff Jr., Mutual Fund Wire reports.

Since Mary J. Miller has been appointed deputy secretary to the Treasury for financial markets (see Newsmanagers of 7 October), T. Rowe Price has promoted Mike Gitlin to the position of director of fixed income, putting him in charge of assets of about USD100bn (out of a total of USD366.2bn as of the end of September). Gitlin was previously head of global trading. He joined T. Rowe Price in 2007.

Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI) has announced that it has signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI). PREI has also recently signed up to the Energy Star program with the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). As of the end of March 2009, gross assets in real estate properties owned by PREI, an affiliate of Prudential Financial, totalled USD43.3bn, on behalf of 490 clients.

The French asset management firm Tobam, formerly known as Lehman Brothers Asset Management France, has signed a partnership with Investeam, a third party marketing firm, to distribute its funds to Canadian institutional investors. “With high barriers to entry and high implantation costs, we think that the use of a known local partner on the Canadian market who will be able to bring the unique AntiBenchmark approach to a high-quality client base is the most effective way for us at Tobam to offer our expertise to Canadians,” explains Yves Choueifaty, president of the asset manager. The partnership marks a new stage in the international development of Tobam, which manages about EUR750m in assets, following distribution agreements in Scandinavia and Australia.

Cameron Pettigrew, a relationship manager in the private client group at Fidelity Investments’ Westlake office, and three other employees were fired for playing fantasy football, according to the Star-Telegram. Pettigrew, who was the commissioner of his league, knew Fidelity had a policy against playing fantasy football at the office. But he said the policy was poorly communicated and ignored by leadership.

The Austrian asset management firm Erste Sparinvest (the asset manager for Erste Bank and the Austrian savings banks) on Tuesday announced the launch of the fund of funds Espa Vinis Microfinance, managed by Martin Cach. The fund will invest in 10 to 15 microfinance funds or in fixed-duration bonds (notes) issued by microfinance funds. Currency risks will be “largely” hedged, and the issuer will aim for returns of 4-6% per year. Initially, the product will be offered to institutional investors, but qualified retail investors will also be permitted to subscribe.

Xact Fonder has launched two new exchange traded funds on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (Nasdaq OMX). The new funds XACT Europe Bull 2 and XACT Europe Bear 2 follow the Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Index and have a leverage of two. The funds are traded in SEK and are the only of its kind in Sweden. The management fee is 0.6%. Xact Fonder currently offers 14 ETFs on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and Oslo Børs.

The star private equity manager Jon Moultaon has raised GBP142m for his new fund, Better Capital, which will launch an initial public offering at 100 pence per share on the AIM this Thursday, the Financial Times reports. Better Capital, based in Guernsey, but with offices in Covent Garden in London, received funds from Ruffer Investment Management, BlackRock, Scottish Widows, Aviva and Artemis. The fund will be a feeder for a traditional private equity fund managed by Moulton. He will invest in British firms with “significant operating issues [that] may have associated financial distress,” and will invest no more than GBP28m in any single operation, nor more than 10% of its assets in listed companies.

In October, Emerging Market funds topped the sector rankings in both the equity and bond categories, according to the latest Feri FMI’s Fund Flash. Inflows in Emerging Market Bond funds amounted to EUR2.6bn. The figure was EUR2.2bn for Emerging Equity funds. A total of EUR28bn was poured in fixed income and equity funds alone and flows were split in almost equal measure. Overall, industry inflows for the month amounted to EUR24n, but once money market flows were discounted, the figure jumped to EUR35bn – the best long-only total since April 2006. Year to date sales stand at EUR176bn and if the trend is maintained in Q4, 2009 could come close to matching to matching 2006’s volumes, says Lipper. The group with the strongest equity flows and the strongest net inflows for the month was BlackRock.

Swiss Life announced on 15 December that it has sold a portion of its stake in MLP to the German insurer Barmenia. Swiss Life’s stake in MLP will be reduced from 15.9% to 9.9%. The sale price for the shares has not been divulged. Swiss Life entered the capital of the financial services provider MLP without its consent, with the objective of initiating a similar development on the German market to the one which had proved successful with AWD since 2008. Fierce resistance from MLP forces Swiss Life into retreat. With a sale of some of its shares to Barmenia Krankenversicherung, Swiss Life has achieved its declared objective to reduce its stake in MLP below 10%.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Christopher, baron von Oppenheim, who for the past five years has been in charge of private banking activities at Sal. Oppenheim, will retire from operational responsibility for the firm, as control of the establishment is handed over to Deutsche Bank in first quarter. He may retain a figurehead position as director of Oppenheim KGaA, or perhaps will remain in a position as an advisor, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. In this case, there will no longer be any representatives of the Oppenheim family in the firm’s management.

H24 Finance reports that Martin Coward, formerly a star fund manager at Goldman Sachs, will be leaving his job as CEO of Ikos, a hedge fund founded 17 years ago by Elena Ambrosiadou, his wife. The fund, with assets of EUR4bn, is managed in Cyprus, where Ikos AM is based.

Les Echos reports that the City will remain one of the largest financial centres in the world, but a 50% tax on 2009 bonuses over GBP25,000 and other measures have already led to the departures of the most mobile finance professionals, such as younger traders, fund managers, and high-profile bankers.

The High Court in London on Tuesday ruled money that was not properly ring-fenced by Lehman’s European arm could not be claimed out of a USD1bn pool controlled by the bank’s administrators, says the Financial Times. While a victory for Goldman and GLG, whose money was properly separated, the decision means that several Lehman affiliates as well as other hedge fund clients will not be able to pursue about USD3bn worth of claims against the pool.

Die Welt has announced that Christopher, Baron von Oppenheim, will no longer be a member of the new management team at Sal. Oppenheim, and neither will the other three heads of the bank, Matthias, count of Krockow, Dieter Pfundt, and Friedrich Carl Janssen, as BaFin is planning to withdraw the license which allowed them to manage the bank. Von Oppenheim may hope to play a role as a director, if he succeeds in organizing an acquisition of a participation in the bank from Deutsche Bank, but his efforts currently appear likely to fail. If BaFin shows a red card to the four heads of the bank, it may complicate a resale of the investment bank’s activities. Previously, Dieter Pfundt appeared to be likely to continue to direct the division after its sale by Deutsche Bank.

According to Financial News, Karl Bergqwist, the former co-head of fixed income at Gartmore, has resurfaced at Arrowgrass Capital Partners, a multi-strategy hedge fund founded by a team from Deutsche Bank, less than a year after he left the UK investment group.

Les achats nets effectués par les investisseurs étrangers n'ont atteint en octobre que 20,7 milliards de dollars, contre 40,7 milliards en septembre

Les résultats de l'opération à douze mois à taux indexé seront connus ce matin. Les analystes s'attendent à une demande modérée des banques

En novembre, les fonds autrichiens ont accusé des remboursements nets de 447,5 millions d’euros contre des souscriptions nettes de 206,7 millions en octobre, ce qui porte les sorties nettes depuis le début de l’année à 690,7 millions d’euros. L’encours est néanmoins ressorti à 135,7 milliards d’euros contre 135,4 milliards fin octobre, rapporte l’association VÖIG du secteur. Depuis le plus bas récent enregistré fin mars (121,3 milliards d’euros), les actifs sous gestion se sont accrus de 11,87 %. La hausse par rapport à fin décembre s’est établie à 7,7 %. Cela posé, en avril et mai 2008, l’encours total représentait encore 152 milliards d’euros.