P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } Bank am Bellevue on 22 February announced the recruitment of the Swiss equity specialist Michael Heider as head of equity research. Heider began on 1 February this year. He is responsible for a research team of 12 analysts. Heider, who has often won awards for his Swiss equity research, previously worked at Helvea, where he most recently served as co-head of equity research.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The Boston-based asset management firm Affiliated Managers Group Inc (AMG, USD432bn in assets as of the end of December) on 21 February announced the opening of a sales office in Zurich, and the recruitment of Patrick Sege, head of sales & business development Switzerland at Liongate Capital Management, as director, head of distribution Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. He will be based in Zurich.AMG has also recruited a director of sales & relationships, institutional clients, Germany, from Fidelity Investment Management. He will also be based in Zurich.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The Swiss stock exchange SIX has fined the Swiss group Weatherford International CHF200,000, SIX Exchange Regulation has announced in a statement released on 22 February. The group, active in oil exploitation services, was found guilty of violating a requirement to disclose management transactions, violating event notification rules, and violating rules concerning listing procedures.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } After a very good year in 2012, the Swiss group Mirabaud is very seriously planning to recruit personnel in Paris. With 30 employees, the Paris office may add to its convertibles unit, which for slightly over one year has been led by Renaud Martin.The convertible strategy led by Martin also has delivered flattering results. The Mirabaud Convertible Bonds Europe A Cap (Eur) fund, launched in October 2011, last year earned returns of 16.6%, compared with 15.7% for the benchmark index, Exane Europe Convertible Bond Index. Its assets under management total about EUR175m.Another area for development is high yield, but in London, where Mirabaud will soon announce the recruitment of a person, Lionel Aeschlimann, a partner at Mirabaud, told Newsmanagers at a presentation in Paris. Andrew Lake, who manages the Mirabaud-Global High Yield Bonds fund (USD130m in assets under management) said at the presentation that the high yield segment will not return in 2013 to its exceptional levels of last year. However, it may earn returns of 6% to 7% in an environment in which volatility may remain high, and technical fundamentals for the segment remain very good.The evolution of Mirabaud’s activities in Paris are evidently not incompatible with recruitment plans, which may also affect sales teams. Last year assets in the French market totalled EUR1.4bn. In private banking, assets rose by about 9% to nearly EUR1bn, with 50% of the rise coming from the market and 50% from inflows. In institutional management, assets increased by about 25%, to EUR400m, two thirds of it due to inflows.For its two historic units, Mirabaud has for the past two and a half years been developing activities with IFAs via the Finaveo platform. “We are planning to intensify our relationships with our partners dedicated to IFAs and insurance platforms,” Raphaël Spahr, CEO of Mirabaud France, tells Newsmanagers.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } La Financière Tiepolo on 18 February announced the arrival of Dominique Dequidt as deputy director of collective management and portfolio manager.At the French entrepreneurial asset management firm, he will be responsible for developing a European securities management unit, and will be responsible for managing a new FCP which will invest in European securities. The FCP range from La Financière Tiepolo currently includes two equity funds.Before joining La Financière Tiepolo, Dequidt had been a portfolio and mutual fund manager at KBL Richelieu Gestion. From 2007 to 2011 he served as co-director of the European Small & Mid Cpas Equities unit at Robeco Asset Management in Paris.He began his career in 1987, at the Portzamparc stock market company in Nantes, as a portfolio and mutual fund manager, until 1996. He then joined Crédit Mutuel in Brest, Brittany, as heat of the European equity management team, and then joined BNP Paribas Asset Management in 2001, to take charge of various mutual funds, investing in European small and midcaps as well as Europe Dividende mutual funds.La Financière Tiepolo currently has 16 employees and EUR500m in assets under management.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The financial ratings agency Moody’s on 22 February announced that it is cutting its credit rating for the United Kingdom by one notch, from AAA to AA1, due to “continued weak mid-term outlooks” for the country. The agency says that it expects muted economic activity in the country “to extend into the second half of the decade.” Several factors have contributed to this development, including a process of reducing debt in private and public sectors, which probably bit into growth. Moody’s says, however, that the British economy is solid, has “extremely high” solvency, and the outlook for the country has been increased from “negative” to “stable.” The United Kingdom took a first step towards another recession, with a contraction in its gross domestic product of 0.3% in fourth quarter 2012. If this morose economy continues in the first three months of 2013, the UK would be in its third recessionary dip since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008-2009.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } Agefi reports that the SEC has approved the launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the collective management giant BlackRock dedicated to copper, which would be listed on the NYSE Arca platform. The market authority in December licensed the sale of a comparable product managed by JPMorgan. Some copper industrials have expressed concerns that the market will be disturbed by the launch of these ETF funds.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The asset management unit of the British HSBC group has decided to close a hedge fund dedicated to India due to excessive outflows, the news agency Reuters reports. The long/short equity fund India Alpha, launched in 2007, posted returns of 26% last year, compared with an average of 10.3% for hedge funds dedicated to emerging markets, according to Hedge Fund Research. Assets in the fund, which peaked at USD300m in 2008, as of the end of December 2012 totalled USD85m.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The BlackRock World Resources Income fund is changing names to become the BlackRock Natural Resources Growth & Income fund, in order to better reflect its investment philosophy, Fund Web reports. The investment objectives for the fund have also been updated in order to clarify its management. The changes will take effect from 5 April.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As announced more than two months ago, State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) on 21 February finally officially launched two SPDR-branded ETF funds reproducing Russell low volatility indices which had been used as underlying for ETFs closed by Russell (see Newsmanagers of 21 August and 7 December 2012), Index Universe reports.They are the SPDR Russell 1000 Low Volatility ETF (acronym LGLV on NYSE Arca), which will charge 0.20%, and the SPDR Russell 2000 Low Volatility ETF (SMLV), whose ter is 0.25%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } At a time when many acedemic studies have considered the question of the performance of actively-managed funds, Lyxor Asset Management has found that studies measuring the performance of tracker funds such as ETFs do not exist. The tools used are primarily for measuring the performance of actively-managed funds, and are not adapted to passive funds, which require the use of information ratios to measure tracker funds. These ratios are only pertinent to compare the performance of ETFs, Lyxor says in a study (attached).The study, by Marlène Hassine and Thierry Roncalli of Lyxor AM, proposes another performance measure based on value at risk, which is “perfectly appropriate for passive management and ETFs,” the authors say. On the basis of three parameters, the difference in performance between the fund and the index, the volatility of tracking error and the liquidity spread, “measurement can help investors to more easily choose between different products,” Lyxor explains.The study also discusses the importance of the liquidity spread to measure the effectiveness of an ETF, particularly for institutional investors, who invest larger amounts in ETFs.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } Amundi will be closing three of its commodity ETFs in the coming weeks, the Financial Times website reports, citing Ignites Europe. The Amundi ETF Commodities S&P GSCI Agriculture, Amundi ETF All Commodities S&P GSCI Light Energy and Amundi S&P GSCI Non Energy ETF represent total assets of EUR18.7m. The Crédit Agricole affiliate says that the decision was taken several months ago, and that it is not a reaction to a recent report by Oxfam France, which accused French asset management firms of speculating on hunger with such products.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The third week of February saw nearly every major EPFR global-tracked fund group post inflows as cash pulled from US money market funds at the fastest clip since mid-3Q11 looked for new investment ideas. Overall, money market funds saw USD32.1bn pulled out during the week ending February 20 – with USD25.8bn of that coming from US funds. Meanwhile, equity funds absorbed a net USD8.58bn, bond funds USD3.47bn, balanced funds USD1.11bn and alternative funds USD710m.Year-to-date flows into EPFR Global-tracked Emerging Markets Equity Funds pushed past the USD33bn mark in late February as they extended their current inflow streak to 23 weeks. Once again the diversified Global Emerging Markets (GEM) Equity Funds took in the lion’s share of the new money with Asia ex-Japan Equity Funds a distant second while EMEA Equity Funds posted outflows for the fourth time in the past five weeks.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } Citywire reports that the Emerging Market Equity sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Vontobel Funds is now closed to new investors. Existing clients may continue to invest in the fund, managed by Rajiv Jain, which has USD4.8bn in assets. For about one year, the Swiss asset management firm has been making efforts to slow subscriptions to the fund.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } Since Thursday, db x-trackers and db x-markets have been announcing on their websites that they belong to the asset & wealth management (AWM) unit of Deutsche Bank, which is a visible representation of an announcement that active (asset management) and passive (investment banking) management activities had been united in a single structure, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports Reinhard Bellet, who heads the passive management unit from London, says that passively-managed assets at Deutsche Bank total EUR98bn, of which 40% are in db x-trackers ETFs, 26% in options and certificates from db x-markets, and 9% in DB Platinum funds.Currently, Deutsche Bank is the fourth-largest provider of passively-managed products in Europe, after iShares (BlackRock), with EUR425bn, Legal & General with EUR300bn, and State Street with EUR203bn. Vanguard remains relatively modest in Europe, with EUR51bn. For ETFs, db x-trackers is second, after iShares.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: «Times New Roman»,serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: «WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: «Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; } The Luxembourg stock exchange on 22 February announced a cooperation agreement with Altus to develop a market infrastructure for investment funds.The market infrastructure will provide services to support, facilitate and standardize cross-border distribution of funds, a statement says.The perimeter of services will initially be limited to transaction management and reporting and information services. The Luxembourg market will be the first one covered.The new infrastructure is expected to be operational by third quarter 2013.

Les obligations d’Etat britanniques n’ont que brièvement cédé du terrain lundi après la décision de Moody’s de priver la Grande-Bretagne de sa note suprême Aaa, une perte largement anticipée par les investisseurs bien qu’elle soit intervenue un peu plus tôt qu’attendu. Les futures sur les «gilts» perdaient jusqu'à 65 points de base en début de séance mais ils sont ensuite revenus à l'équilibre à 116,06.

L’Italie a vu ses coûts d’emprunt à deux ans légèrement augmenter lundi, les investisseurs se montrant prudents à quelques heures de l’annonce du résultat d'élections législatives susceptibles de réserver des surprises. Le Trésor a adjugé pour 2,818 milliards d’euros de papier à deux ans zéro coupon, à un rendement brut de 1,682%, au plus haut depuis décembre. Ce rendement avait été de 1,43% lors d’une opération comparable le mois dernier. Le Trésor a également placé 941 millions d’obligations indexées sur l’inflation européenne arrivant à échéance en septembre 2021 et 309 millions d’obligations à échéance septembre 2026, des titres tous deux indexées sur l’inflation.

Un juge américaine a autorisé le gendarme financier outre-Atlantique à geler un compte suisse de Goldman Sachs suspecté d’avoir été utilisé pour effectuer des ordres frauduleux sur Heinz, un jour avant l’annonce de son rachat. Cette autorisation a été donnée à la suite de l’absence à une audition de traders mis en cause dans cette affaire.

La SEC a approuvé le lancement par le géant de la gestion collective d’un fonds indiciel coté (ETF) dédié au cuivre, qui sera coté sur la plateforme Nyse Arca. L’autorité de marché a autorisé en décembre la commercialisation d’un produit comparable géré par JPMorgan. Certains industriels du cuivre ont émis des craintes de perturbation du marché du fait du lancement de ces ETF.

Dans un entretien accordé au Wall Street Journal, le président de la banque centrale brésilienne, Alexandre Tombini, rappelle que l’autorité détermine sa politique monétaire en fonction de son objectif d’inflation, pas en fonction d’un objectif de croissance. «Notre but c’est l’inflation» estime-t-il, avant d’ajouter que «l’inflation s’est avérée plus résistante que nous le souhaitions ces derniers mois», semblant indiquer une pause dans son cycle de baisse des taux.

Knight Capital, qui a récemment convenu d’une offre de rachat de 1,4 milliard de dollars de la part de Getco, pourrait selon Reuters, qui cite une source proche, annoncer dès aujourd’hui la cession de son activité de courtage crédit à Stifel Financial. Knight Capital agit sur le conseil de Bank of America, selon cette source anonyme.

Le membre français du directoire de la BCE a indiqué dans un entretien accordé aux Echos que «les acteurs financiers attendent avant tout des gouvernements de la cohérence, en d’autres termes qu’ils respectent les règles qu’ils se sont eux-mêmes fixées». Et d’ajouter qu’«en 2013, la France doit absolument respecter son engagement de réduction du déficit structurel et le dérapage nominal doit demeurer le plus limité possible».

Henry Kravis et George Roberts, les cofondateurs et codirigeants de KKR, ont empoché au moins 137 millions de dollars chacun l’an dernier sous forme de salaire et de dividendes en numéraire, contre 94 millions l’année précédente. Le résultat net économique de la société de private equity a plus que quadruplé en 2012 pour atteindre 2 milliards de dollars.

Le numéro trois européen de la distribution d'électroménager a nommé vendredi à son conseil d’administration l’investisseur Eric Knight, dont la société Knight Vinke possède 25 % du groupe et en est le premier actionnaire. Eric Knight a exercé son droit à entrer au conseil d’administration après l’annonce la semaine dernière par Darty de résultats annuels probablement inférieurs aux attentes.

Alain Zeitouni, directeur gestion multi-actifs chez Russell

Contrairement à la Nouvelle-Zélande, l'autorité australienne ne compte pas intervenir sur les changes et estime le niveau de ses taux approprié

Emmanuel Morano, responsable gestion actions chez La Française AM

La possible nomination de Haruhiko Kuroda à la tête de la Banque japonaise a fait chuter le yen et les taux et provoqué une envolée du Nikkei

Le quotidien américain souligne le vif appétit de Gingko Tree Investment pour le marché immobilier britannique ainsi que pour les infrastructures. Cet investisseur n’est autre qu’une filiale de l’administration chinoise gestionnaire des colossales réserves de change du pays, la Safe. Le quotidien évoque des investissements «discrets», au moins quatre depuis mai dernier, pour au moins 1,6 milliard de dollars.