Les établissements financiers détiennent toujours des montants colossaux de dette souveraine

La fin du rally japonais et la hausse des taux longs ont pénalisé les stratégies macro et CTA, mais les hedge funds dans leur ensemble dégagent des gains

L'activité a été soutenue sur le marché primaire le mois dernier mais en glissement annuel l'offre nette reste négative. Les spreads se resserrent

Les fonds d’arbitrage macro et quantitatifs (CTA) ont plongé dans le rouge en mai, un mois marqué par la remontée des taux longs, la correction sur le Nikkei et des retournements de tendance sur le marché des devises. L’ensemble de la classe hedge funds affiche cependant des gains.

Les Etats-Unis pourraient imposer leur régulation aux banques étrangères dès la mi-juillet mais elle pourrait être incompatible avec d'autres

Le gouvernement central chinois pourrait accélérer ses investissements dans «des projets d’infrastructures d’envergure» au cours du prochain trimestre, indique le Hong Kong Economic Times qui cite des propos de Li Daokui, ancien conseiller de la Banque Populaire de Chine. Il ajoute que le pays a besoin d’investissements dans la consommation et de fonds du secteur privé pour enrayer le ralentissement économique.

Responsable au sein des services fiscaux des Etats-Unis (IRS, Internal Revenue Service) des menaces électroniques, Victor Lessoff confie au quotidien que l’utilisation de monnaies virtuelles comme Bitcoin dans un but d’évasion fiscale fait l’objet d’une grande vigilance. PayPal notamment est en ligne de mire.

L’entrée en vigueur au 01er août de règles européennes plus strictes en matière de sauvetages bancaires, qui imposent des pertes des créanciers juniors et des actionnaires comme condition à un soutien public, pourrait compromettre le plan de restructuration passant par la création d’une « bad bank » proposé par Andrew Tyrie, membre de la commission bancaire parlementaire britannique qui devrait remettre son rapport cette semaine, indique le journal.

L'indice Nikkei chutait ce matin après que la Banque du Japon a décidé de ne pas prendre de mesures additionnelles contre la volatilité des taux

Un rapport de l’organisme d’audit des comptes publics chinois fait état d’une hausse de la dette locale de 13% sur les deux dernières années

Le FRR a lancé un appel d’offres visant à sélectionner un ou plusieurs prestataires pour la gestion financière de mandats de gestion active investis en actions grandes et moyennes capitalisations des Etats-Unis. Pour ce marché, la procédure de marchés publics retenue est celle d’un appel d’offres restreint composé de deux lots : Lot 1 : « Actions Etats-Unis gestion active « Value » Ce lot concerne la gestion active d’un ou plusieurs mandats qui devront mettre en oeuvre une exposition aux actions de grandes et moyennes capitalisations des Etats-Unis de style « Value ». A titre purement indicatif, le FRR estime que le montant global des fonds donnés en gestion pourrait être fixé à 500 millions d’euros. Lot 2 : « Actions Etats-Unis gestion active « Growth » Ce lot concerne la gestion active d’un ou plusieurs mandats qui devront mettre en oeuvre une exposition aux actions de grandes et moyennes capitalisations des Etats-Unis de style « Growth ». A titre purement indicatif, le FRR estime que le montant global des fonds donnés en gestion pourrait être fixé à 500 millions d’euros. Chacun des mandats du présent marché est conclu pour une durée de quatre ans à compter de sa notification avec possible reconduction d’un an. Les sociétés de gestion intéressées ont jusqu’au 8 juillet 2013, 12h00 (heure de Paris), pour répondre au FRR dans les conditions spécifiées par le règlement de la consultation.

Le déficit budgétaire de la Grèce reste en passe d’atteindre les objectifs fixés par les bailleurs de fonds internationaux du pays, a affirmé le gouvernement lundi, alors que débute une mission d’inspection de la «troïka». Athènes a réduit de plus de moitié le déficit primaire (hors charge de la dette) de l’Etat central sur les cinq premiers mois de l’année, pour le ramener à 1 milliard d’euros.

L’agence de notation fait passer de «négative» à «stable» la perspective attachée à la note « AA+» des Etats-Unis. S&P estime que «les autorités monétaires américaines ont à la fois une forte capacité et la volonté de soutenir une croissance économique durable et d’atténuer des chocs financiers ou économiques majeurs». L’annonce a fait monter le dollar sur le marché des changes.

Le groupe suédois SSAB anticipe que la demande d’acier restera faible en Europe et a réduit ses capacités de production afin de s’adapter au marché. SSAB a enregistré une perte opérationnelle au premier trimestre de 136 millions de couronnes suédoises (15,7 millions d’euros). Moody’s a prédit lundi un recul de 2 à 4% de la demande d’acier en Europe après une chute de 10% en 2012.

Les Pays-Bas subiront cette année une récession plus importante que prévu et devront adopter davantage de mesures d’austérité pour tenir leurs engagements, estime la banque centrale du pays dans son rapport semi-annuel. La Banque des Pays-Bas prévoit désormais une contraction de 0,8% du PIB en 2013, alors qu’elle anticipait en décembre -0,6%.

Après quatorze ans passés au sein de Groupama Asset Management, Francis Ailhaud quittera ses fonctions le 30 juin prochain et cèdera son fauteuil de directeur général à Philippe Setbon. Agé de 48 ans, ce dernier était jusqu’à présent PDG de Generali Investments France. «Directement rattaché à Benoit Maes, directeur financier groupe, il aura la mission d’inscrire l’action de Groupama Asset Management dans le cadre des nouvelles orientations stratégiques décidées par le groupe», souligne Groupama AM dans un communiqué. La société de gestion d’actifs, qui a enregistré une décollecte nette de 4,2 milliards d’euros l’an dernier à la suite de la restructuration de sa maison-mère, s’est fixé pour 2013 l’objectif de rénover sa gestion d’allocation dynamique et de rationaliser ses gammes obligataires et diversifiée.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has formally approved the registration of Dagong Europe Credit Rating Srl (Dagong Europe), based in Italy, as a credit rating agency (CRA) under Article 16 of the CRA Regulation. The registration takes effect from 13 June 2013.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } John Paulson would like investors to stop focusing on his bets on gold, the Wall Street Journal reports. The billionaire fund manager was one of the most bullish investors in the precious metal, and suffered heavy losses as a result. His USD18bn firm will now cease to include the performance of its gold fund in monthly bulletins to investors, according to a letter sent to investors on Thursday. Paulson regrets that problems with the gold fund have eclipsed the good performance of his other funds. The gold fund and other strategies in that area represent only 2% of assets at the firm.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } 83% of investments in hedge funds last year were made at “full price,” without negotiations over fees, a new study by Goldman Sachs, cited by Financial News, reveals. The standard in the industry is management fees of 2%, and performance fees of 20%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Securities and Exchange Commission will this year consider a proposal to simplify procedures to license non-complex ETFs, Norm Champ, the head for the asset management industry within the SEC, has announced at a Reuters conference on wealth management.

The mission to protect the banking and financial assets of depositories of the Fonds de Garantie des Dépôts means that the fund is an institutional investor which has no precise knowledge of its off-book liabilities, nor of the timing of its requirements. Thierry Dissaux, who is chairman of the Fund, explains to Newsmanagers the management constraints that characterise this process, and, with a volume of EUR2bn in assets under management currently, the ultimate management which he brings to bear in a low interest rate context.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Miaodan Wu, a former portfolio manager at SAC Capital Advisors, known as Doctor Wu, is preparing to launch his own hedge fund in Hong Kong, which will bet on swings in share prices, Hedge Week reports, citing Reuters. The hedge fund, entitled Bach Option, will be released in late 2013. Wu has recruited Henry Ondo, formerly of Citigroup.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Lars König has left Citigroup Global Markets Deutschland, where he had been a specialist in institutional sales for Germany and head of relationship management for pension funds, to join Schroders Germany as director of institutional sales for Germany and Austria, where he will report to Carlos Böhles. Axa Investment Managers Germany has also announced that it has added to its institutional sales team with the recruitment of Martin Köhler as senior institutional sales manager. Köhler will now report directly to Jörg Schomburg, director of institutional sales for Germany. The new recruit had served in the same role at Credit Suisse, after spending ten years as manager of a diversified fund at Deka.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In a solid month of April for European funds, five asset management firms in Europe recorded net inflows of over EUR2bn, Lipper reports in its most recent study on the subject. Pimco leads, with inflows of EUR5.3bn. It is followed by Franklin Templeton (EUR4.4bn), which has posted strong activity in Italy, JP Morgan (EUR3.5bn), M&G (EUR2.6bn), and Axa (EUR2.4bn). In April, European investors continued to choose bond funds. Sales of these funds in Europe set a new monthly record for the month of a net EUR35.4bn, he largest total since Lipper began monitoring European fund flows in 2002. Global and flexible bond funds in particular attracted a total of EUR12.7bn. This allowed the fund sector as a whole to earn net subscriptions of EUR52.5bn. This is only the third time in the past five years that the monthly total has reached above EUR50bn, Lipper points out. Despite the success of bond funds, equity funds also posted inflows, of EUR2.8bn. However, it is notable that ETFs weighed down inflows to equities, with redemptions of EUR1.3bn.

Standard Life Investments has announced three new appointments to its European Business team, including a new director for Germany.Dirk Tiemann has been appointed as investment director for semi-institutional (wholesale) sales in Germany and Austria. He will be based in Frankfurt. Dirk Tiemann (44), who has worked in the German and Austrian investment markets since 1994, previously ran Tinion Capital, a company which distributed selected investment funds to German institutional and wholesale clients. Before that, he was head of banks and sales director at Fidelity; and ran the European Marketing and sales team at MainFirst Bank. He joins Frank Richter (also based in Frankfurt) who was appointed in January this year as investment director for institutional sales in Germany and Austria. Standard Life Investments has been active in the German market for over ten years.Standard life Investments has also appointed two new business development managers, based at its Edinburgh HQ - Alan Simpson for Germany and the Nordics, and Abilio da Rocha for Switzerland and Southern Europe – bringing the team to a total of 13 people. Alan Simpson (32) previously worked in sales roles at Scottish Widows and Standard Life Group, and has been at Standard Life Investments for three years.Abilio da Rocha (33) was a product specialist at Union Bancaire Privée in London and Switzerland, following an internship as a portfolio manager at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch in Geneva, and speaks six languages.Standard Life Investments SICAV funds have public distribution status in 14 European countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, the UK, Switzerland and Spain), with an AUM across Europe of EUR24.3bn Euros, over 11% of the total AUM of EUR211.8bn (31 March 2013).

Global bond funds started June by posting their biggest weekly outflows on record as fears the US Federal Reserve will start reining in its current quantitative easing program – QE3 – put pressure on bond prices and chased investors out of riskier asset classes, according to EPFR Global.The week ending June 5 saw USD12.53bn redeemed from global bond funds. High yield bond funds alone recorded outflows of over USD6bn, while emerging market bond funds saw outflows of over USD1bn.Redemptions from equity funds hit a 28 week high of USD6.21 billion. Emerging market equity funds in particular saw outflows of over USD4bn. Flows into money market funds were volatile, posting two daily swings in excess of USD17 billion before ending the week with net inflows of USD3.87 billion.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } At a time when investors are massively selling Japanese equities, George Soros, with his firm Soros Fund Management, is still buying, the Wall Street Journal reports. The firm sold most of its positions on Japanese equities in May, before the recent fall, according to a source familiar with the matter. But last week, it returned to the market.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Swiss firm Unigestion on 7 June announced its collaboration with the Centre for Asset Management Research (CAMR) at Cass Business School, a London-based establishment that ranks among the best producers of university financial research in Europe. As part of the collaboration, Unigestion displays its desire to explore and deepen its research programme and to produce new cutting-edge techniques in asset management. Via the research partnership, Unigestion will sponsor the annual CAMR conference in London; to be held in early December 2013, as well as a series of work seminars. Institutional investors, consultants and advisers from the industry will be invited to attend and participate in meetings to facilitate three-way dialogue and to discuss questions of application directly with asset managers and academics. Unigestion will also admit several Cass students for internships, in order to allow them to conduct more extensive research on topics that may be immediately applied as part of the investment process at the firm. Unigestion and Cass are assured that their collaboration will help to generate innovative new ideas in research and to encourage fruitful exchanges between the academic world and the world of asset management, in the interests of institutional investors. The first conference, on the subject of asset allocation between various segments of private equity, was held on Wednesday, 1 May at Cass Business School. The debate was introduced by Hanspeter Bader, head of private equity at Unigestion, and hosted by Edgar Miller, associate professor of private equity at Cass. The second conference will be held in September 2013.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Syz & Co has recruited Thomas Mesmin, a specialist in consumer products, to strengthen the team of manager Eric Bendahan, Citywire Global reports. He will work on the Oyster European Opportunities and Oyster European Selection funds. He had previously worked for Credit Agricole Cheuvreux in Paris.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Eurizon, the asset management firm of the Italian Intesa Sanpaolo group, has received permission to invest onshore directly in various asset classes on the Chinese market via its funds, for a maximal total of USD100m, Bluerating reports. “Eurizon is the first asset management firm owned by an Italian banking group to obtain the prestigious Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor license,” says Mauro Micillo, deputy director of Eurizon. Following the authorization, new funds will be released as part of the Luxembourg Sicav.