Selon les proches du dossier, Byron Trott, l’un des principaux arrangeurs de transactions pour Warren Buffett chez Goldman Sachs, se met à son compte en créant une banque d’affaires dans laquelle il est prévu que Berkshire Hathaway, la société de Warren Buffett, prenne une «modeste» participation. De fait, précise The Wall Street Journal, Byron Trott va surtout mettre sur pied un fonds d’environ 2 milliards de dollars qui investira dans des sociétés familiales et entrepreneuriales, et qui les conseillera.
Allianz Global Investors avait Günter Netzer ; à présent DWS (Deutsche Bank) s’est choisi comme icône l’ancien gardien de but de la Mannschaft Oliver Kahn, comme le rapporte Das Investment. Le footballeur, dont on cite le nom pour devenir entraineur de Schalke 04, personifiera les fonds garantis et obligataires de la gamme.
Vontobel indique avoir recruté Maximilien, prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein comme responsable des banques privées au sein de son équipe de distribution #wholesale# en Allemagne. Il sera subordonné à Matthias Klein, directeur général de la gestion d’actifs pour le marché allemand. L’intéressé quitte le groupe Fortis, où il a exercé des activités pour le compte de Fortis Investments et de Fortis Merchant Banking en Allemagne.
Credit Suisse a obtenu l’agrément de commercialisation en allemagne du Credit Suisse Fund (Lux) Global Responsible Equities, un compartiment actions ISR de sa Sicav luxembourgeoise qui peut investir également dans des fonds (jusqu'à 10 %) et dans des instruments du marché monétaire. Ce produit libellé en euros a été lancé le 15 janvier 2009 et il est géré de Zurich par Markus Mächler (lire notre dépêche du 24 mars). Les titres sont sélectionnés en fonction de critères internationaux en matière d’environnement, de social et de gouvernance ESG conformément aux Principes des Nations-Unies pour l’investissement (UN-PRI). Le respect du cahier des charges est surveillé par Global Ethical Standard Investment Services et l’indice de référence choisi est le Dow Jones sustainability World TR index en euros. Le droit d’entrée se situe à 5 % et la commission de gestion à 1,92 %.
Le capital investisseur The Blackstone Group a annoncé lundi l’ouverture d’un bureau à Paris et la nomination de Jean-Michel Steg au poste de senior managing director. Ces cinq dernières années, l’intéressé a été directeur du pôle #banque# de Citigroup en France et en Belgique.L"équipe de conseil française dépendra du siège social européen de Blackstone à Londres. L"ouverture de ce bureau parisien renforce la présence mondiale du pôle conseil restructuration et en fusion-acquisition de Blackstone, qui compte à présent 190 collaborateurs aux Etats-Unis, en Asie et en Europe.
Selon L"Echo, les neuf assemblées générales organisées par Fortis entre décembre 2008 et avril 2009 représentent pour le holding une facture globale de quelque 10 millions d’euros. A elle seule, l’AG du 11 février à Bruxelles, qui a débouché sur un «non» au deal avec BNP Paribas, a coûté plus d’un million.
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.
The German financial surveillance authority BaFin announced on Monday that it is extending its prohibition of short-selling of shares to which the vendor does not have direct access, or naked short selling, until at least the end of May, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The prohibition applied to shares in Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Allianz, Deutsche Börse, Munich Ré, Hannover Rück, Hypo Real Estate, AMB Generali, Aareal Bank, Postbank and MLP.
Russell Investments has announced that for the first time since the data series began about five years ago, the quarterly Investment Manager Outlook survey has found that managers surveyed are more optimistic about bonds than equities. 67% of respondents are bullish on corporate bonds, while 61% have a positive outlook on high yield bonds, compared with only 57% (compared with 72% in December) for large cap equities.
First State Investments on Monday announced the forthcoming launch (probably in mid-April, pending approval form the FSA) of the Latin America Fund, an equities product with 30-40 positions which will be managed by Jonathan Asante and Millar Mathieson, with the assistance of Alan Nesbit. Minimal subscription will be GBP1,500, while front-end fee and management commission will be set at 4% and 1.75%, respectively.For the fund, managers will apply the stock-picking methodology already employed for the Asia-Pacific and global emerging markets funds, with a focus on Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
AlphaPlus Gestora on Monday announced the launch of a third product, following the Alpha Plus Dinero (money market) and Alpha Plus Diversificación (diversified) funds on 2 February: it is the absolute performance fund Alpha Plus Rentabilidad Absoluta, which will invest in equities, bonds, and derivatives; it may be up to 50% exposed to currency risks, and managers are authorised to place up to 20% of the portfolio in emerging markets. The objective is to outperform the Eonia by at least 300 basis points, and to limit volatility to less than 8%, with a combination of derivative, market neutral, global macro, and long/short strategies. Management commission is set at 1%, while performance commission is 9%.
In February, funds domiciled in the United Kingdom have posted net subscriptions of GBP2.28bn, of which GBP1.19bn were for retail products, and GBP1.09bn for institutional funds, compared with GBP1.81bn, GBP1.19bn, and GBP623m in January, the Investment Management Association (IMA) reports. Richard Saunders, CEO of the association, points out that this is the fourth consecutive month of net subscriptions, while bond funds have continued to be the preferred category for investors, who for the moment do not appear disposed to invest their money in equities funds. In February 2008, net subscriptions totalled GBP775.3m.Funds domiciled abroad, for their part, saw net redemptions of GBP19.8m, compared with net inflows of GBP66.6m in January, and net outflows of GBP236.1m one year previously.Meanwhile, total assets at the end of February totalled GBP339.2bn for funds domiciled in the United Kingdom, and GBP13.7bn for funds domiciled abroad, compared with GBP355.2bn and GBP15.2bn as of 31 January. One year earlier, assets under management totalled GBP442bn and GBP16.2bn, respectively.
Vontobel has announced that it has recruited Maximilien, prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein, as head of private banking in its wholesale distribution team in Germany. He will report to Matthias Klein, CEO of asset management for the German market. The prince is leaving the Fortis group, where he managed assets on behalf of Fortis Investments and Fortis Merchant Banking in Germany.
The financial products distribution network Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG) has posted record profits in 2008, up 18.1% to EUR149m, on revenues up 21.9% to EUR1.22bn. DVAG recruited 180,000 new clients in the second half of the year, bringing the total to 5.2 million.The IFA network of DVAG last year mediated net subscriptions of EUR1.2bn, compared with EUR900m in 2007 for DWS, bringing total subscriptions provided to the Deutsche Bank group to EUR6.2bn (+8%).
According to an IRC Conferences/Terrapinn survey of 273 institutional investors, hedge fund managers and financial services providers worldwide, 80% of professionals surveyed still believe that hedge funds can generate good performance in the long term. Only 20% say that the financial turbulence has caused them to lost confidence in hedge funds.Responses also reveal that the various categories of respondents virtually unanimously consider it time to act to improve transparency, risk management, compliance, auditing, and market actors’ preference for self-regulation over regulatory legislation. The only disagreement is in the area of commissions, which are considered very important to improve confidence by 43% of investors, compared with only 14% of managers.Lastly, a majority of hedge fund managers are hoping for an improvement in net subscriptions in the second half of 2009, while most investors do not see it happening before next year.
Credit Suisse has been granted a license in Germany to release the Credit Suisse (Lux) Global Responsible Equities fund, an SRI equities sub-fund of the firm’s Luxembourg Sicav, which may also invest in funds (up to 10%) and money market instrments. The product, denominated in Euros, was launched on 15 January 2009, and is managed in Zurich by Markus Mächler (see Newsmanagers of 24 March). Shares are selected on the basis of international environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, which comply with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI). Respect for the expense books is monitored by Global Ethical Standard Investment Services, and the benchmark index that has been selected is the Dow Jones Sustainability World TR index in Euros. Front-end fees are 5%, and management commission is 1.92%.
Pioneer Investments (UniCredit group), which manages EUR160bn in assets worldwide, and which has 2,300 employees in 31 countries, announced on Monday that it has signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI), a list of six ?best practices? in the areas of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.
The private equity investment firm Blackstone Group on Monday announced the opening of an office in Paris and the appointment of Jean-Michel Steg as senior managing director. For the past five years, Steg has been director of the banking unit at Citigroup in France and Belgium.The French management team will be a branch of the firm’s European head office in London. The opening of the Paris office will strengthen the global presence of the restructuring and merger and acquisition consulting unit of Blackstone, which now has 190 employees in the United States, Asia, and Europe.
IndexIQ, a firm based in New York and specialised in the development of quantitative investment strategies, has launched an ETF fund which will aim to replicate the performance of the hedge fund sector, the Financial Times reports. The IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF is listed on the NYSE.