The US asset management arm of Société Générale, TCW, which manages about USD105bn in assets, may be involved in a recapitalisation or an MBO in partnership with a private equity fund. The New York Post reports on 1 September that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is among the private equity funds that may participate in an operation of this type. In an interview with the New York Post, the interim CEO of TCW, Mark Stern, says that private equity may be involved in a recapitalisation operation at the affiliate, but denies that Société Générale is planning to sell the firm. Société Générale acquired a majority stake in TCW in 2001, and has gradually increased its stake to 70%. The French bank, which did not comment the article, confirmed yesterday that at a time when its management activities are being merged with those of Crédit Agricole, it would like to spin off TCW with an IPO in the next five years. After the merger of its management activities with those of Crédit Agricole, the firm expects to hold a 20% stake in TCW.

Fund Channel, founded four years ago by Crédit Agricole Asset Management, has opened its capital to BNP Paribas Investment Partners, which has acquired a 49.96% stake. The purchase price for the stake has not been disclosed. With its network of 196 locations, the business will provide “a purchasing core which will make it possible to take advantage of reduced price agreements with distribution commission calculation and recovery services,” Fund Channel explains. The platform has been the subject of interest on the part of BNP Paribas, whose multi-management activities are provided by FundQuest. With the entry of BNP Paribas into its capital, Fund Channel will see an increase in its assets from EUR8bn to over EUR20bn. The allegiance is also a sign that the two firms do not adhere to open architecture. However, the partnership comes at a time when the world of asset management is undergoing a phase of unprecedented consolidation.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) has recruited two executive directors as of 1 September, who will be in charge of banking client relationship management (commercial banks, savings banks, co-operative banks). The team, led by Michael Gruener, director of distribution for retail funds, now consists of seven people, with the arrival of Thorsten Saemann (ex senior manager business development at Standard Chartered Bank), and of Erik Drollinger, who was previously a retail specialist at Henderson Global Investors for Germany.By the end of the year, five more recruitments are planned, which will allow GSAM to quadruple its sales force. The new recruits will also be in charge of banking client relationship management.

Companies of the CAC 40 have posted EUR21.2bn in earnings in total in first half, a decline of 57% compared with the corresponding period of last year, according to tallies by Ricol-Lasteriye for Les Echos. This decline is partially the fault of heavyweights of the index such as Total, whose profits were virtually halved to EUR4.459trn.

According to sources familiar with the matter, cited by the Wall Street Journal, Morgan Stanley is planning to integrate its fund business Van Kampen into a joint venture, which would be founded in partnership with a larger ally. Among the firms that may team up with Morgan Stanley in asset management are Invesco, Franklin Resources, Aberdeen AM, Federated Investors, and Nuveen Investments.

At a presentation of its half-yearly results, Partners Group, whose staff increased 60% since July 2007 to 355 (as of 30 June), has announced the creation of a new position for a Head of Operations development, effective from 1 January. Kurt Bichler, who is currently CFO, will assume the new position, and will be replaced in his current role by Cyril Wipfli, a partner at Partners Group and head of communication. Bichler will be in charge of the expansion of Partners Group’s activities in Singapore.

In first half, subscriptions to Partners Group totalled CHF1.4bn gross, and CHF0.6bn net (see Newsmanagers of 13 July), and the manager has once again confirmed that it aims to bring in between CHF3bn and CHF4bn for the year as a whole. Subscriptions from Asia represented 11% of the total, compared with 2% in 2008. As of the end of June, assets totalled CHF24.9bn. EBITDA for January-June, at CHF114.4m, approached the record of CHF115.9m in the corresponding period of last year, but adjusted net profits were down to CHF85.1m, from CHF110.1m, largely due to losses of CHF20.4m (compared with profits of CHF4m) due to provisional capital losses on investments in certain inhouse products for which the company is a general partner. Currency effects were also negative for CHF8.7m, and falling interest rates reduced revenues from interest on liquidity (CHF156m on average) to CHF2.1m from CHF5.5m.

HSBC’s Geneva-based private saw net outflows of over USD4bn from the hedge funds portfolios in first half, the Financial Times reports. Assets at HSBC Alternative Investments, the fund of fund business of the bank, now total USD22.27bn, compared with USD46.28bn at their peak in September 2008.

In August, the strongest net subscriptions for Spanish management firms were at Ibercaja Gestión, with EUR157.1m, ahead of BBVA Asset Management (EUR74.8m), Invercaixa Gestión (EUR45.8m), and Santander Asset Management (EUR24.7m), according to statistics from the Inverco association.In terms of assets, the rankings remain unchanged: BBVA AM leads with nearly EUR33bn, followed by Santander AM (EUR28.6bn) and Invercaixa Gestión with EUR12.5bn.

This week, the US Marshal Service is planning to sell the house of Bernard Madoff in Madock, Long Island, at auction. It plans to bring in USD8m for the property (it was bought for USD3m in 1979). Madoff’s Manhattan apartment is expected to sell for USD7m, while the Florida house is expected to bring in USD11m, Die Welt reports. The auctions will also include artworks, furniture, and Ruth Madoff’s shoes.

La Tribune reports that the European council for economic and social affairs (ECOFIN) will release the results of stress tests of European banks by the end of the month, “most probably before the G20,” the CEBS (European committee of banking supervisors), in charge of receiving the results of efforts by national regulators and European banks submitted to ECOFIN, announced on Tuesday.

A report on the Bernard Madoff fraud by the inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission, David Kotz, was submitted on Monday to the chairman of the regulatory agency, and will be published in one week, the Wall Street Journal reports. The 450-page document will offer a detailed description of the way in which the fraudster escaped detection for lo long. The report is expected to blame inexperience and lack of competence on the part of those who investigated Madoff, the WSJ reports.

The circle of banks which have partially or completely paid off funds received as part of the US government’s TARP aid program may soon grow by one bank, La Tribune reports, citing the Wall Street Journal. According to the newspaper, Bank of America (BoA) is negotiating to reimburse USD20bn which it received in January at the time of its acquisition of Merrill Lynch. BoA would not be paying off all the aid it has received - it had previously received USD25bn in assistance - but it is said to no longer be considered a recipient of “special” government assistance. The US newspaper reports that this will allow it to get free of the surveillance of pay scales by Kenneth Feinberg, the bonus czar for the United States.

Five months after the stock market rally began, subscriptions to securities funds in August totalled nearly EUR3.55bn, and redemptions totalled over EUR3.14bn, while the sector has posted its first net subscriptions (EUR402m) since April 2007. However, Expansión notes, the number of shareholders in investment funds has fallen further to 5.69 million in August, which represents a 1.19% decline in July.

For companies which manage mutual funds, the best strategy in times of economic difficulties is often to merge products, but this is not always the best solution for investors, the Wall Street Journal reports. Mergers such as these make it possible to conceal poor performance or to absorb funds which have become too small to be profitable. There have already been 300 mergers of funds between the beginning of the year and mid-August, as many as in all of the year 2008. Specialists are expecting this trend to accelerate, as managers are facing growing pressure to reduce costs as competition intensifies, particularly due to ETF products. For subscribers, mergers like these may be beneficial as they may lead to reduced fees, but this is not always the case. In particular,one shouldpay attention tothe duration of the waivers that keep the combined fund’s expense ratio from exceeding the acquired fund’s pre-merger expenses.

The Finles/IEX index of 23 Netherlands-based hedge funds, which ia being calculated for the first time by Circle Partners, has posted returns of 0.41% in July, bringing total average gfains to 9.03% since the beginning of the year, Hedge Week reports (while the HFRX index has posted retusn of 7.16%). From 1 September, the index will include two new products, the Robeco All Weather Global Equities Fund, managed by Michael Strating, and the World View Global Macro Fund, amanged by Frits Fiene.

Securities funds may have posted their first net subscriptions in 27 months in August, bringing an increase in assets under management of 0.9% compared with 31 July. But Cinco Días notes that EUR162.84bn in assets is still a level 3.4% below 31 December, and 8% off their record of EUR261bn as of 31 May 2007. All categories of funds have posted returns in August, according to Ahorro Corporación, with equities funds and diversified funds at the top of the rankings, at 6% and 2.3%, respectively. Since the beginning of the year, emerging markets equities funds gained 31.16%, while Spanish equities came in at 22.74%, and Euro zone equities at 20.45%. In the same period, the Ibex index gained 21.5%.

According to statistics from the Inverco association of asset management firms, securities funds on sale in Spain posted net subscriptions in August of EUR402m, compared with net redemptions of EUR196m in July. This is the first time that the sector has posted net inflows since April 2007.Assets increased last month by EUR1.46bn or 0.9% compared with their levels in July, to a total of EUR162.84bn as of 31 August. This is the largest increase in assets under management in 28 months.

The “2009 ACA Pension Trends Survey Report 1,” undertaken in June and July by the Association of Consulting Actuaries, and which surveyed 309 employers with pension funds with assets totalling GBP138bn, has found that 87% of defined-benefit funds are now closed to new entrants, and that of these, 18% are also closed to new future accrual.In addition, 39% of defined-benefit funds are currently considering changes to benefits to be delivered in the future, either through a modification to the way these benefits are calculated, or through a move to a defined-contribution system.The survey, available at www.aca.org.uk, also shows that nine DB funds out of ten are in deficit, with average financing rates of 79%, compared with 87% two years previously.

Wolfgang Mansfeld, president of the BVI association of asset management firms, said that 82.5 million German citizens hold approximately 426 million health, damage and life insurance policies. Insurers and reinsurers, whose financial investments total EUR1.141bn, have allocated about 21.3% of this amount to institutional funds (Spezialfonds), or about EUR243bn. This corresponds to an aveage of about EUR3,000 per person.

In 2003, assets under management in Germany on behalf of institutional investors represented 58.1% of total assets. As of the end of June, this total was 61.4%, according to the BVI association.The Börsen-Zeitung reports that as of 30 June, assets in open-ended funds totalled EUR600.9bn, while purely institutional management totalled EUR955.4bn, of which EUR661.7bn were in Spezialfonds.

Le taux de défaut des prêts logés dans les titrisations d'immobilier commercial pourrait dépasser les 7 % d’ici fin 2009, selon la société d'analyse Reis

A priori, qu'un établissement helvétique vienne gérer en France des fonds d'actions françaises et européennes a de quoi surprendre, vu l'ampleur et la qualité de l'offre locale. Pourtant, Mirabaud Gestion AM, peut, au bout de six ans, justifier d'un historique de performance intéressant qui pourrait retenir l'attention des institutionnels. Newsmanagers a rencontré Marco Bruzzo, directeur général délégué de Mirabaud Gestion AM, pour identifier avec lui les spécificités de son processus d'investissement.

Les sociétés de private equity sont confrontées à l’opposition grandissante des investisseurs face à leur tentative de lever des fonds annexes, censés les aider à trouver des liquidités pour renflouer les sociétés acquises pendant la bulle du crédit, rapporte le Financial Times. Ainsi, Apollo Management aurait renoncé à lever un fonds annexe.

A fin juillet, l’indice général des hedge funds calculé par Lyxor Asset Management affichait une performance de 3,24 % depuis le début de l’année ; pour le seul mois de juillet, le gain a été de 1,04 %. Ce mouvement positif s’est poursuivi en août, avec un indice à 938,49 au 25 août. Cela représentait depuis le début de l’année une performance de 4,17 %, dont 0,91 % pour août.Les deux stratégies dont les résultats ont constitué les extrêmes depuis le 1er janvier 2009 sont le long/short credit arbitrage, avec un gain de 33,81 % et le long/short equity short bias, avec une perte de 21,91 %.

Au 30 juin 2009, le groupe Intesa Sanpaolo gérait un encours de 213 milliards d’euros, en repli de 13,9 % par rapport à l’année dernière, et en légère augmentation de 0,2 % par rapport à la fin 2008. En assurance vie, le groupe a récolté 5,2 milliards d’euros sur les six premiers mois de l’année.Le pôle Eurizon Capital, qui fournit des produits d'épargne aux réseaux bancaires du groupe et à des sociétés en architecture ouverte, enregistre un résultat net de 30 millions d’euros, en repli de 6,3 % sur un an. Banca Fideuram, l’activité de banque privée, voit son résultat net chuter de 27,7 % à 47 millions.

Selon L’Agefi suisse, The Capital Group Companies détient 4,38% d’UBS, devenant ainsi le deuxième plus important actionnaire derrière le fonds souverain Government of Singapore Investment Corp. Ce qui traduit non seulement la confiance de Capital Group dans le redressement de la banque suisse, mais est aussi la conséquence d’une augmentation de ses intérêts dans différentes grandes capitalisations boursières du marché suisse SIX Swiss Exchange. Avec Franklin Templeton, Capital Group est probablement, à ce jour, le plus gros investisseur institutionnel dans les sociétés qui composent l’indice SMI et ses dérivés élargis, SMIM et SLI. Ces derniers mois, le gérant d’actifs américain a également augmenté sa participation dans Geberit (à 10,1% contre 4,55% le 22 juillet dernier) et dans Novartis à 3,25%.

Selon L’Agefi suisse, le président exécutif de HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), Alexandre Zeller estime que sa banque a les moyens de participer – «en tant qu’acquéreur potentiel» – à la consolidation en cours, grâce notamment à un bénéfice net en hausse de 17% à 410 millions entre janvier et juin. Au 30 juin dernier, les actifs sous gestion de la banque s’élevaient à 186 milliards de francs, dont 40% émanant des marchés émergents. Les actifs clients atteignaient 178 milliards de francs fin décembre, en chiffres ajustés pour tenir de la fusion avec HSBC Guyerzeller Bank, finalisée le 1er avril dernier. Ils ont en revanche reculé de 4,2 milliards au premier semestre par rapport à la même période en 2008. En cause, les rachats dans l’alternatif (pour près de 3 milliards de francs, soit 12% des actifs sous gestion) et la baisse de l’effet de levier («deleveraging») des clients. Ces deux tendances ont contrebalancé l’arrivée de nouveaux actifs, qui a atteint 1,7 milliard de francs sur les six premiers mois de l’année.

Comme nous l’annoncions au début de l'été, la vente de Tocqueville Finance était imminente. Dont acte. Dans un communiqué daté d’hier, Jean-Philippe Thierry, Marc Tournier et Thierry de Haynin, ses principaux actionnaires, ont confirmé entrer en «négociation exclusive» avec la Banque Postale. Pour Jean-Philippe Thierry, le président du conseil d’administration de la société de gestion, cette opération est «l’aboutissement d’une étude approfondie des nombreuses marques d’intérêt reçues» depuis que les actionnaires de Tocqueville Finance ont affiché leur volonté de trouver un actionnaire de référence afin de poursuivre le développement de l’entreprise. «Ce choix est d’abord celui d’un projet industriel qui garantit le maintien de l’identité de Tocqueville Finance et de ses métiers, la gestion privée et la gestion collective, et de son indépendance de gestion», précise également le communiqué de la société, qui note que Marc Tournier, son gérant emblématique, également détenteur d’une part importante de l’entreprise, restera avec d’autres salariés associé au capital.Jean-Philippe Thierry a souligné naturellement les effets bénéfiques de l’opération sur des clients durement éprouvés par la crise. Par ailleurs, la société de gestion conservera sa gestion typée «value» sur laquelle elle a longtemps bâti son succès, mais elle profitera aussi des compétences en matière de gestion de la Banque Postale tant dans le domaine obligataire, monétaire, que via ses produits immobiliers ou ses produits de défiscalisation.De son côté, la Banque Postale ne fait pas non plus une mauvaise affaire. L'établissement, qui précise dans son communiqué «qu’il propose un projet industriel fondé sur les complémentarités des produits, des clientèles et des modes de distribution», va pouvoir conforter son développement. Notamment en prenant pied dans le monde convoité des conseillers en gestion de patrimoine où Tocqueville Finance avait su ces dernières années s’imposer comme un acteur de référence.Reste désormais aux deux partenaires à conclure les accords définitifs dans les meilleurs délais. Pour l’instant, ni le pourcentage exact pris par la Banque Postale - on évoque une prise de participation de LBP à hauteur de 70 % du capital -, ni le montant de la transaction n’ont été communiqués. Ni également la façon dont s’articuleront les relations entre la Banque Postale AM – la filiale de gestion d’actifs de la Banque Postale - et la nouvelle entité...

Selon L’Agefi suisse, le fonds Qatari Diar, filiale à 100% de la Qatar Investment Authority, va cèder Cegelec, le spécialiste de l’ingénierie électrique, à Vinci et devenir le deuxième actionnaire du groupe de construction et de concession français après les salariés qui détiennent 8,2% du capital. L’entrée de Qatari Diar à son capital sera «assortie d’un actionnariat stable» pendant une durée de 3 ans et «pouvant évoluer entre 5 et 8%».