For the fiscal year ending 31 March, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has posted an average loss of 29.2%, while its benchmark is down only 26.4%, Global Pensions reports. Portfolios have posted losses in each asset class, with the largest fall being global equities, which are down 40.9%. However, though it has lost 19%, the private equity portfolio is doing better than its benchmark, which has fallen by 36.2%.

In 2008, investments in private equity in Europe contracted by 28% to EUR54bn invested in 5,400 businesses, equivalent to 2005 levels, according to the annual report from the European Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (EVCA). The decline was heaviest (-40%) for large operations and mega-deals, both in terms of the size and the number of transactionss, while small and mid-sized deals have decreased in size by 30% and in number by 15.Despite the crisis, private equity investors attracted EUR79bn in investment, down from EUR81bn in 2007. Second and third quarter were particularly active, but inflows fell in fourth quarter.

Open architecture will die out in the wake of the financial crisis, according to a survey by Spence Johnson, whose results are reported in Financial Times Fund Management. The model is rejected both by banks, who are seeking to restore their balance sheets to good health by selling in-house products, and asset management firms, who are seeking to reduce the costs of multi-distribution. Asset managers are now in favour of guided architecture.

Competition between financial centres continues to be fierce. A delegation sent from Quebec to Paris and the Centre financier international de Montréal (CFI Montréal) last night held a conference in Paris, in partnership with the government of Canada, which aimed to provide information to financial companies interested in setting up locations in Quebec.There is no lack of arguments in favour of doing so. In addition to the close historical and cultural ties between Quebec and France, Quebec also represents an ideal stepping-stone to the US market. CFI Montréal, which aims to facilitate setting up operations in Montreal for businesses specialised in the area of international financial transactions, also highlights the advantageous costs and a highly competitive tax framework, which includes a 75% tax exemption for Quebec businesses. “We are not a tax haven, but we are close to fiscal paradise,” says Wilfrid-Guy Licari, general delegate of Quebec.To promote the Quebec market, CFI Montréal presented a representative panel of local businesses, including Newedge, which employes 45 people, and Rothschild, with 15 employees. Most of the heavyweights in French finance are present, including BNP Paribas and Société Générale. The conference last night was attended by 75 people representing 55 financial companies, and says Steve Gauthier, vice president and director of corporate development at CFI Montréal, there was an exceptionally high turnout of those invited, on the order of 10%, or more, counting companies which, though they did not attend the conference, showed a high level of interest.Though it is better known for aerospace, IT, and life sciences, Montreal is not negligible as a financial platform, with 3,000 companies that employ 125,000 people. The recent arrival of Morgan Stanley, which will eventually employ 500 there, will strengthen the attractiveness of Montreal as an international financial centre.

La Tribune reports that the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the firm which operates the London stock market, the private equity firm 31, and the plumbing materials distributor Wolseley will be joining the Footsie (FTSE) 100 index, the most popular benchmark of the London stock market, on 22 June. The decision was taken by the FTSE group, which manages the London indexes, at their quarterly revision of the indexes on Wednesday evening. The shares in question were excluded from the FTSE three months earlier as their market capitalisation levels were too low. One reason that the London stock market may appear more reactive than its Parisian counterpart is that changes to the composition of the index are made automatically, the newspaper comments. As soon as a share which is not part of the FTSE 100 ranks in the top 90 shares on the stock exchange by market capitalisation, it joins the index.

Nic Barnes is leaving UBS Asset Management, where he was head of the Sterling bond team, which is in a phase of reorganization following a difficult period. The team has suffered losses of 17.9% in the twelve months to the end of April. Barnes’ responsibilities will be taken over by Bob Jolly, head of currencies, and Alix Stewart, in charge of British corporate bonds, the Wall Street Journal reports.Since the beginning of this year, UBS AM has also changed its head of US bonds, with the recruitment of Doug Dugenske from Neuberger Berman, who replaces John Penicook. Rob Gambi will retain his position as overall head of bonds.

La filiale de Rothschild & Cie Banque, qui maintient ses orientations de gestion, affiche des encours de 17,2 milliards d'euros

Fortis a annoncé mercredi soir qu’UBS a franchi le seuil des 3 % dans son capital et détient, avec les sociétés de son groupe, 3,71 % des droits de vote.

In the United States, long-term mutual funds have posted net subscriptions for the twelfth consecutive week, according to statistics from the Investment Company Institute, cited by the Wall Street Journal. In the week ending 3 June, total subscriptions came to USD13.6bn.

The integration executive committee of Fortis Investments appointed by BNP Paribas Investment Management (see Newsmanagers of 10 June) will gain four members from Fortis Investment, including Keith Rake (COO, IT), Stewart Edgar for Asia, Will L. Braman for the United States, and Vincent Cambonie as CFO. They join Nicolas Faller, global head of distribution partners, and William De Vijlder, Global CIO.

SEI has partnered with F&C to launch a lobbying service in environmental, social and governance issues for all the funds the US asset manager sells to its UK and European clients.

In May, equities funds on sale in Sweden attracted SEK14.7bn in net subscriptions, the highest level ever recorded in one month (excluding PPM), the Swedish investment fund association Fondbolagens Förening reports.Diversified funds and bond funds also show a positive balance of inflows, of SEK1.1bn and SEK0.8bn, respectively. However, money market funds have seen outflows of SEK8.6bn, while SEK0.3bn have flowed out of hedge funds.In all asset classes combined, Swedish funds have posted net subscriptions of SEK7.8bn, the sixth consecutive month of net inflows. Year to date, inflows have totalled SEK27.5bn, of which SEK36.7bn have gone into equities funds.

«There is a major risk that a bubble could develop if you consider that US institutional investors were seated on a record USD2,555bn in money market funds on May 4th, 2009", says Bernard Aybran, head of multimanagement at Invesco in Paris. This actually means that institutional investors, and not only in the US, have lots of cash which just doesn’t perform at all, that produces no yield. This huge amount of liquidity will have to be invested somewhere, just to pay for the pensions, for instance. Therefore, there is a risk that big amounts of cash could be invested at the same time in one asset class that would have become fashionable, which could end into a bubble.

The “secular forum” debate hosted by Pimco (Allianz Global Investors) this year revealed that specialists at the bond management firm are predicting that the bond markets will acclimate to a “new norm,” which will be characterized by lower growth, a small banking sector, and larger government influence, says Matthieu Louanges, head of business portfolio management at Pimco Germany and a member of the executive board at Allianz Global Investors KAG. Pimco experts are currently leaning in favour of high-quality bonds that generate consistent returns. Portfolios are fundamentally oriented to anticipate a trend in which short-term rates will fall faster than long-term ones. Louanges says central banks will be likely to keep their prime rates at a low level for a long time. In light of the stability policy pursued by the European central bank (ECB), Pimco currently predicts only limited inflationary tendencies, and therefore predicts low level of risks to Euro-denominated bond prices. Inflation-indexed bonds are currently among the most attractively-priced instruments to protect portfolios against the long-term consequences of expansionist monetary and budgetary policies in industrialized countries, says Pimco.

According to the Wall Street Journal, quoting people close to the matter, the acquisition of Barclays Global Investors by BlackRock for USD13bn will be announced this Thursday. BlackRock will manage USD2.8trn in assets, eight times the assets it had in 2004, before it embarked on a series of deals.

In April, a rebound on the equities markets encouraged European investors to move away from money market funds to return to slightly higher-risk investments such as equities and bond funds, according to the latest Lipper FMI Fund Flash. In a month when net subscriptions totalled EUR3bn, equities funds saw inflows of only EUR4.4bn. Emerging markets funds in particular saw a good part of this tendency, Lipper observes. But the reversal of the previous trend of outflows was particularly marked for bond funds, which saw net subscriptions of EUR3.6bn, the highest level since January 2006. Convertible bond funds and options funds also had positive momentum in April, with EUR1.6bn each in inflows. Lipper also notes that the asset management firm with the strongest net subscriptions in April was Deutsche Bank/DWS, which also had the strongest inflows to equities funds. Since the beginning of the year, European funds have seen net inflows of EUR30bn.

The S&P X-Alpha Fund and the Zins Strategie Fund 2014 are the two newest product offerings from Deutsche Bank London.The first of these funds offers exposure to a strategy that aims to generate non-directional returns by exploiting the potential of the relative performance of growth and value indexes compared to their regional equities indexes (United States, Europe, Japan, and UK). The management team will aim to contain risk, and will target an annual volatility of 8%. The fund, which complies with the UCITS III directive, will be offered for sale in several countries, and will offer daily liquidity. Manfred Schraepler, head of funds group, says equities funds have seen net subscriptions of about EUR365m YTD.The second product, the Zins Strategie Fund 2014, provides investors with exposure to the evolution of the db Sharp Trend Euro, a trading strategy which allocates assets in an equally weighted manner to a portfolio of five momentum strategies based on fixed income, of which three focus on short-term interest rates in Euros, US dollars and pounds sterling, and two focus on dollar/pound and dollar/Euro exchange rates. This product also complies with the UCITS III directive, and has daily NAV. It offers retail investors access to a market neutral bond strategy likely to generate attractive performance in environments of either high or low rates.

José Ramon Contreras who was previously an equities manager, has been appointed equity CIO for Spain at Santander Asset Management, replacing Gerardo Puerta, who was appointed head of asset allocation in mid-May, Funds People reports.Puerta himself replaces Jaime Martínez Gómez, who has been appointed CIO of Fonditel (the firm which manages the Telefónica pension fund), following the dismissal of Íñigo Colomo, who was deemed responsible for the poor performance of the Velociraptor and Albatross funds of hedge funds, which were compromised by the Madoff affair.

Matt Pumo, senior relationship manager at Liontrust Asset Management, has been recruited by Gartmore Investments (GBP16.8bn in assets as of the end of March, Hellman & Friedman group), as business development director for UK institutional clients. He will report to Angus Woolhouse, head of global institutional, Professional Pensions reports.

In the fiscal year ending 31 March, assets under management at Liontrust Asset Management contracted by GBP2.8bn, to a total of GBP1.9bn, and they have since fallen to GBP1.2bn as of 9 June, MoneyMarketing reports. The fall is imputed by the asset management firm to the decline of the US equities market and to the departure of the star managers Jeremy Land and William Patisson in January. As of the end of December, assets still totalled GBP3.3bn.Profits for the fiscal year fell by one quarter to GBP12.4bn, from GBP16.5bn.

The private equity team at Aberdeen Asset Management has organised an MBO to create a new private equity firm entitled Maven Capital Partners, Citywire reports. The operation was spearheaded by the current CIO of Aberdeen Asset Management Private Equity, Bill Nixon. Five others will go with him to the new firm. Aberdeen will own a minority stake in the entity.

Reforms to European financial regulations will be mentioned in the final declaration at the end of the European summit to be held on 18 and 19 June, according to Reuters, which has seen the document, L’Agefi reports. “The European Commission calls for rapid progress in the area of regulation of financial markets, particularly regulation of hedge funds and increased tier one owners’ equity requirements for banks,” the draft statement to conclude the summit announces.

La société de gestion américaine SEI, spécialisée dans la fiducie et l’investissement multi-gérant, a fait alliance avec le britannique F&C pour lancer un service de lobbying sur les problématiques environnementale, sociale et de gouvernement d’entreprise (ESG) pour les tous les fonds qu’il distribue à sa clientèle britannique et européenne. SEI, qui a des antennes en Europe à Londres, à Dublin et aux Pays-Bas, utilisera la plate-forme de F&C sur l’engagement responsable pour faire du lobbying auprès des sociétés en retard sur les problématiques ESG.

L’integration Management Committee de Fortis Investments imaginé par BNP Paribas Investment Partners (lire notre dépêche du 10 juin) devrait se compléter de quatre personnes issues de Fortis Investments dont Keith Rake (COO, informatique), Stewart Edgar pour l’Asie, Will L. Braman pour les Etats-Unis et Vincent Cambonie comme directeur financier. Ils rejoindraient ainsi Nicolas Faller (global head of distribution partners) et William De Vijlder (global CIO).

En avril, le rebond des marchés actions a encouragé les investisseurs européens à délaisser les fonds monétaires pour se tourner vers des placements un peu plus risqués comme les fonds actions et obligataires, selon le dernier Lipper FMI Fund Flash. Ainsi, sur un mois où les souscriptions nettes se sont élevées à 3 milliards d’euros, les fonds actions ont engrangé 4,4 milliards d’euros. Les fonds marchés émergents ont particulièrement profité de cette tendance, note Lipper FMI. Mais le retournement de tendance a été particulièrement marqué pour les fonds obligataires, qui ont enregistré des souscriptions nettes de 3,6 milliards d’euros, soit la meilleure collecte depuis janvier 2006 ! Les fonds obligations convertibles et les fonds d’options ont eux aussi eu le vent en poupe en avril, avec 1,6 milliard d’euros de flux entrants. Lipper FMI note par ailleurs que Deutsche Bank/DWS est la société de gestion ayant affiché les plus fortes souscriptions nettes en avril. L'établissement financier a également enregistré la plus forte collecte dans les fonds actions. Depuis le début de l’année, les fonds européens voient entrer, en net, 30 milliards d’euros.

Finanza & Futuro, société de gestion italienne du groupe Deutsche Bank, a élargi son réseau à 1.000 conseillers financiers en 2008, et affiché des souscriptions nettes de 183 millions d’euros, rapporte Il Sole – 24 Ore. Les encours atteignent ainsi 7,4 milliards d’euros. Cette année, la société veut porter ses conseillers à 1.100.

Mercredi, Aberdeen Property Investors a annoncé l’ouverture d’un bureau à Milan qui sera placé sous la direction de Vittorio Annoni. Ce dernier est depuis septembre 2008 gérant immobilier auprès de la filiale allemande DEGI. Le groupe britannique gère en Italie un portefeuille immobilier d’environ 860 millions d’euros. Aberdeen Asset Management, la maison-mère d’Aberdeen Property Investors, a elle aussi l’intention de se renforcer en Italie, a précisé Bärbel Schomberg, CEO de DEGI et head of Continental Europe d’Aberdeen Property Investors.

Le S&P X-Alpha Fund et le Zins Strategie Fund 2014 sont les derniers nés de la gamme Deutsche Bank Londres.Le premier propose une exposition à une stratégie visant à générer des performances non directionnelles en exploitant le potentiel de la performance relative d’indices growth et value par rapport à leurs indices d’actions régionaux (Etats-Unis, Europe, Japon et Royaume-Uni). L'équipe de gestion s’attache à contenir le risque en visant une volatilité annuelle de 8 %. Ce fonds, conforme à la directive OPCVM III, sera commercialisé dans plusieurs pays et offrira une liquidité journalière. Manfred Schraepler, head of funds group, a precisé que les fonds d’actions ont enregistré depuis le début de l’année des souscriptions nettes de l’ordre de 365 millions d’euros.Le second produit, le Zins Strategie Fund 2014, permet à l’investisseur de s’exposer à l'évolution de l’indice db Sharp Trend Euro, stratégie de négoce qui alloue de manière équipondérée un portefeuille à cinq stratégies de momentum sur les taux, dont trois sur les taux d’intérêt courts en euros, dollars et livres et deux sur les spreads dollar/livre et dollar/euro. Ce produit est également conforme à la directive OPCVM III et présente un liquidité journalière. Il offre aux particuliers l’accès à une stratégie obligataire market neutral susceptible de générer une performance intéressante dans des environnements de taux élevés ou faibles.

Déjà présent au Qatar dans le domaine de la banque privée, Credit Suisse a annoncé qu’il va désormais proposer dans ce pays des services de banque d’investissement et de gestion d’actifs. La direction pays est confiée à Aladdin Hangari.

Selon le Wall Street Journal, qui cite des personnes proches du dossier, l’acquisition de Barclays Global Investors par BlackRock pour 13 milliards de dollars devrait être annoncé ce jeudi. BlackRock gérera ainsi 2.800 milliards de dollars, soit huit fois les actifs qu’il avait en 2004 avant de s’embarquer dans une série d’acquisitions.