Pour 2008, ProSieben Sat1 Media accuse une perte de 129,1 millions d’euros contre un bénéfice net de 89,4 millions d’euros à cause d’une dépréciation d’actifs de 129,1 millions sur SBS, que ses actionnaires KKR et Permira l’ont obligée à acheter, souligne la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Le CA, avec SBS, baisse de 5,7 % pro forma à 3,05 milliards d’euros, la chute des recettes publicitaires étant venue aggraver une situation déjà sérieuse. Le dividende par action préférentielle va être ramené à 2 cents et celui sur les ordinaires sera passé. ProSieben n’est pas parvenue à réduire l’endettement que lui ont imposé les deux capital-investisseurs avec l’acquisition de SBS et le versement d’un dividende disproportionné au titre de 2007 : il se situe à 3,41 milliards contre 3,33 milliards. Les dirigeants du groupe prévoient un programme d'économies de 100 millions d’euros et la suppression de 227 emplois dans le cadre du déménagement de Sat1 de Berlin à Munich.

Selon Les Echos, les radiations à l’initiative d’actionnaires ou de financiers ont atteint l’an dernier le chiffre record de 11, sur un total de 28 (tous motifs confondus, y compris fusions-acquisitions et faillites) contre 4 en 2007, selon les données de Nyse Euronext. «Les associations d'émetteurs et d’opérateurs de marché ont cherché à prendre des mesures pour limiter les velléités des retraits de cote de PME. Par exemple, des possibilités de passage des sociétés du segment C vers Alternext - qui offre des allègements réglementaires aux sociétés - devraient être mises en place», note le quotidien.

Selon l’Agefi, citant l’Agence France Trésor Paris, accroîtra de 17 milliards d’euros ses émissions de dette publique prévues cette année, soit un surplus de 10%. La France prévoit désormais de «placer 155 milliards de BTAN et d’OAT au lieu de 145 milliards, et 37 milliards de bons du Trésor (BTF) au lieu de 30 milliards», précise notamment le quotidien numérique.

En 2008, les fonds or ont enregistré en Europe des souscriptions nettes de 2 milliards d’euros, soit plus de 17 fois le niveau de 2007, selon Lipper FMI. Cet engouement s’inscrit dans un contexte général de #ruée vers l’or#. Ainsi, selon le World Gold Council, la demande des investisseurs pour l’or, incluant les ETF, les lingots et les pièces, a été supérieure de 64 % l’an dernier par rapport à 2007. En ce début d’année, la demande s’est encore raffermie, ce qui a poussé le cours de l’or au-delà de la barre psychologique des 1.000 dollars l’once.Les sociétés de gestion ont cherché à surfer sur cette vague, avec 11 fonds lancés en 2008, portant le total des produits à 62. Les encours ont néanmoins légèrement décru à un peu moins de 10 milliards d’euros, en raison de la baisse des marchés actions. A noter que, l’an passé, le premier fonds investi dans l’or physique, qui fait l’objet d’un véritable regain d’intérêt, a été lancé en Allemagne par Hansainvest. Il prévoit que les investisseurs pourront être remboursés en lingots. Hormis cette originalité, la majorité des fonds or sont des produits investis dans des actions de sociétés de mines d’or, indique Lipper. Une minorité est constituée par des produits matières premières.Les cinq fonds les plus populaires l’an passé ont été le ZKB Gold ETF, qui a enregistré des souscriptions nettes de 1,4 milliard d’euros, BlackRock Gold & General, LCL Actions Or Monde, Julius Baer Precious Metals ? Physical Gold et BlackRock Global ? World Gold. En termes d’actifs, la société de gestion dominant le secteur est BlackRock, avec 50,3 % des actifs en 2008, suivie de loin par Swisscanto (21,8 %).

Selon le Financial Times, LCH.Clearnet envisage de racheter les parts de ses 120 actionnaires et de se convertir en entité détenue par ses utilisateurs. Cette initiative vise à contrer l"offre d"acquisition emmenée par Icap.

Selon La Tribune, une majorité s’attendent à ce que la BCE baisse aujourd’hui son principal taux directeur de 0,5% pour le ramener à 1,5%. #Si la BCE suit ses prévisions, il s’agira de la cinquième baisse du taux depuis octobre. A cette date, il était encore à 4,25%#, rappelle notamment le quotidien financier.

Selon La Tribune, Les dirigeants européens seraient tombés d’accord le mercredi 5 mars pour introduire un contrôle des agences de notation.L’accord de régulation, ont indiqué des diplomates, prévoit que les agences s’enregistrent en Europe pour y exercer une activité et qu’elles soient, ensuite, contrôlées par les autorités financières européennes. En cas de manquement , des sanctions allant «jusqu’au retrait d’agrément ou à des pénalités qui devront être proportionnées (à l’infraction) et dissuasives», pourraient leur être imposées, précise La Tribune.

Un premier paquet sur l'organisation de la supervision financière en Europe sera présenté fin mai

L'Agence France Trésor s'estime en mesure d'étaler sur l'année ce surplus de 10%. D'autres pays européens devraient lui emboîter le pas

Le coût des options de vente sur le S&P 500 d'échéance 2 ans a plus que doublé alors que la courbe de volatilité, elle, s'est inversée

Alors que l’Europe a été plus fortement touchée par les sorties au second semestre 2008, un rattrapage se fera outre-Atlantique en 2009

US lawyers preparing the case against Bernard Madoff have detected possible conflicts of interest concerning his lawyer, Ira Sorkin, the Financial Times reports. In 1992, Sorkin represented an accountancy firm which had invested in Madoff. Sorkin’s father, now deceased, had a retirement savings account with Madoff.

Following the announcement of USD1.1bn losses for the past fiscal year, the deteriorating economic environment may lead KKR to call off plans to become a publicly traded company through the takeover of KKR Private Equity Investors (KPE), listed in Amsterdam, Les Echos reports. KKR floated its KPE fund, specialised in leveraged buyouts, on the Amsterdam stock exchange in May 2006.

The Edhec Risk and Asset Management Research Centre has announced the creation of a chair for research on active-passive management and sovereign funds («ALM and Sovereign Wealth Fund Management»), in partnership with Deutsche Bank, which will be overseen by Lionel Martellini, scientific director of the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre.The research chair will be responsible for the following developments: the introduction of a formal asset allocation model, which will incorporate the most important factors in the management of sovereign funds; empirical analysis of risk factors that impact cash flows in and out of sovereign funds; conception of dedicated solutions for sovereign funds based on financial engineering with the goal of facilitating the establishment of coverage requirements for sovereign funds relative to the presence of a variety of risk factors.

Hervé Letoublon is joining Avenir Finance Gestion as director of participations.He was previously at Rhône-Alpes Création, where he was director of investments.

Allianz Global Investors (AGI) has announced operating profits of EUR904m in 2008, compared with profits of EUR1.32bn in 2007 (-32%), while net profits have contracted by EUR101m, or 21.5%, to EUR369m, on assets down by EUR50bn or 5.2% to EUR920bn, while assets under management for third parties have fallen by EUR52bn, or 7.1%, to EUR673bn.

Euroclear has announced that it has signed a partnership with ten major management firms (AllianceBernstein, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Invesco, JPMorgan Asset Management, Pictet Asset Management, Pioneer Investments, Robeco Asset Management, Schroders Investment Management, Société Générale Asset Management and Virmont SARL, formerly known as Alken Asset Management), to offer incentives to promote a transition to automatic transactions at the 50% of distributors who are not yet using the STP FundSettle transaction processing and settlement system from Euroclear. A wholly electronic transaction processing system for funds would save the asset management sector about EUR300m per year, Euroclear estimates.All asset servicing and custody activities will be free for new distributors who sign up for FundSettle. Fund distributors who use the STP FundService system from FundSettle pay EUR0.75 per transaction for routing and settlement of a buy or sell order, compared with an average commission of EUR7 by other means. In addition, distributors can rationalise their back-office by using FundSettle as a unique access point, and would reduce their risk levels through the automatisation of these processes.

In January, for the first time in a long time, the specialised investment fund and collective investment organism sector in Luxembourg has posted an increase in total asset levels totalling EUR11.881bn for the month. EUR8.423bn of this increase was due to the positive impact of financial markets, and EUR3.458bn came from net subscriptions.As of 31 January, assets totalled EUR1.571534trn, an increase of 0.76% since 31 December 2008. But over twelve months, asset volumes are down 19.46%.

The Luxembourg financial sector surveillance commission (CSSF) decided on 27 February to withdraw the Luxembourg Investment Fund Sicav, which was exposed to Bernard Madoff, from the official list of collective investment organisms, and to order its legal liquidation. The move is part of an effort ?to establish the responsibilities of the various actors in relation to the Luxembourg Investment Fund and its depository bank, UBS (Luxembourg) S.A., and to better safeguard the rights of investors,? says a statement.

2008 was a hard year for investors in clean energies, but the election of president Obama in the United States and his declared intention to facilitate the development of clean energies during his term in office have recently given a boost to ?Clean Tech.?Henderson Global Investors (HGI) nonetheless estimates, however, that it is still too soon to declare a recovery in the Clean Tech sector, and remains cautious in the short term. But there are opportunities to be had in clean energies, the management firm says. ?The largest companies, for example, have outperformed the market since October 2008, and come shares, such as the Japanese battery maker GS Yuasa, have posted record performances,? says Seb Beloe, director or SRI research. He points out that the sector still needs to surmount a number of difficulties, such as financing. There may be some improvement in 2009, ?particularly if negotiations succeed in producing an international agreement, but it remains likely that growth will not really return until 2010,? he says. This means 2009 will be an eventful year in Clean Tech, says HGI.

The LGT Bank of Liechtenstein has announced the recruitment for its private banking activities in Frankfurt of a team of five client advisors from Dresdner Bank, who have longstanding relationships with high net worth private clients in the Frankfurt-Mainz-Bad Homburg triangle, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The team is led by Andreas Bluck, who becomes the number two ranking member of the LGT-Bank branch in Frankfurt.

The Börsen-Zeitung reports that, as a result of the turbulence on the financial markets, assets in the ETF from db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) based on the Eonia have reached EUR6.3bn. The issuer says the product has become the largest ETF in Europe.

Renaissance Technologies (USD20bn in assets) on Tuesday announced the recruitment of Matthew H. Scanlan as president and CEO of its affiliate Renaissance Institutional Management. Scanlan was previously managing director and head of the Americas institutional business at Barclays Global Investors. He replaces Stephen Robert, who retired at the end of last year. Pensions & Investments reports that Scanlan will be replaced in the interim at BGI by William Chinery, managing director and head of client service for the group’s activities in the Americas.

The extraordinary audit of the Banif Inmobiliario fund from Santander Real Estate has resulted in a downward revision of the value of the portfolio of 7.5%, lower than market expectations, Expansión reports. The newspaper adds that 97% of subscribers to the fund have requested redemption of their shares. The Banif Inmobiliario will distribute redemptions (between 9 March and 5 May) to investors in a first group equivalent to 10.3% of the audited value of the fund. Santander will then deliver subsequent redemptions to investors in 10% stages as properties are sold off, as a function of the net asset value of the fund.

Henderson Global Investors, led since the end of last year by its former CIO, Andrew Formica, follows a policy of actively adapting its product range to market conditions. Recently, the British management firm announced that it will be closing two sub-funds of its Horizon Sicav, including the Pan European Property Equities Alpha Plus Fund (EUR0.8bn), which was tactically positioned to enter at the low point of the market and profit from a rebound in real estate properties, which the market will apparently not deliver in the next few months.Similarly, the Global Financials Fund sub-fund was launched in late 2007, and was tactically aligned to the bottom of the market, and oriented to the recovery of financial sector shares. The fund will be closed on 1 June. It was not intensively promoted, and its assets as of the end of January totalled EUR2m, says Patricial Kaveh, director of development for France, Geneva and Monaco.The Strategic Yield Fund (EUR4m), for its part, has been reoriented to Europe, whereas it was previously focused on global and United States investments. Its high yield positioning is not meeting market expectations; the fund will therefore be closed.This housekeeping in the product range will also bring reorientations. For example, the Henderson Horizon Pan European Alpha Plus will on 1 April become the Pan European Alpha. The management team has recently been changed, and ?Plus? was let go as part of cost-saving measures. The product, which was a multi-strategy fund, will become a ?fundamental? product. The long/short sub-fund (30 long positions, 10-20 short positions), delivering portable alpha in a UCITS-III compliant vehicle, will be highly flexible, says Kaveh.The London offices of Henderson have also announced the launch of an offshore Luxembourg version of its Industries of the Future fund, which is not yet licensed for sale in France. The product, managed by Tim Dieppe, is intended for European and Asian investors.

In asset management, total assets under management at Crédit Agricole came to EUR457.5bn as of 31 December 2008, compared with EUR525bn one year earlier. That puts them 12.9% lower than 12 months earlier; 8.5 points of this decline are due to falling valuations. ?Outflows in the period are limited to 4.4% of assets, thanks to strong inflows to money market products (+EUR18.3bn), guaranteed products (+EUR4.9bn), and employee savings, which partially compensate for disaffection from absolute performance and alternative products (-EUR26.8bn), and equities products (-EUR9.2bn),? the bank says in a statement. In total, net redemptions totalled EUR23bn for the year.The asset management unit will soon be merged with Société Générale.

After reorganizing its fixed-income management, Axa Investment Managers is now taking on ?qualitative? equities management. The management firm of the Axa group has recently concluded the merger of the Conviction Actions, Axa Framlington and Talents teams, which manage assets of EUR63bn, out of a total of EUR120bn in equities management overall; the remainder is at Axa Rosenberg, the quantitative equities management arm. The merger will involve the creation of a single brand name for qualitative equities management. The product range will be reorganized around two major areas: ?core? funds and ?specialised? funds (thematic funds, absolute return, etc). This means that some products will be merged, but others will also be created, when lacunae are identified, which will offer ?more complete and coherent? product range, says Nathalie Boullefort-Fulconis, global director of Axa IM Distribution. The new range will be unveiled in one month.Equities management represented 24% of assets at Axa IM at the end of 2008, which total EUR485bn, At the end of 2007 they represented 31% of total assets of EUR548bn.In addition to this project, begun in 2008, Axa IM has set three priorities in 2009, a year which will be ?more difficult than 2008, with the impact of the markets playing a major role,? says the firm’s CEO, Dominique Carrel-Billiard.One of these, unsurprisingly, will be cost reduction in a context of falling revenues. Among its other priorities, Axa IM is also planning to improve its risk management, with an investment of EUR9bn, and to work on client relations.In an environment in which acquisition opportunties are numerous, Axa IM says it is also ?always ready to make a small targeted acquisition? in areas where it is not already present. The firm has already considered 4 or 5 possible candidates which have been submitted to them since the beginning of the year.

Liongate Capital Management has announced the opening of its fund of hedge funds Liongate Commodities Fund to outside investors, Hedge Week reports. The product, which began in January 2008 with seed capital of USD40m, is now invested in 20 mid-sized hedge funds specialised in various commodities (precious metals, oil, sugar). In the 13 months to the end of January 2009, it has posted performance of 0.36% in US dollars, compared with a loss of 51.27% for the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced on Tuesday that it is moving up the date on which its new disclosure regime for contracts for difference (CFDs) will take effect to 1 June, rather than the previously announced date of 1 September. Under the new regime, CFDs and similar financial instruments in the same company will be required to be declared as equities, and will count towards the 3% declaration threshold. This will ensure that these instruments are not covertly used to influence the governance of businesses or to build up stakes in companies.

At the end of January, assets in funds domiciled in the United Kingdom totalled GBP354.2bn, compared with GBP361.1bn at the end of December, and GBP432.2bn twelve months previously, while total net subscriptions represented GBP1.85bn, compared with GBP1.92bn the previous month, and with net redemptions of GBP744.3m in January 2008, the Investment Management Association (IMA) reports. Of this total, retail net subscriptions represented EUR1.22bn, compared with EUR1.50bn in December, and net outflows of EUR561.3m.For funds domiciled abroad, assets as of 31 January totalled GBP15.2bn, compared with GBP16bn at the end of December and GBP16.2bn one year previously, while net subscriptions in January totalled GBP66.6m, compared with GBP180.6m the previous month, and net redemptions of GBP374.8m in January 2008. Richard Saunders, chief executive at the IMA, points out that subscriptions have been high in the past three months, particularly for bond funds in December and January.