Jean-Michel Horrenberger, directeur général adjoint de l’ERAFP, a déclaré à Londres, lors de la première conférence organisée par IPE / Sterling Capital Partners consacrée aux infrastructures, que le conseil d’administration de l’ERAFP a formulé une demande aux régulateurs français avec pour objectif d’obtenir un allègement des contraintes réglementaires à l'égard des classes d’actifs alternatives. Cela permettrait à l’institution de réaliser ses premiers investissements dans les infrastructures. Jean-Michel Horrenberger a indiqué que le l’ERAFP n'était actuellement « pas autorisé par la loi » à investir dans des classes d’actifs telles que les infrastructures. Il a ajouté que l’institution, dont la poche obligations représente plus de 70%, ne pouvait pas investir dans des fonds communs de placement à capital variable, et était de plus limitée au moment d’investir dans des titres non cotés. En 2011, l’ERAFP avait déjà reçu l’autorisation d’investir dans l’immobilier et le bois.
La Collective de Prévoyance (Copré), environ 470 millions d’euros d’encours, a écarté deux gérants d’actifs, IAM Independent Asset Management et Aforge Finance, et a sélectionné UBS Global Asset Management. L’institution met davantage l’accent sur l’investissement indiciel. Christina Tournier, secrétaire générale de la Collective de Prévoyance, a déclaré qu'«après plusieurs années d’observation, nous avons noté que indiciel faisait mieux, et à moindre coût». Christina Tournier a révélé que les mandats avec les gestionnaires actifs IAM Independent Asset Management et Aforge Finance avaient pris fin, et que l’institution a sélectionné UBS à la place. L’institution avait délégué un mandat indiciel à Crédit Suisse Asset Management (lire brève du 27 mai 2011), elle a également retenu Swiss & Global Asset Management.
Le redémarrage du marché intervenu en septembre 2013 - comme chaque année à la même époque - a été modéré. Pour autant, la production demeure en progression de 15,9% en rythme annuel en septembre (en glissement annuel). Compte tenu de la forte diminution des apports personnels mobilisés et donc d’un retour au crédit plus intense, le nombre de prêts bancaires accordés progresse moins rapidement avec une hausse de 4,8 % en rythme annuel en septembre.
La collecte sur les produits indiciels cotés (ETP) a atteint 35 milliards de dollars au mois de septembre, selon les données de BlackRock, alors qu’août avait marqué le troisième mois de décollecte en 2013. Les signaux accommodants lancés par la Fed, puis sa décision de ne pas ralentir tout de suite son programme de rachats d’actifs, ont alimenté les flux après les incertitudes de l'été. Les ETF actions européennes ont encore été en vedette avec une collecte de 5,3 milliards de dollars. Les flux sur ETF marchés émergents sont quant à eux repassés en territoire positif le mois dernier, même si le cumul reste négatif sur 2013. A fin septembre, l’encours mondial d’ETP atteignait 2.226 milliards de dollars pour 4.937 produits répertoriés par BlackRock.
Les élus républicains de la Chambre des représentants se sont réunis à huis clos vendredi pour affiner leur stratégie, au quatrième jour de «shutdown» des services fédéraux non essentiels, que beaucoup craignent de voir durer jusqu'à ce que la classe politique finisse par s’entendre sur un relèvement du plafond de la dette. Estimant que l’impasse actuelle nécessitait sa présence à Washington, Barack Obama a annulé ses déplacements prévus la semaine prochaine en Indonésie et à Brunei.
Clemens Reuter, head UBS ETFs, a indiqué à Fondsprofessionell que sa maison à décidé d’abaisser le taux de frais sur encours (TFE) de nombreux ETF avec effet au 16 septembre.D’autre part, afin que les investisseurs soient avertis des coûts supplémentaires encourus avec les ETF à réplication synthétique, notamment les frais liés au swap, UBS ETFs a décidé de publier parallèlement au TFE un «drag level» qui offre une transparence complète. Le «drag level» sera calculé par UBS une fois par an au 31 juillet et vaudra pour les douze mois suivants.
Clemens Reuter, head UBS ETFs, a indiqué à Fondsprofessionell que sa maison à décidé d’abaisser le taux de frais sur encours (TFE) de nombreux ETF avec effet au 16 septembre.D’autre part, afin que les investisseurs soient avertis des coûts supplémentaires encourus avec les ETF à réplication synthétique, notamment les frais liés au swap, UBS ETFs a décidé de publier parallèlement au TFE un «drag level» qui offre une transparence complète. Le «drag level» sera calculé par UBS une fois par an au 31 juillet et vaudra pour les douze mois suivants.
Suite à l’acquisition de l’activité ETF de Credit Suisse, iShares a modifié sa palette de produits proposés dans la région EMEA (Europe, Moyen-Orient, Afrique), rapporte Investment Europe.Dans le cadre de ces modifications, iShares va notamment fermer 15 ETF à compter du 24 octobre 2013 pour diverses raisons, dont surtout le peu d’intérêt des investisseurs pour ces véhicules. Les fonds concernés comprennent 8 fonds d’Ishares et 7 fonds issus de Credit Suisse.iShares a aussi repositionné les versions capitalisantes des iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF, iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF et iShares S&P 500 - B UCITS ETF avec un total des frais sur encours de 15 points de base afin de répondre à l’intérêt croissant des investisseurs institutionnels pour des ETF peu coûteux et transparents. Les versions distribuantes de ces produits n’ont pas été modifiées.
New York-based Direxion on 3 October launched two leveraged ETFs which replicate the rising or falling performance of the Junior Gold Miners index from Market Vectors with 3 times leverage.The Direxion Daily Junior Fold Miners Index Bull 3X Shares (ticker: JNUG) aims for triple the daily performance of this index, while the Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners Bear 3X Shares (JDST) is the inverse.The two funds charge fees of 0.95%.
Thanks to the good performance of the US and international markets, the average coverage rate for the liabilities of US corporate pension funds in the month of September rose 2.9 percentage points to 91%, a level not seen since June 2011, according to BNY Mellon Investment Strategy & Solutions Group (ISSG).“Getting above 90% is important for very many corporate retirement savings programmes, who as a result become more disposed to put strategies in place which can reduce exposure to market volatility,” says Jeffrey B. Saef, managing director at BNY Mellon Investment Management and head of ISSG.In the month under review, assets in funds increased by 3.1%. Liabilities fell by 0.2%, while the actualisation rate rose by 3 basis points to 4.81% for businesses rated Aa.
The manager of the hedge fund Pershing, Bill Ackman, bet USD1.5bn, or 15% of its total asets, on Herbalife. He short-sold the shares, betting the firm would go bankrupt, as he felt that the firm is an immense “Ponzi scheme.” But the rise in its share value has already cost him nearly one third of his bet, or USD500m in latent capital losses, Les Echos reports. This has weighed on the performance of Pershing, which lost 5% in third quarter, one of its worst declines. It has thus decided to retain only 60% of its short positions, and has also acquired long options on the firm.
The Zurich-based LB(Swiss) Investment AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft (Switzerland), announced on 3 October that on 1 October it added a new business unit to its activities, namely the provision of representation for foreign funds in Switzerland. This comes in addition to activities to create and manage funds as well as compliance and risk management.As a centre of expertise, LB(Swiss) Investment offers its potential clients expertise in Swiss fund legislation, which permits the development of commercial strategy. In addition, the business model is designed to exclude conflicts of interest, particularly to avoid any situation of competition between the firm and its clients, Marcel Weiss, CEO, says.
At the official inauguration of new BlackRock premises on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Martin Gut, country head for Switzerland, says that the US asset mangaement firm may soon employ considerably more than 100 people in Zurich and Geneva, compared with 80 currently, finews reports.This will be organic growth, after BlackRock acquired the multi-management activities of Swiss Re and the ETF activities of Credit Suisse, which made it possible to increase assets to nearly USD120bn.Gut has announced that BlackRock is also about to found a fund management and administration company in Switzerland. Talks with Finma are promising, the manager says.
According to Institutional Investors’ alpha, relaying the New York Times DealBlog, three more managers have left the hedge fund management firm SAC Capital Advisors, which is facing a lawsuit for insider trading. The three specialists, based in London, are Alidod Shirinbekov, Woei Chan and Paul Crouch.
A group of seasoned asset management professionals, Ezra Zask, Ralph DiMeo, Robert Krause, Wendy Robertson and Matthias Knab, who have already done more than 1,000 due diligence reports on hedge funds, have founded the platform Hedge Fund Due Diligence Exchange (HFDDX), which offers members an online marketplace to anonymously reconcile their needs with those of other participants, at http://www.hfddx.com/. When two or more members would like due diligence on the same fund, this reduces the cost proportionately.However, HFDDX does not recommend managers, and does not assist members to find funds which suit their needs.
La Française and Ofi AM on Thursday, 3 October announced that they are merging their incubation activities at NExT AM and NewAlpha AM. The new merged entity will have 49 investments, EUR1.3bn in cumulative seed money commitments, 26 active partners, and a total of EUR6.2bn in assets managed by 260 employees at partner asset management firms.NewAlpha AM is now 40% contorlled by La Française via its affiliate NExT AM, 25% by Ofi AM via NewAlpha Advisers, and 35% by the founders of NewAlpha AM within the entity NewAlpha Partners. NewAlpha AM will become the manager for third parties in the new ensemble, and will take over the management of the NExT Invest fund.The new entity, whose brand name has not yet been decided, aims to become the European leader in asset management incubation, “and one of the top two or three worldwide,” says the chairman of the board of NewAlpha AM, Antoine Rolland.
The U.S. institutional market is going to increase 30% to USD19 trillion in assets within the next 5 years, expects Cerulli Associates. As of year-end 2012, the institutional market held USD14.5 trillion in assets under management. «The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) is continuing,» explains John Hsu, senior analyst at Cerulli. «DC markets continue to grow faster than DB markets and we anticipate that trend will continue."Cerulli highlights an opportunity for asset managers who have shifted their focus to DC to leverage existing relationships with corporate DB plan sponsors, allowing them to win DC mandates and potentially extend to custom target-date solutions.
Amundi would like to increase its assets in socially responsible investment from EUR66bn as of the end of June 2013, to EUR100bn, in two years, Yves Perrier, CEO of the asset management firm of the Crédit Agricole group, announced on Thursday at a press conference. As of 30 June, Amundi had a total of EUR750bn in assets under management. In order to develop its SRI assets, th asset management firm is planning to rely on two vectors. The first is the transformation of traditional funds into SRI funds, as have already been done in money markets (which now represent 37.76% of SRI assets). Pierre Schereck, director of corporate savings and SRI at Amundi, says, for example, that in employee savings, EUR10bn out of EUR20bn are not yet SRI and could be. The other vector is inflows, although Perrier claims that demand for SRI is “marginal,” particularly on the part of retail investors. Three quarters of SRI assets at Amundi are managed for institutional investors. At the conference, Perrier also discussed the choice to certify the firm’s SRI precedures with Afnor Certification, and to drop the Novethic labels. “There were disagreements about the procedure at Novethic, which has more exclusions than ours,” he explains. “The point of friction is the selectiveness rate,” Anne-Catherine Husson Traore, CEO of Novethic, confirms. Perrier also supports the creation of a European, rather than French, SRI label. SRI procedures at Amundi are based on environmental, social and governance analysis of 4,600 issuers. This makes it possible to construct portfolios with a universal best-in-class approach. Extra-financial research has also been made available to all managers, who are, however, not required to use it.
Hedge funds and other parallel banking operators are growing on the repurchasing market, as new rules render this activity less attractive for banks, the Financial Times reports. Among other players who are active in this area are Och-Ziff and Moore Capital, the newspaper says.
Deutsche Börse will soon announce that it has admitted two new Luxembourg-registered ETFs to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform launched by ComStage, an affiliate of Commerzbank. The funds were founded on 30 September. One of them, the ComStage ETF FTSE China A50 UCITS ETF, replicates an index in US dollars of shares in mainland Chinese companies developed by FTSE; the other, the ComStage ETF MSCI World with EM Exposure net UCITS ETF, tracks an index of the 300 companies of the MSCI index most exposed to emerging markets.CharacteristicsName: ComStage ETF FTSE China A50 UCITS ETFISIN code: LU0947415054Total expense ratio: 0.50%Name: ComStage ETF MSCI World with EM Exposure net UCITS ETFISIN code: LU0947416961Total expense ratio: 0.40%
The Frankfurt-based asset management boutique Acatis Investment, whose assets total EUR2.1bn thanks to EUR685m in net subscriptions in the first eight months of 2013 (thus not counting inflows in September) unveiled the largest fund in the litter in Paris on 3 October, which is managed by Universal Investment and “sub-advised” by Gané AG of Aschaffenburg. The German-registered product, Acatis Gané Value Event Fund UI, has EUR785m in assets, and has attracted a net EUR400m since the beginning of the year, says Uwe Rathausky, one of the two founders and directors at Acatis.The portfolio, which now includes 25 positions with a turnover rate of 30%, is invested in equities, bonds and cash. For an investment, the team requires profits of 10% for each equity and 6% for each bond, and historically, the cash allocation has varied from 5% to 40%. The fund is currently 47% invested in equities (including 31% in US large caps), 16% in bonds (rated an average of BBB-), and 37% in cash.To describe the management style, Rathausky explains that he applies a value approach to the business, the management and the valuation, and complements this with an event-driven component, while refusing to use derivatives. The portfolio must have a considerably lower volatility than that of the equity markets, and a beta correlation of 0.30 to 0.60, also with respect to the equity market.CharacteristicsName: Acatis Gané Value Event Fund UIIsin Codes : DE000A0X751: A sharesDE000AIC5D13: B sharesDE000AIT73W9: C sharesBenchmark index: 50 % MSCI World Performance EUR/50 % EoniaFront-end fee:5% maximum (A and C shares)4% maximum (B shares)Management commission: 1.75%Performance commission: 20% of performance exceeding 6% (maximum 2% for the B share class)
The market capitalisation of the telecommunications operator SoftBank on 3 October exceeded that of the banking group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), to become the second largest on the Tokyo stock exchange, after Toyota. The share price of SoftBank on Thursday rose 4% to JPY7530 (EUR56.96), after significant rises already during recent trading sessions, a level not seen since November 2005. The market capitalisation of SoftBank on Thursday at the end of the day was JPY9.040trn (about EUR68bn), compared with JPY8.725trn for MUFG and more than JPY21.550trn for Toyota.
Finews reports that according to Reuters, Credit Suisse is said to be in the running to acquire the private banking activities of Société Générale in Asia. Ten banks submitted bids, including at least one US company, Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered, DBS and HSBC.The asset is estimated to be worth USD600m, with USD13bn in assets.
Chiow Wei Lee has resigned from his role as chief investment officer at Tokio Marine Asset Management International (TMAI), Citywire Global reports. His resonsibilities have been taken over by the current CEO, Kenji Kodama. Lee will leave his position on 13 November this year. Assets under management at TMAI total about USD3.5bn.
The alternative asset management entity UBS O’Connor (UBS group), whose assets under management total about USD5.2bn, is planning to open its first Asian hedge fund to investors by the end of the year, according to the news agency Bloomberg.The fund, which started the month of August with internal capital, is managed by John Bradshaw and David Perrett from New York.
Clemens Reuter, head of UBS ETFs, has told Fondsprofessionell that his asset management firm has decided to cut the total expense ratios (TER) for several of its ETFs with effect from 16 September. In order for investors to be aware of the additional costs involved with synthetic replication ETFs, particularly costs related to the swap, UBS ETFs has also decided to publish a parallel “drag level” TER, in order to offer complete transparency. The “drag level” rate will be calculated by UBS once per year, on 31 July, and will apply for the following 12 months.
Following its acquisition of the ETF activities of Credit Suisse, iShares has modified its range of products on offer in the EMEA region (Europe, the Miiddle East and Africa), Investent Europe reports. As part of the changes, iShares will close 15 ETFs from 24 October 2013 for various reasons, particularly a lack of interest on the part of investors in these vehicles. The funds concerned include 89 funds from iShares and 7 funds from Credit Suisse.iShares has also repositioned the capitalisation versions of the iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF, iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF and iShares S&P 500 - B UCITS ETF with a total expense ratio of 15 basis points, in order to meet rising demand from institutional investors for inexpensive and transparent ETFs. The versions of these products placed on sale have not been modified.
There is a rising number of planned passports for Asian funds. After the Asia Region Funds Passport (ARFP) proposed 10 days ago (see Newsmanagers), the ASEAN capital markets forum (ACMF) has announced in a statement that the market authority of Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Thai market watchdog had signed a memorandum of understanding to create a cross-border range of collective investment schemes (OPC or CIS). In order to be eligible, candidate asset management firms must have at least USD500m in assets under management and must have been active for at least five years. This passport may be introduced during first half 2014, a statement says.
According to the most recent statistics from Dealogic, large operations are rising again, boosting global activity since the beginning of the year, Les Echos reports. 18 operations of over USD10bn were announced between January and September 2013, totalling nearly USD550bn. But the global M&A market remains reduced in terms of the number of operations.
M&G Investments has hired Claudia Calich to its Retail Fixed Interest team. The team manages more than EUR36 billion of assets as at 30 June 2013.Claudia Calich joins M&G on 18 October 2013, reporting to head of team Jim Leaviss.For much of the last decade she was at Invesco in New York, most recently as head of emerging markets debt and senior portfolio manager, and before that at a number of US based financial institutions.