A 7,4% fin octobre, il pourrait tomber dès l'an prochain sous le seuil de 7% fixé par la Banque d'Angleterre pour commencer à relever ses taux

Les résistances allemandes surmontées, reste à préciser le filet de sécurité du futur système… et à recevoir l’aval du Parlement

Les sociétés de gestion de Nomura, Daiwa, Nikko et Mitsubishi UFJ vont lancer de nouveaux fonds pour le JPX-Nikkei Index 400, un nouvel indice qui sélectionnera ses membres en fonction de la rentabilité des fonds propres. Daiwa ouvrira deux fonds (yen et dollar) le 6 janvier, jour d’inauguration de l’indice. Nomura et Nikkei lanceront le mois prochain des fonds indiciels cotés (ETF), tandis que Mitsubishi UFJ le fera le mois suivant.

Les ministres des Finances de l’UE ont validé hier soir le cadre de résolution bancaire. Les fonds nationaux de garantie des dépôts seront mobilisables. L’EBA fixera banque par banque le niveau des contributions.

La banque centrale allège de 10 milliards de dollars son programme mensuel de soutien à l'économie

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La banque centrale allège de 10 milliards de dollars son programme mensuel de soutien à l'économie

Selon nos informations, EDF collabore avec le consultant Darius Capital pour la sélection de ses investissements de diversification, notamment sur la poche obligataire et diversifié. Pour rappel, EDF avait annoncé en août dernier la création d’EDF Invest afin de gérer les investissements non cotés du groupe : les infrastructures à titre principal, l’immobilier et le private equity. L’objectif d’EDF Invest est de gérer environ 5 milliards d’euros d’investissements non cotés d’ici deux ans et de représenter ainsi 25% du total des actifs dédiés.

La réduction pourrait représenter 10 milliards de dollars par mois à un total de 75 milliards de dollars et les taux resteront près de zéro

L’Allemagne prévoit pour 2014 un montant d'émissions de titres de dette fédéraux au plus bas depuis 2007, a indiqué mercredi l’agence de la dette du pays. Hors obligations souveraines indexées sur l’inflation, la Finanzagentur prévoit de mettre sur le marché 205 milliards d’euros de titres de dette en 2014 contre 247 milliards cette année. Sur ce total, les emprunts d’Etat à moyen et long terme représenteront 161 milliards d’euros et les bons du Trésor 44 milliards. Les émissions à moyen long terme nettes des tombées se limiteront à 6 milliards d’euros - au plus bas depuis 40 ans - contre 25 milliards cette année. Il faut cependant y ajouter en 2014 entre 10 et 14 milliards d’euros d’obligations indexées sur l’inflation. La Finanzagentur se réserve la possibilité d'émettre d’autres instruments financiers en cas de nécessité.

L’autorité boursière américaine a publié mercredi une nouvelle règle, liée au Jobs Act de 2012, destinée à favoriser l’introduction en Bourse de start-up. Connue sous le nom de «Regulation A plus», cette règle permettra aux entreprises de lever jusqu'à 50 millions de dollars en échappant à des formalités jugées aujourd’hui très lourdes, comme le visa de chaque Etat fédéré dans lequel les titres sont proposés au public.

Le Groupe M6 est entré en négociations exclusives avec le groupe Darty en vue de l’acquisition par Darty de 100% de la société Mistergooddeal.com, l’un des principaux sites de e-commerce français.

L’AMF a formulé des positions et des recommandations à destination des prestataires de services d’investissement. Regroupées dans un projet de guide, celles-ci visent à préciser les attentes de l’Autorité des marchés financiers en matière de meilleure exécution des ordres des investisseurs. Une consultation est ouverte sur ce guide jusqu’au 31 janvier 2014.

The US financial sector regulatory authority Finra on 17 December announced the creation of a committee of investors, which will be responsible for advising Finra on all regulatory or other issues which may affect individual and institutional investors. The new committee will be operational from January 2014. Finra has also announced the appointment of two new members to its board of governors: Brigitte Madrian, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and a specialist in behavioural finance, and Luis Viciera, a professor at Harvard Business School, who is focused rather on asset allocation strategies for long-term investors.

Hedge funds are not as risky as one may think, according to a head at the US Treasury department, Richard Berner, who is responsible for the new office of financial research at the Treasury. Berner says that this provisional conclusion is based on an initial analysis of a broad battery of factors, including leverage levels at hedge funds, their risk modelling, and the difficult-to-estimate asset levels, the news agency Reuters reports. The collection of this data has been rendered possible by the Dodd-Franck law, which requires some large funds to submit confidential information to regulators, in order to help them better identify systemic risks. “These results may be provisional, but they appear to contradict the idea that hedge funds are major users of high-risk strategies,” Berner said at a press conference held by the Brookings Institution. Without prejudicing the results of work which has not yet been published, the international alternative management association (MFA), which represents primarily hedge funds, welcomed any analysis, however partial, which appears to suggest that hedge funds do not represent a systemic risk, and therefore do not need to be further regulated.

Fitch Ratings said on December 17 that the newly launched negotiable certificates of deposits (NCDs) are eligible for inclusion in the agency’s rating analysis of Chinese money market funds (CMMFs) if they meet the agency’s national scale money market fund criteria and rating considerations for CMMFs. These new instruments are currently reserved for issuance by banks approved by PBOC (as of 12 December 2013 the PBOC had approved 10 issuers) and are currently restricted to deposit-taking financial institutions, policy banks and commercial banks which are assigned an annual quota. The first issue of NCDs, totalling CNY19bn (USD3.1bn), was offered Thursday last week.

In 2013, the consultant Scorpio Partnership has counted 60 takeovers, involving wealth managers worldwide, 28 of which took place in the United Kingom, where the Retail Distribution Review has led to a wave of consolidation, the Financial Times reports. Since 2008, 236 deals have been recorded; those represent assets transferred of USD1.770trn. A large proportion of assets have been acquired in the past 12 months, which shows that mergers and acquisitions are accelerating in the sector, the FT notes.

Blackrock has invested at least EUR10bn in companies listed on the Milan stock exchange, according to Il Sole – 24 Ore, quoting Capital IQ. It makes the asset management giant the first foreign investor in Italy. Telecom, Atlantia, Prysmian, Azimut, Banco Popolare, MPS… it is almost impossible to find an Italian company which does not count BlackRock among its 10 main shareholders, according to the Italian newspaper.

Investors enter 2014 optimistic about the global economy and outlook for Japanese and European equities, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey, undertaken between 6 and 12 December on a sample of 237 participants with a total of USD655bn in assets under management. The proportion of investors believing the global economy will strengthen in the year ahead has risen to a net 71 percent from a net 67 percent in November. Conviction in the global economy is far stronger than 12 months ago when a net 40 percent of the panel predicted it would strengthen. Similarly, the outlook for profits has ticked upwards month-on-month and is far stronger than the end of 2012. A net 41 percent believes global profits will improve over the coming year, compared with a net 11 percent taking that view a year ago. Preference for equities over bonds remains at historically high levels. The spread between equity overweights and bond underweights stood at 118 percentage points in December, compared with 76 points one year ago and just 19 points in July 2012. Investors demonstrated a strong preference for Europe and Japan. Global investors have increased overweight positions in Japanese and eurozone equities in the past month and indicated appetite for more, while domestic investors in each region have become more optimistic. “Weakness in the U.S. dollar next year is the biggest threat to positioning given a consensus to go long Japanese and European cyclicals,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. Investors and asset allocators have increased allocations towards banks over the past month. The net percentage of the global panel overweight banks rose to a net 17 percent from a net 12 percent in November. A net 22 percent of European respondents said they are overweight banks this month. Commodities and related stocks remain deeply unpopular. A net 31 percent of asset allocators are underweight commodities, up seven percentage points month-on-month.

As of the end of November, Vanguard had a total of nearly USD65.31bn in net inflows over 11 months, according to estimates by Morningstar. The second-largest actor in terms of net inflows was Dimensional Fund Advisors, with more than USD20.98bn, followed by JPMorgan with USD18.2bn, MFS (USD17.36bn) and OppenheimerFunds (USD15.41bn).Meanwhile, the largest net redemptions were from Pimco (USD20bn) and American Funds (USD15.7bn).In total, long-term funds posted net inflows of USD258.84bn in January-November, of which USD132.16bn were for allocation funds, while money market funds saw net outflows of USD14.33bn. Total assets in long-term funds as of 30 November totalled USD10.824trn, and money market funds totalled USD2.460trn.In terms of assets, only three firms as of the end of November had over USD1trn: Vanguard, with USD1.896trn, excluding money market funds and funds of funds; Fidelity Investments, with USD1.144trn, and American Funds, with USD1.086trn.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers has launched shares denominated in pounds sterling compliant with the British Retail Distribution Review for nine sub-funds of the Luxembourg-domiciled Sicav, Fund Web reports. The Swiss firm has also added to its team for the United Kingdom, with the recruitment of Ricard Hanson, who will be sales support. He joins from the Swedish chamber of commerce in the United Kingdom.

GLG Partners has recruited Simon Price to work as a manager in its team dedicated to financial sector stocks, FundWeb reports. Price had previously been responsible for the financial sector and macro analysis at Occitan.

The former Threadneedle manager Quentin Fitzsimmon has been appointed as head of portfolio and investment management on the RBS Short Term Markets team, Citywire reports. Fitzsimmon had been head of government bonds and currencies at Threadneedle, which he left in 2012. He joined RBS in March this year.

The ultra-high net worth (UHNW) segment, and their advisers in the United Kingdom, claim that equities, and particularly emerging market equities, agriculture and private equity, will be the best-performing asset classes in the next few years, according to a survey carried out by the multi-family office Fleming Family & Partners, Funds Europe reports. In terms of larger trends, in the context of an abandonment of bonds in favour of equities, high net worth investors are increasingly turning to alternative assets. Another lesson of the survey is that diversification is cited by a high percentage of investors, while real estate is considered the most attactive alternative asset class by more than one in two investors.

David Steyn, former COO of AllianceBernstein and CEO of Gulf International Bank since January 2013, will join Aberdeen Asset Management in January 2014 as head of Americas. He will replace Gary Marshall, who has spent four years in this position, and will return to the United Kingdom, “where he will continue to play a key role in the development of the group,” a statement says.

Assets under management at the alternative asset management firm SkyBridge, based in New York, totalled USD9bn as of the end of October 2013, compared with USD7.1bn as of the end of December 2012, Opalesque reports. The fund of hedge funds Skybridge Multi-Adviser Hedge Fund Portfolios has returned 9.73% in the first 10 months of the year. Since its launch in January 2003, its performance is 7.675 per year, compared with 3.94% for the HFR Fund of Funds Composite index in the same period. Assets in the fund have increased from USD2.7bn in August 2012, to USD4.5bn in October this year, an increase of USD1.8bn in the space of 14 months.

OppenheimerFunds has announced the appointment of Arthur Steinmetz, currently chief investment officer, as chief executive officer from 1 July 2014. Steinmetz will on that date replace William Glavin, who will remain as chairman of OppenheimerFunds. From 1 January 2014, Krishna Memani, currently head of bond investment, will replace Steinmetz and will assume the roleof chief investment officer. Also from 1 January 2014, John McDonough, head of sales nationwide, is promoted to head of distribution, replacing Philipp Hensler, who has left the firm.

The German asset management firm Buss Capital GmbH & Co. KG has selected Caceis to provide it with depository services for its closed funds investing in shipping containers, managed under the new “Kapitalanlagegesetzbuch” (KAGB) regime, according to a statement released on 17 December. Buss Capital, based in Hamburg, is a leader in the market for closed funds investing in containers in Germany, with 29 FCP funds, four private placements and eight direct investments. Dirk Baldeweg, executive director of Buss Capital, says: “Our objective was to select an experienced depository to allow us to fulfil the obligations of the KAGB regime, while concentrating our resources on the management of investments. The services of Caceis corresponded to our needs.”

Union bancaire privée (UBP) is reportedly about to acquire the Geneva-based private bank Syz & Co, according to the Swiss magazine Bilan. The agreement in principle has already been signed. UBP already acquired the Swiss activities of ABN Amro in 2011, and of Lloyds in March this year. Assets under management at Syz totalled about CHF25bn as of the end of December 2012. At UBP, Jérôme Koechlin, a spokesperson contacted by Bilan, had no comment. The bank simply says that it is in talks with Syz to share common services. At Syz bank, the reports are refuted: “We have to date signed no agreement with this bank, nor with any other establishment elsewhere,” says Ricardo Payro, a spokesman for Syz.

Marcel B. Salzmanna was in early December appointed as head of Allianz Global Investors for Switzerland, Finews reports. Salzmanna previously served in a similar role at GMO. Before that, he was director of Invesco Switzerland. In his new role, he will aim to develop AGI’s activities on the Swiss market. He will report to Tobias Pross, managing director and head of the institutional activity of AGI in Europe.