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11/06/2009
Fonds

Regain d'intérêt pour les fonds actions et obligations

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.
Fonds
11/06/2009

Hedge funds: draft directive worries City

Simon Walker, head of the BCVA (British Venture Capital Association), is remaining steadfast in his opposition to a planned European directive on hedge funds, Les Echos reports. The legislation will “profoundly affect the ability of private equity to help Europe to recover,” Walker claims. The UK government will hear the grievances of City professionals this week. The UK is by far the largest market in Europe for private equity.
11/06/2009

Hedge funds: draft directive worries City

Simon Walker, head of the BCVA (British Venture Capital Association), is remaining steadfast in his opposition to a planned European directive on hedge funds, Les Echos reports. The legislation will “profoundly affect the ability of private equity to help Europe to recover,” Walker claims. The UK government will hear the grievances of City professionals this week. The UK is by far the largest market in Europe for private equity.
11/06/2009

Net subscriptions to funds

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.
11/06/2009

Recruitments at Liontrust

On Wednesday, Liontrust Asset Management announced the recruitment of Ian Lewis, formerly head of UK institutional clients at New Star Asset Management, as head of institutional clients. He will join the firm on 1 September, while Stephen Watson, institutional marketing director, will take a part-time position. Stephen Weston will be in charge of sales in North America.Meanwhile, Adrian Collins, managing director at Gartmore Investment Management, Liontrust, has been retained as non-executive director and deputy chairman at Liontrust Asset Management, replacing Bernard Asher, who will retire at a date which has not yet been determined.
11/06/2009

Record inflows to equities funds in May

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.
11/06/2009

BNP Paribas IM installs management team at Fortis Investments

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.
11/06/2009

SEI and F&C link in SRI

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.
11/06/2009

Bernard Aybran (Invesco) sees danger of a bubble

«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.
11/06/2009

Pimco expects short-term rates to fall faster than long-term rates

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.
11/06/2009

BlackRock acquisition of BGI to be announced today

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.
11/06/2009

Investors regain interest in equities and bond funds

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.
11/06/2009

Deutsche Bank launches two funds

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.
11/06/2009

José Ramon Contreras promoted at Santander AM

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.
11/06/2009

Gartmore recruits development director for institutionals

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.
11/06/2009

Major contraction of assets at Liontrust

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.
11/06/2009

Private equity team from Aberdeen goes it alone

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.
11/06/2009

Banks show impressive recovery

As usual in a recession, the recovery of the stock markets has been largely driven by the financial sectors. According to La Tribune, the fact that in Europe, banks’ share prices have risen 102% since their low point on 9 March does not necessarily mean that all the troubles are behind us. Between the peak in April 2007 and the lowest point on 9 March 2009, there was a fall of 83%. In Europe, the extent to which the share prices of European banks is depressed remains significant (-66% off their previous peak in 2007). Among the factors that favour the sector, the newspaper observes, US banks are benefiting from a recovering appetite for investment; these banks have raised nearly USD100bn to reimburse their emergency capital injections to the US Treasury. In addition to this, sales activity has been sustained thanks to record bond issues and numerous capital increases. The significantly stronger decline in short-term rates than long-term rates on both sides of the Atlantic has worked strongly in the favour of banks. Financial analysts still predict that there will be a strong rebound in bank profits in 2009 (+37.8%, after an all-time decline of 78.1% in 2008). But these good news seem to have already been taken into account by the market.
11/06/2009

Increasing scarcity of oil

At the current rate of consumption, the planet now has enough oil left to last 42 years, La Tribune notes. According to statistics published by BP yesterday, the newspaper reports, proven worldwide oil reserves now remaining to be mined total 1.258 trillion barrels, down 0.2% from 2008. This is the first time in ten years that the amount of proven reserves has fallen.
11/06/2009

Long-term interest rates threaten economic recovery

Central banks face a real headache, as rising returns on government bonds on both sides of the Atlantic may undermine a potentially sustainable economic recovery, La Tribune reports. Despite strategies employed by the Fed and the Bank of England to attempt to confront this, tension is increasing, particularly in the past three months. The newspaper points out that returns on US ten-year government bonds has risen from 2.20% at the beginning of the year to 3.92% yesterday. German bunds with the same maturity have risen from 2.89% to 3.725. And now movements on the part of creditors are there to contend with. After China at the end of last week, Russia is now planning to reduce the presence of US government bonds in its currency reserves by Usd401bn, in favour of bonds issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) come close to caching up, La Tribune reports, the offensive against Uncle Sam is gaining momentum. The spectre of the inflationary monster, in the wake of massive recovery programs in Europe and the United States, and the borrowing needs of the public sector in the most economically powerful countries on the planet contribute to this problem. La Tribune estimates that Europe is better immunized against these threats than the United States, where returns on ten-year US Treasury bonds are still higher than those in Germany.
11/06/2009

Credit Suisse adds to staff in Qatar

Credit Suisse, which already had a presence in Qatar in private banking, will now roll out investment banking and asset management services in the country. Aladdin Hangari becomes country head for Qatar.
11/06/2009

Reform of financial regulation on the agenda for next European summit

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.
10/06/2009
Fonds

Hausse de 2,16 % pour l'indice Lyxor des hedge funds en mai

Pour mai, le Lyxor Hedge Fund Index affiche une performance de 2,16 %, ce qui lui permet d’enregistre pour la période 31/12/2008-29/05/2009 un gain de 2,13 %. Sur le mois sous revue, les stratégies alternatives qui ont le mieux performé sont L/S Credit Arbitrage Index (+ 11,30%), L/S Equity Long Bias (+ 10,25%) et CTAs Short Term Index (+ 5,14%). L’indice thématique “Lyxor Emerging Market” a généré une performance de + 6,36% en mai ; il accuse cependant une perte de 4,93 % pour les cinq premiers mois de l’année.Sur les quinze stratégies, quatre accusent des pertes pour mai, notamment le L/S Equity Short Bias, avec - 4,35 %, qui affiche aussi la plus forte perte depuis le début de l’année, avec - 12,84 %.
Fonds
10/06/2009
Fonds

Fort accroissement de l'encours des ETF en mai

Au 31 mai, l’encours total des 1.660 ETF cotés 3.008 fois sur 42 Bourses du monde entier représentait 775,20 milliards de dollars, contre 706,87 milliards un mois plus tôt, ce qui représente un gonflement de 9,66 %. Durant les cinq premiers mois de l’année, précise l'étude mensuelle d’iShares (Barclays Global Investors ou BGI), les encours se sont accrus de 9 % alors que l’indice MSCI monde en dollars ne progressait que de 5,41 %.Le nombre d’ETF lancés depuis le début de 2009 se situe à 119 unités et il existe actuellement des projets de lancement pour 767 produits de ce genre.Les principaux émetteurs restent les mêmes : iShares vient en tête fin mai avec 382 ETF et des encours de 374,96 milliards de dollars contre 381 produits et 336,17 milliards de dollars, ce qui représente une part de marché de 48,4 % contre 47,6 % en avril. State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) se classe deuxième avec 104 ETF et 115,29 milliards, soit une part de marché de 14,9 % (contre 15,6 % le mois précédent) et Vanguard reste troisième avec 40 produits (contre 39) et des actifs sous gestion de 58,58 milliards contre 51,04 milliards, soit une part de marché de 7,6 % contre 7,2 %.
Fonds
10/06/2009

BNP Paribas met en place la nouvelle gouvernance de Fortis Investments

Jacques d’Estais, le responsable du pôle Investment Solutions de BNP Paribas qui assure les fonctions laissées vacantes par le décès de Gilles Glicenstein (administrateur directeur général de BNP Paribas Investment Partners), a désormais constitué l'équipe qui va prendre la direction opérationnelle de Fortis Investments, selon les proches du dossier. Il subsisterait toutefois certains détails juridiques empêchant les deux entités de communiquer sur le sujet.Cela posé, le CEO Richard Wohanka ayant quitté le board (de même que Stéphane Monier, le patron de la gestion taux), la direction du comité exécutif pour l’instant ab imo pectore serait confiée à Guy de Froment, vice chairman, BNP Paribas Investment Partners, qui serait chargé de gérer la transition, secondé par Philippe Marchessaux et Pascal Biville, directeurs généraux délégués de BNPP IM. L'équipe dirigeante comprendrait également Vincent Camerlynck, Christian Dargnat et Charlotte Dennery (tous venant du groupe BNP Paribas), l’ancien team Fortis Investments étant représenté par Nicolas Faller (global head of distribution partners) et William De Vijlder (global CIO).
10/06/2009
Fonds

Fibanc Mediolanum ferme son fonds de hedge funds

Le fonds de hedge funds Fibanc-Mediolanum Multiestrategia, lancé en mai 2008, va être fermé par la filiale espagnole de l’italien Mediolanum, rapporte Expansión. En fait, 80 % de l’encours étaient investis dans l’Optimal Global Strategy, lequel investissait lui-même une partie de ses actifs chez Madoff.
Fonds

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