HSBC has lent financial support to several of its money market funds, Ignites Europe reports in its 26 March edition. The bank took the ?commercial decision? to inject USD687bn into a number of its money market funds in October 2008.

Michael Queen, the new CEO of 3i, has warned that further write-downs are to be expected on the group’s private equity portfolio in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, the Financial Times reports. The firm has set itself the goal of reducing its net debt to GBP1bn in the next 12 to 15 months.

The list of catastrophes is growing at AIG. The Swiss management firm AIG Private Equity Ltd, which is 41% owned by AIG, and which pays management commissions to AIG on investments in private equity funds, is trading 87% below its net asset value, the Wall Street Journal reports. The problem is that the firm, founded in 1999 by AIG Private Bank Switzerland, has suffered a significant depreciation of its portfolio invested in private equity funds managed by Terra Firma Capital Partners, Blackstone, Carlyle and CVC Capital Partners. Currently, AIG Private Equity Ltd is selling the assets to reduce its debt.

The Austrian alternative management firm Salus Alpha has announced the launch of Salus Alpha Multi Style, which replicates the ABRX (Absolute Return Index) from its affiliate Alterantive-Index GmbH, a multiple manager, multiple strategy index, which in 2008 outperformed the FTSE Hedge Index Euro by 20.11 points, and the CSFB/Tremont index by 27.78 points (with losses of only 0.67% last year). The objective is to generate performance of 8-10% per year with low volatility. Until 1 April, Salus Alpha will charge no front-end fee.

Julius Baer has announced the launch of an agriculture and commodities fund in the United Kingdom, which will be invested 75% in equities and 25% in indexes and commodities. The product will be co-managed by Sabre Mayhugh and Belinda Cavazos at Wellington Management, where assets in agricultural portfolios total about USD1bn.The Julius Baer Agriculture Fund is a replica of an existing Luxembourg fund launched in June 2008; management commission is 1.6%.

Mutuactivos, the fund management affiliate of Mutua Madrileña, has launched Mutuafondo España, its first fund to invest primarily in Spanish equities, although its portfolio may include up to 25% Portuguese equities, Cinco Días reports. Management commission is limited to 0.5%, says Juan Aznar, CEO of Mutuactivos.

Toughening regulation of hedge funds will eliminate some, and cause attrition from the sector, according to Peter Clarke, CEO of Man Group, the Financial Times reports. The smallest hedge fund managers, who lack the means to adapt to increased demands of regulators, will be the hardest-hit.

An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into fraud at the Stanford companies is gaining pace, thanks to the cooperation of James Davis, CFO for the group, the Financial Times reports. Davis has spent the last two days with the SEC, the FBI, and the Justice Department.

The three top directors of GLG Partners have cut their own salaries, the Financial Times reports. Noam Gottesmann, Pierre Lagrange and Manny Roman, have agreed to receive a salary of 1 US dollar from April until the end of the year.

La liste des catastrophes s’allonge, chez AIG. Ainsi le suisse AIG Private Equity Ltd, qui est détenu à 41 % par AIG et qui verse des commissions de gestion à AIG sur les investissements dans des fonds de capital-investissement, se traite à 87 % en dessous de la valeur liquidative, rapporte The Wall Street Journal. Le problème est que cette société, créée en 1999 par AIG Private Bank Suisse, accuse une dépréciation importante de son portefeuille placé dans des fonds de private equity gérés par Terra Firma Capital Partners, Blackstone, Carlyle ou CVC Capital Partners. A présent, AIG Private Equity Ltd vend des actifs pour réduire son endettement.

Dans un entretien à L"Agefi suisse, Pascal Boris, directeur général de BNP Paribas (Suisse), confirme l"objectif de la banque de faire progresser les actifs sous gestion de 10% par an, avec l"ambition d"atteindre 100 milliards de francs d"ici à 2012. L"an dernier, les actifs ont fondu de 15,4% à 36,7 millards de francs à cause de la déconfiture boursière et du repli des devises par rapport au franc mais l"établissement a récolté 2,9 milliards de francs d"argent frais, alors qu"il n"avait glané que 1,7 milliard un an plus tôt. Pascal Boris indique par ailleurs que « Paris ne nous impose aucune pression sur le secret bancaire ». « Nous respectons la surveillance consolidée envers notre maison-mère française, mais aucune information individuelle sur les comptes en Suisse n"a jamais été transmise et ne le sera pas davantage à l"avenir », souligne au quotidien Pascal Boris. Sur le handicap que pourrait constituer l"assouplissement du secret bancaire en Suisse, Pascal Boris répond que « le secret bancaire n"est qu"un élément parmi d"autres, comme la sécurité, l"Etat de droit, l"expertise qu"offre la Suisse. Si le secret devait effectivement être assoupli, l"expertise de la place financière suisse ne serait pas éliminée pour autant. De plus, un éventuel assouplissement serait également accepté par les autres pays pratiquant une forme ou une autre de secret, donc la compétitivité suisse ne serait pas remise en cause. Enfin, le renforcement des règles de coopération internationale ne concerne que les pays de l"OCDE. Or, la clientèle hors-OCDE représente une part importante des fonds déposés en Suisse ». Pascal Boris estime enfin que l"impact de la reprise de Fortis sur l"activité de BNP Paribas Suisse « serait considérable, car Fortis gérait en Suisse plus de 15 milliards de francs d"actifs fin 2007, ce qui doit probablement représenter entre 12 et 13 milliards actuellement. Fortis emploie également plus de 300 personnes dans la gestion de fortune et dans d"autres activités en Suisse ». L"an dernier, l"établissement basé à Genève a inscrit un bénéfice net avant impôts de 626 millions de francs, en baisse de 29,2% par rapport à l"exercice précédent et les recettes ont diminué de 12,6% à 1,21 milliard de francs.

HSBC a apporté son soutien financier à plusieurs de ses fonds monétaires, rapporte Ignites Europe dans son édition du 26 mars. La banque a pris #la décision commerciale# d"injecter 687 millions de dollars dans un certain nombre de ses fonds monétaires en octobre 2008.

Les trois principaux dirigeants de GLG Partners ont réduit leurs salaires, rapporte le Financial Times. Noam Gottesmann, Pierre Lagrange et Manny Roman ont accepté de recevoir un salaire de 1 dollar à partir d"avril et jusqu"à la fin de l"année. Ils ne perçoivent aucun bonus.

A quelques jours de la fin de l’exercice (31 mars), Man Group a annoncé que son bénéfice avant impôt et charges exceptionnelles devrait être de 1,2 milliard de dollars contre 2,1 milliards mais que le board a l’intention de maintenir le dividende final à 24,8 cents par action, ce qui porte le total pour l’exercice à un montant inchangé de 44 cents par action. Les encours se sont contractés à 47,7 milliards de dollars contre 53,3 milliards fin décembre et 74,6 milliards un an auparavant. A fin mars, les actifs gérés pour le compte de particuliers se situent à 28,4 milliards de dollars, l’encours institutionnel représentant 19,3 milliards. Pour les onze premiers mois de l’exercice, la performance des fonds AHL a été de 14,4 % tandis que les fonds RMF accusaient une perte de 13,1 % ; l’indice HFR des fonds de hedge funds a pour sa part chuté durant le même temps de 17,5 %, souligne le gestionnaire. L’effet de performance a amputé l’encours de 6,1 milliards de dollars, tandis que l’effet de change a été négatif de 6,5 milliards. Les souscriptions nettes des particuliers, avec 2 milliards de dollars, n’ont pas suffi à compenser les remboursements nets de 4,2 milliards aux investisseurs institutionnels.

Selon Les Echos, Natixis, très lourdement déficitaire et qui a réalisé d’importantes suppressions d’emplois, a versé 90 millions d’euros à ses traders au titre de 2008.

Michael Queen, le nouveau directeur général de 3i, a prévenu qu"il était à prévoir de nouvelles dépréciations sur le portefeuille du groupe de private equity au dernier trimestre, rapporte le Financial Times. La société s"est fixé comme objectif de réduire sa dette nette de 1 milliard de livres sur les 12 à 15 prochains mois.

Selon Les Echos, le PDG du groupe, Gérard Mestrallet, et le vice-président, Jean-François Cirelli, ont décidé hier de renoncer à leurs stock-options. Les deux dirigeants ont visiblement décidé de calmer le jeu, compte tenu du climat politique et de l'émotion en interne.

Selon Le Monde, l’association Contribuables associés, à Paris, a porté plainte contre François Pérol, ancien conseiller à l’Elysée pour #prise illégale d’intérêt#. Le 18 mars, l’association Anticor avait déjà engagé une première action juridique, également pour #prise illégale d’intérêt#, rappelle le site internet du quotidien du soir.

La réforme envisagée par Tim Geithner serait la plus ambitieuse depuis les années 1930

After two years, Jim Dilworth is leaving his job as head of EMEA at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), IPE reports. He will be replaced by Andy Mack, previously global head of risk.

Funds People reports that Groupama Asset Management is continuing to register funds in Spain, and that in the past few days, it has received licenses from the CNVM for two conservative profile funds, entitled Groupama Monétaire Etat and Groupama Etat Euro CT. The benchmarks for the funds are the Eonia and EuroMTS.

The Financial Times reports that the fixed income investment management (FIIM) unit at Citigroup is hoping to raise USD250m for a new fund which would invest in undervalued bank debt.

It’s not crisis time for everybody. While nearly 30% of all hedge funds disappeared in 2008, and assets have melted away like snow in the sun, some major hedge fund managers can celebrate. According to the annual rankings by Alpha Magazine, the 25 best-paid hedge fund managers last year made USD11.6bn, their third best year out of the five years rankings have been published. This total represents an average of USD464m per manager. Out of the top 5 big winners in the rankings, first place goes to James Simmons (Renaissance Technologies Corp.), who got paid USD2.5bn last year, followed by John Paulson (Paulson & Co., USD2bn), John Arnold (Centaurus Energy, USD1.5bn), George Soros (Soros Fund Management, USD1.1bn), and Raymond Dalio (Bridgewater Associates, USD780m).

Five pension funds - the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Dutch Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn and the Swedish Fjarde AP-Fonden - are seeking class-action status for a planned lawsuit against Bank of America Corp (BofA), the Wall Street Journal reports. The funds argue that BofA made false declarations in the time preceding its acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and that it did not provide concrete information to shareholders. The pension funds claim to have lost USD274m on their investments in BofA shares between 21 July 2008 and 20 January 2009. On Monday, CalPERS and CalSTRS also filed suits.

The value of exits in private equity in the first three months of the year has fallen to less than GBP250m for the first time since 1992, the Financial Times reports, citing a study by the Centre for Management Buy-Out Research (CMBOR) at Nottingham University. Since the beginning of the year, there have been only 51 exits.

Distributors are attempting to obstruct the phenomenon of fund mergers in Europe, as they wish to maintain a large and diversified range of products, Ignites Europe observes on 24 March. Alain Papiasse, head of the asset management and services unit at BNP Paribas, remarks: ?we dream of having a large umbrella fund with only a few sub-funds, and everyone would buy the same things. But it’s distributors and marketing people who decide what the client wants, and we have to adapt to that.?

On Wednesday, ETF Securities (more than USD10m in assets) has announced the launch in France of the full range of ETFs on its equities platforms, under the single order book (SOB) system. The thirteen products include 11 thematic ETFs and two ETS based on the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 indexes. The products have already been listed on Euronext Amsterdam since September 2008. They comply with UCITS III and come as additions to a range of 131 ETC (exchange traded commodities) funds already available. Assets currently total about USD45m.The funds include the global ETFs ETFS WNA Global Nuclear Energy, Janney Global Water, S-Net ITG Global Agri Business, Daxglobal Alternative Energy, Russell Global Coal, Russell Global Gold (Miners), Russel Global Steel Large Cap and Russell Global Shipping Large Cap, and three European sectoral funds, the ETFS Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Basic Resources, Oil & Gas and Utilities.At a presentation of its product range, Euronext confirmed that its affiliate SecFinex is planning to launch a securities lending operation with a settlement platform for ETFs, which could be completed by third quarter.

The management firm for the German savings banks, DekaBank, announced on Wednesday that it is changing its strategic orientation, a few days after questions were raised about its business model by shareholders. It will reduce costs by EUR100m to EUR730m by 2011, and will cut back its credit derivatives portfolio to EUR8bn from EUR11bn currently. By IFRS accounting standards, Deka shows losses for 2008 of EUR49m, while its ?economic results? are positive to the tune of EUR71.5m (about EUR100m less than previously announced), compared with EUR514.1m.Franz S. Waas, chairman of the board, has also presented a reorganisation initiative which will focus on three points. Securities management (AMK) and real estate will concentrate on products and services aimed at institutional and retail investors. The capital & marketing division will focus on asset management for savings banks. All market activities which are not related to asset management, particularly public finance, will be stopped. Meanwhile Deka will focus on the ETF market. The last two points concern a ?quality offensive? to reduce costs and increase effectiveness, and the launch of several ?distribution offensives.?

Retail investors in the United States deposited USD246bn in bank accounts in the first nine weeks of the year to 9 March, the Financial Times reports, citing figures from the Federal Reserve. This is more money than was saved in all of 2008, bringing total deposits to a record USD4.343trn.

RAB Capital is planning to tie the pay of its hedge fund managers more closely to performance, the Financial Times reports. The alternative management firm has seen pre-tax losses of GBP13.9m in 2008, compared with net profits of GBP51.1m in 2007.