La CNMV a obligé SOS à lever une partie du voile sur les négociations qu’il mène depuis le début de l’an dernier et qui, si elles aboutissent, se traduiront par l’entrée d’un fonds souverain arabe non encore identifié (vraisemblablement saoudien) dans le capital du groupe agroalimentaire espagnol, rapporte Expansión. En tous cas, SOS a dû indiquer qu’il a concédé un prêt de 212,7 millions à échéance 10 mars 2013, à Condor Plus, une société liée à ses propres administrateurs, la famille Salazar moyennant la fourniture en nantissement de 26,8 % des actions de SOS. Condor Plus est selon les proches du dossier un véhicule destiné à assurer la confidentialité des opérations, mais SOS a reconnu qu’un fonds souverain détient un pourcentage significatif de Condor Plus. A terme, l’objectif est de créer une joint-venture avec l’Etat derrière ce fonds souverain pour constituer une plantation de 100.000 hectares d’oliviers.

Le tribunal de Düsseldorf a confirmé mardi avoir enregistré une plainte en dommages et intérêts d’un fonds de la Deutsche Postbank contre l’IKB et son ancien président du directoire pour propagation de fausses information sur sa situation financière à la mi-2007, indique la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. L’IKB avait en effet déclaré n'être que marginalement affectée par la crise des subprime, alors que son exposition à ce problème a obligé la KfW à la renflouer dès juillet 2007.

Le spécialiste de l’investissement dans le développement durable SAM, le fournisseur d’indices Dow Jones Indexes et l’agence coréenne chargée d’accroître la productivité au sein de l’industrie locale, ont annoncé leur projet de lancer un indice du développement durable dédié à la Corée. Le Dow Jones Sustainability Korea Index, qui devrait voir le jour au quatrième trimestre 2009, suivra les leaders du développement durable parmi les 200 plus grandes sociétés coréennes en termes de capitalisation. Cette annonce fait suite aux initiatives prises par les autorités coréennes en matière de développement durable, notamment la création d’une commission présidentielle pour la croissance verte.

Le fonds souverain d’Abou Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) a acheté pour 33 euros par actions les 32,5 % de Cepsa détenus par le Santander et les 5 % de la compagnie que possédait Unión Fenosa, rapporte Cinco Días. Cela représente au total un peu plus de 3,49 milliards d’euros. L’IPIC devient le second actionnaire par importance de Cepsa avec 47 %, derrière le français Total qui en détient 48,8 %. Le Santander percevra plus de 2,86 milliards d’euros, de sorte que sa présence au capital lui aura valu un rendement de 13 % par an. Pour Fenosa, la plus-value se situe à 257 millions d’euros sur les 529 millions de recette.

Pour l’ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères du gouvernement Jospin, tous les acteurs du système financier, sans exception, doivent être encadrés par des règles normales et raisonnables, et le G20 du 2 avril s’annonce comme une lutte entre «les forces de régulation et les forces de dé-régulation».Newsmanagers : Pensez-vous que le G20 de demain puisse se solder par un clash entre l’Europe et les Etats-Unis ?Hubert Védrine : Non, car les participants sont condamnés à un certain succès. Ils doivent montrer qu"ils sont à la hauteur des enjeux et des attentes, pas seulement une journée à Londres, mais dans les mois qui viennent. Je fais le pari que sur les sujets de divergence, les sherpas des pays du G20 vont trouver un langage commun assez substantiel.NM : Tous les problèmes seront-ils réglés pour autant ?HV : Bien sûr que non. Le G20 se terminera vraisemblablement par un communiqué renvoyant à des négociations spécialisées sujet par sujet ainsi que dans diverses enceintes spécialisées, comme le FMI ou d"autres. De toute façon, cela ne peut qu"être que le début d"un processus. C"est pourquoi je pense que les pays du G20 vont devoir se fixer un nouveau rendez-vous, une date butoir, par exemple dans 6 ou 7 mois, pour maintenir la pressionNM : En termes de régulation financière, quelles sont les divergences entre l’Europe et les Etats-Unis ?HV : Il s"agit de trouver collectivement les moyens permettant de sortir de la crise financière et de la crise économique tout en mettant en place des dispositifs pour que cette crise générale de l"économie casino ne se reproduise pas. Dans cette perspective, plusieurs thèmes dont les paradis fiscaux, la transparence, le rating, les ratios, les normes comptables et la régulation des marchés sont sur la table. Tous ces sujets doivent être traités. Globalement, tous les acteurs du système financier, sans exception, doivent être encadrés par des règles normales et raisonnables, celles la même qui ont été méthodiquement démontées depuis trente ans. Il y a donc une lutte ? prévisible - entre ceux qui veulent rétablir des règles et ceux qui espèrent sortir de la crise à l"identique avec le moins de règles possible. C"est la bataille entre les forces de régulation et les forces de dé-régulation?

Barclays has entered exclusive discussions with CVC Capital Partners to sell it iShares for about GBP3bn, the Financial Times reports. The operation would be 60-70% financed by a loan from Barclays, which would receive warrants worth about 20% of the buy-out. The securities lending arm of iShares will not be included in the sale, the FT reports.

Mark Carhart and Ray Iwanowski, managing directors and co-heads of the quantitative management team at Goldman Sachs, have left the bank along with Giorgio De Santis, member of the division, the Financial Times reports. Their flagship fund, Global Alpha, has suffered heavy losses since the credit crisis. Katinka Domotorffy has been appointed chief investment officer of the Goldman quant team.

The pension fund ABP suffered a 20% decline in its assets in 2008 to EUR173bn, while liabilities rose 38% to EUR193bn. Its coverage ratio came out to 89.5% at the end of December, compared with 140% one year earlier, the Wall Street Journal reports. As a result, ABP (2.5 million pension holders in public service and teaching) will be raising its premiums by 1% on 1 July, and a further 2% on 1 January 2010, which will bring in EUR5bn over five years, and will increase the coverage ratio above the legal limit of 105% in 2012, from 83% at the end of February. Meanwhile, until 2013, ABP will not compensate pension benefits for inflation. These payments will partly recommence in 2013, and will not be fully re-established until the coverage rate for the fund has risen above 135%.

Julius Baer announced on Wednesday that its affiliate GAM (UK) Ltd will buy the London-based firm Augustus Asset Mangers Ltd (AAML), a management firm specialised in bonds and currencies. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Most of AAML’s assets (USD7.6bn as of the end of 2008) come from the Julius Baer Absolute Return Bond and Local Emerging Market Bond funds, and from hedge funds such as the JB Global Rates Hedge Fund. AAML was founded in early 2007 with an MBO of Julius Baer Holding Ltd, to allow the affiliate to develop as an independent asset manager, while continuing to serve funds bearing the brand name of Julius Baer, its largest client. Despite good performance of most of its mandates in 2008 and in first quarter 2009, AAML and Julius Baer decided that it would be in the better interest of clients to reintegrate AAML into a larger organisation, a statement says.

Inka announced on Tuesday that the portfolio of its German-registered fund HSBC Trinkaus Corporate Bonds Europa will now no longer include any financial sector bonds. Currently, the product, managed by Max Baumann, is invested in 90 positions, of which the heaviest are utilities such as E.on, EDF, and GDF Suez, and issues from telecommunications providers such as Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and France Télécom. The manager is also invested in companies such as Bayer, Henkel, and Merck. Currently, the average rating of bonds in the portfolio is A-, and the duration is 4.35 years, with current returns of 6.17%, which represents a spread of 382 basis points compared with bunds.The benchmark index is the iBoxx EUR Corporates Non-Financials Index. Front end fee and management commission are 3% and 0.70%, respectively.

The stake in Inditex owned by Capital Research and Management Company via Capital Group funds has fallen from 5.01% to 4.927%, according to a notification to the CNMV reported by Funds People. The position is worth EUR865.6m at current prices.

Funds People reports that Francisco Pardo, head of Banif Institucional, has announced that the percentage of assets at the Santander private bank representing institutional clients has increased from less than 10% in May 2008 to more than 15% currently. The institutional division usees Banif client advisers and the fund analysis resources of Allfunds Bank. It offers fund management and real estate consulting services to insurers, and SRI products to religious organisations.

Since the beginning of the year, net subscriptions to the CROCI (Cash Return On Capital Invested) range of funds on the Fund Solutions platform from Deutsche Bank have topped EUR300m, and assets in this strategy now total more than EUR1.3bn, says Manfred Schraepler, head of fund structuring.

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday confirmed the fund of hedge fund management rating of FoHF M2 for the French management firm Olympia Capital Management (OCM). The maintained rating reflects the solidity of the hedge fund selection, portfolio construction, and risk management processes at the firm. It also takes into account increased risks to the financial stability of OCM during a difficult year in 2008 in terms of performance and development, particularly in light of leverage following its LMBO in 2006. In addition, the management firm has entered the final phase of a transition in which the founders will give up their operational prerogative in favour of supervisory roles from June 2009.

On Tuesday, Fitch Ratings announced that it is lowering its rating of the fund of hedge fund manager RMF Investment Management, an affiliate of Man Group, from FoHF M1 to FoHF M2+. The downgrade is due to a fall in assets since second quarter 2008 due to redemptions and market effects, and a loss of USD360m on an indirect exposure to the Madoff fraud, and a deterioration in performance. These factors have obliged Man Group to merge its two fund of hedge fund management affiliates, RMF and the American management firm Glenwood, to create a single management firm.

In a joint statement released on Tuesday, the alternative management firms TCI and Atticus announced that they will no longer cooperate to defend their common interests as major shareholders (19.3% in total) at Deutsche Börse, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The Börsen-Zeitung reports that the most recent declared participations for these investors stood at 10.06% for TCI and 9.24% for Atticus.

The Hauck & Aufhäuser (H&A) private bank has subscribed to a EUR2.7m capital increase at Cazenove AG (50 employees) for an undisclosed amount, and now owns 40% of the investment bank. In the next few weeks, the firm will increase its stake to 60% by buying shares from the three board members who bought the company from JP Morgan in October, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Cazenove AG will become known as H&A Corporate Finance. The firm will not conduct any trading of owners equity, and will not operate on derivatives. For its part, H&A has successfully maintained a stable level of assets under management at EUR18bn in 2008, thanks to EUR500m in net inflows.

According to preliminary estimates from Lipper, global equities funds have seen losses of 11.5% in first quarter. Latin American equities funds lost only 0.2%, after a plunge of 57.3% in 2008, and emerging markets equities lost 3.6%. But the heaviest losses were for European (16.3%) and Japanese equities (17.2%).

According to a study by Credit Suisse Liquid Alternatives, Alpha Strategies, the moment has probably come to invest in global macro hedge funds, at least judging by the performance of this strategy after past periods of market dislocation.Global macro funds are the category which has performed best since the launch of the Credit Suisse/Tremont index, with average annual performance of 12.57% between the beginning of 1994 and the end of January 2009. Five factors explain this outperformance: the flexibility of tactical allocation; top-down investment style with an emphasis on macroeconomic analysis; the potential offered by a global universe; aversion to investments with low liquidity; and lastly, limited ?participation risks? due to ?crowded trades.?Further points in favour of global macro: this category of hedge funds has generally posted double-digit returns in the twelve months following a market dislocation, and they have maintained this double-digit performance on an annual basis for the three years that followd each one of these dislocations. Lastly, as a general rule, this strategy has outperformed other hedge funds by an average of 5 percentage points in the year following market dislocatons.

La chute atteint 19 %. D’autres indicateurs, sur le mois de février, laissent toutefois espérer une amélioration du marché

Le Handelsblatt rapporte que la Deutsche Bank a annoncé lundi la nomination du patron de la succursale de Genève à la tête de la gestion de fortune pour l’Asie-Pacifique à Singapour. Mark Smallwood conservera toutefois aussi la responsabilité mondiale des asssurances pour les particuliers haut de gamme. Parallèlement, Anil Venuturupalli, qui dirigeait l’activité business risk & control de la banque aux Etats-Unis, devient COO pour l’Asie-Pacifique, également à Singapour.

?In France, two SRI funds on sale from Meschaert have had fingers pointed at them since the beginning of the Madoff scandal,? La Tribune reports.

To correct the distortions that may appear in the performance of inverse leveraged ETFs as far as possible, Direxion is introducing a new range of ETFs in the United States which uses the monthly evolution of the indices as an underlying, Das Investment reports. The configuration aims to avoid results such as a performance of 29.4% in January for the triple-inverse Russell 1000 Financial Services index, which in fact should have gained 62.7%, as the index lost 20.9%. The distortion was due to high day-to-day fluctuations in the price of banking sector shares.

Skandia Investment Group (SIG) on Monday announced the launch of the Skandia Global Dynamic Equity Fund, a global equities product managed by twelve management firms, with the MSCI AC World GDP Index as its benchmark. Selection of managers was made by the management team at SIG, which includes 45 professionals. The product will be offered by the British fund management firm Skandia Investment Management Limited (SIML) and initially reserved for IFAs and British retail investors. It will be the first Skandia fund to exploit both geographical asset allocation strategies and Skandia’s expertise in the area of manager selection.In the United States, SIG has chosen Epoch, Marsico, QMA and Acadia; in Europe, the management firms will be Argonaut, Allianz RCM and AllianceBernstein; for the United Kingdom, SIG has selected Schroders, and for Japan, it has selected FiNNex, while for emerging markets outside Asia, the firm has selected Gartmore.

The annual survey by German Capital Management (Gecam) of 7,548 funds and funds of funds on sale in Europe shows this year that the percentage of funds which have replicated more than 70% of their benchmark index in the past three years has fallen since 2008 to 75% from 86%. The most active managers are in charge of funds of funds and diversified funds, with 41% of products replicating less than 60% of their benchmark. This percentage falls to 21% for bonds and less than 1% for equities funds.Ultimately 36% of equities funds have succeeded in outperforming their benchmark indices, compared with 33% for funds of funds/diversified funds, and 12% for bond/money market funds. Of equities funds, 87% of small and midcap products have outperformed their benchmarks, by an average of 7 percentage points.

The health professionals’ pension fund Zorg & Welzijn (2 million members) announced on Monday that it will be freezing pension levels for three years and that it will not be increasing its premiums. The coverage ratio has fallen to 90%, and funds whose ratio is below 105% have until 1 April to present a recovery plan to the Dutch national bank (DNB). Zorg & Welzijn has also announced that it will not be changing its rules of operation to increase assets.

Handelsblatt reports that Deutsche Bank on Monday announced the appointment of the head of the Geneva branch as head of wealth management for Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore. Smallwood will also continue to serve as global head of insurance for high net worth private clients. Meanwhile, Anil Venuturupalli, who was head of business & risk control activities for the bank in the United States, becomes COO for Asia-Pacific, also based in Singapore.

Valiance Capital, a fund from the Italian insurer Generali, has teamed up with Isolux, while the management firm RREEF, an affiliate of Deutsche Bank, has partnered with Vinci in the final phases of the competition to buy the 302,000 parking spaces owned by Cintra, an affiliate of Ferrovial, Expansión reports. Isolux is also a candidate to acquire the parking affiliate of Acciona, in competition with the private equity firm ProA Capital. Expansión says the other two final candidates to acquire Cintra Aparcamientos are the Portuguese firm Emparque, owned by the A. Silva & Silva group, and the French management firm PAI Partners, which controls Cortefiel, along with the private equity investors Permira and CVC.

Hermes, the management firm for the BT pension fund, has transferred its direct private equity investment operations to Bridgepoint, the Financial Times reports. The move affects a team of 10 people led by Rod Selkirk, as well as HPEP II, a GBP250m fund, and HPEP III, a GBP300m fund.

The board of directors at the Banque Julius Baer & Cie SA has appointed COO Boris F. J. Collardi to take over as CEO. He will succeed Johannes A. de Gier on 1 May 2009. Collardi joined the Banque Julius Baer as COO in early 2006, following the acquisition by Julius Baer, in late 2005, of three private banks and GAM from UBS.