Sur 2011, le taux de couverture du fonds de pension néerlandais ABP s’est détérioré de 10 points à 94 % pendant que le volume des engagements gonflait de 36 milliards pour ressortir à 261 milliards d’euros. Dès lors, ABP a décidé sur une base provisoire d’abaisser ses prestations de 0,5 % à compter du 1er avril 2013, si la situation financière ne s’est pas améliorée.De plus, la cotisation supplémentaire temporaire de 1 point de pourcentage (tijdelijke herstelopslag) pour équilibrer les comptes est triplée à compter du 1er janvier 2012 et jusqu'à fin 2013, annonce un communiqué publié le 1er février. Déjà, l’an dernier, ABP avait renoncé à indexer ses prestations (lire Newsmanagers du 5 décembre) et annoncé que les mesures envisagées à présent pourraient être adoptées.L’objectif fixé par le régulateur, la Banque des Pays-Bas (DNB) consiste à atteindre un taux de couverture de 105 % pour fin 2013.Henk Brouwer, le président d’ABP, reconnaît que «ce n’est, hélas, pas une bonne nouvelle, mais (que) cette diminution de 0,5 % ne représente en fin de compte qu’un moins-perçu de 3,50 euros par mois en moyenne pour les bénéficiaires».
Suite à une charge exceptionnelle pour dépréciation du fonds de commerce aux Etats-Unis, le BBVA affiche pour 2011 une contraction de 34,8 % de son bénéfice net, à 3 milliards d’euros. hors éléments exceptionnels, le bénéfice a diminué de 12,8 % à 4 milliards d’euros.Le bénéfice net du pôle banque de gros et gestion d’actifs, qui coiffe le corporate & investment banking, les global markets et la gestion d’actifs, ressort à 1.122 millions d’euros contre 1.224 millions pour 2010. Le BBVA précise que l’encours mondial de sa gestion d’actifs (fonds d’investissement et fonds de pension) ressortait fin décembre à presque 73 milliards d’euros.
Le fonds de pension de Taiwan LPF (Labour Pension Fund) a lancé un appel d’offres pour six mandats de quatre ans représentant un montant cumulé de 1 milliard de dollars, rapporte Asian Investor.Les mandats portent sur des portefeuilles investis à au moins 70% dans des actions locales. La commission versée au gérant sélectionné a été fixée à 0,07%, voire 0,1% si le gérant bat l’indice de référence, l’indice pondéré Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation (TSEC). L’appel d’offres est ouvert jusqu’au 20 février.
L’association suédoise des fonds d’investissement vient pour la première fois depuis sa création en 1979 de modifier ses règles d’appartenance afin d'élargir son assise.Les gérants ayant des activités de gestion n'étant définies comme telles pourront désormais rejoindre l’association qui a en outre créé un statut de membre associé pour toutes les sociétés ayant des liens avec les secteurs comptables, juristes, fournisseurs de systèmes et administrateurs de fonds. L’association compte actuellement 38 membres.
La société de gestion scandinave East Capital a bien démarré l’année 2012. «On a bénéficié d’un regain significatif de la demande durant les premières semaines de l’année», a indiqué le 2 février à Newsmanagers Marcus Svedberg, le chef économique de la société spécialisée sur l’Europe de l’Est, de passage à Paris. En revanche, l’année écoulée a été difficile, avec certes un très bon premier semestre, mais contrebalancé par une vague de rachats dans les mois qui ont suivi. Résultat, les encours ont terminé l’année à environ 3,4 milliards d’euros, contre quelque 5 milliards d’euros à fin décembre 2010, en raison pour l’essentiel d’un effet marché négatif. Ce qui ne va empêcher la société de poursuivre la mise en œuvre de ses projets de développement. En Europe, East Capital va continuer ses efforts d’expansion, entamés depuis quelques mois, en Allemagne et en Espagne.Par ailleurs, la société espère proposer dans les tout prochains mois sur le marché français deux stratégies asiatiques issues du rachat en 2010 d’une société de gestion en Chine, l’autre nouveau pôle de développement de la société.
CEO de BNP Paribas Investment Partners Moyen-Orient, Graham Elliot a rejoint le 1er janvier Robeco en tant que CEO pour le Moyen-Orient, annonce le gestionnaire néerlandais le 2 février. L’intéressé remplace Douglas Hansen-Luke et sera plus particulièrement responsable de la distribution auprès des investisseurs institutionnels et des grands comptes (notamment les fonds souverains) dans la région du Golfe. Basé au Dubai International Financial Centre, il a aussi pour mission de développer le savoir-faire de Robeco en matière de marchés frontières.
Quilvest, created to manage the wealth of the Bemberg family, is planning to double its size in the next five years to EUR8bn, Les Echos reports. The CEO of Quilvest, Michel Abouchalache, says that “a major rationalisation of the French market is to be expected, as after the years of crisis, the market is still overpopulated. At least 50% of investors in funds will disappear in the next few years.”
Agefi reports that Gougenheim Investments, the hedge fund launched this week by Philippe Gougenheim, former portfolio manager at Man Investments and then head of fund of hedge fund activities at Unigestion, is aiming for USD1n in assets in three years. A first fund, domiciled in the Cayman Islands, will be launched in June. “The initial size of the fund will be USD50m,” Gougenheim has told the newspaper, adding that the vehicle may eventually approach USD200m, depending on the interest received from invetors. The fund will be based on a global macro strategy.
The Scandinavian asset management firm East Capital has had a good start to the year in 2012. “We have seen a significant regain in demand in the first weeks of the year,” Marcus Svedberg, economist in chief at the Eastern Europe specialist firm, has told Newsmanagers during a visit to Paris. However, the past year has been difficult, with a very good first half, offset by a wave of redemptions in the subsequent months. The result was that assets finished the year at about EUR3.4bn, down from about EUR5bn as of the end of December 2010, largely due to negative market effects. This has not stopped the firm from pursuing its development projects. In Europe, East Capital will continue its expansion efforts, begun a few months ago, in Germany and Spain. The firm is also hoping to offer two Asian strategies on the French market in the next few months, acquired in 2010 along with an asset management firm in China, where the firm has its new locus of development.
At its general shareholders’ meeting held on 26 January 2012, Assya, compagnie financière announced that it has initiated the merger of Assya and Stelphia Asset Management. The acquisition allows Assya to confirm its engagement to the development of its activity unit dedicated to asset management, and additionally to deploy a product range in institutional management.Stelphia Asset Management currently manages assets of EUR150m in six FCP funds, with recognised expertise in the markets of emerging Europe (4 thematic funds and 6 funds managed overall). The asset management firm is composed of five employees, four of whom are decicated to management.As a part of the transaction, La Banque Postale AM and OFI AM (historic shareholders in the asset management firm) will sell their complete respective stakes to Assya. Due to the brand image developed over the past 10 years, Stelphia AM will retain its name within the Assya group.
The multi-management specialist Swan Capital Management on 2 February announced the launch of an absolute return fund of funds entitled Alpha Multistratégies. The French-registered FCP fund, under the regulatory authority of the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), will aim to earn returns higher than those of the capitalised Eonia, over a recommended investment duration of over 3 years, with volatility near that of the bond market, and certainly lower than 6%. Alpha Multistratégies aims to meet increasingly strong demand from clients, institutional investors, businesses and retail investors to earn positive returns higher than those of money market instruments and euro-denominated insurance policies, with the lowest possible correlation to the movements of the financial markets. In order to satisfy the objectives it has set itself, namely to provide decorrelated investments that deliver regular returns with a relatively low level fo risk, excellent liquidity and total transparency, Alpha Multistratégies will rely on diversification of asset classes, managers and strategies. Depending on the expected direction of the markets, the absolute return construction of the Alpha Multistratégies fund will be the result of several absolute return or directional funds. More precisely, 75% to 100% of the portfolio will be invested in absolute return strategies, while the remaining 1% to 25% will be invested in convex directional strategies via equity, bond, convertible, currency and commodity funds. Major characteristics of the fund ISIN code: FR0011163732 Front-end fee: maximum 1% Management fee: maximum 1.5% Performance commission: 10% of net performance exceeding the Eonia Size of fund at launch on 23 January 2012: EUR9m
Axa Investment Managers (AXA IM) has launched new share classes which will aim to weather the current shocks that equity investors are confronting on the markets, through the use of an overlay strategy (hedgeing for various asset classes). The share classes, entitled SolEx, are aimed at institutional investors, and overlay equity management with a systematic hedging strategy through the use of liquid derivative instruments, a statement says. SolEx shares are currently available for the Axa WF Framlington Eurozone fund, and will soon be available for other funds of the Axa World Funds range.
As of the end of December, assets under management at Franklin Templeton totalled USD670.3bn (see Newsmanagers of 13 January 2012), and the US-based asset management firm has announced on the occasion of the publication of its results, that it has seen net redemptions ni the first quarter of its fiscal year, ending on 30 September 2012, of USD15.6bn, compared with net subscriptions of USD3.1bn in July-September 2011, and USD3.2bn in the corresponding period of 2010.Net profits in October-December totalled USD480.8m, compared with USD416m in the third quarter of the calendar year 2011, and USD501.2m in October-December 2010.
The asset management firm Tikehau IM, a specialist in bond management, has posted inflows of over EUR300m in 2011, bringing its total assets under management to over EUR700m as of 31 December.Inflows went to the full range of funds on offer, including open-ended and closed funds, co-investment vehicles and mandates. More precisely, Tikehau IM has more than doubled its assets under management in 2011, with EUR150m in inflows to the open-ended fund and dedicated management mandate segment. With nearly EUR70m, the flagship fund Tikehau Crédit Plus, which follows a mostly high yield bond strategy, has tripled its assets.Another high-profile fund, TK Rendement 2016, a horizon fund launched on 7 December last year, has seen inflows of nearly EUR8m in less than two months. The fund has an indicative performance objective of 77% per year, and as of January 2012 has already earned 3.03%.In the closed and dedicated fund segment (FCT and FCPR), Tikehau IM has seen inflows of over EUR200m, “confirming the attraction for investors and issuers of ‘private debt,’ which has become the private equity of financing operations,” a statement says.
Affiliated Managers Group (AMG) has reported an increase of USD7.41bn, or 2.3% in its AUM for the 2011 fiscal year, to USD327.46bn as of 31 December. This increase represents only one third of net subscriptions, which totalled USD22.92bn. AMG has seen inflows to mutual funds (USD5.47bn), from institutionals (USD16.45bn), and from high net worth private clients (USD1bn).Net profits increased 16.6%, or USD26.3m, compared with the previous year, to USD164.9m.
OFI Infravia, an infrastructure sector specialist asset management firm which manages the investment fund InfraVia, with about EUR200m in assets, has announced the recruitment of Bruno Candès as chief investment officer, and Vincent Ménager and Romain Dechelette as account managers. Candès had previously been a founding member and principal chief investment offiver at Fiera Axium Infrastructure. He has also served as director of the infrastructure division of Babcock & Brown for North America, and in the Infrastructure Capital group at the bank ABN Amro, where he was responsible for development and financing of infrastructure projects in the areas of transport, renewable energies, and social infrastructures. Ménager had previously worked at Amber Infrastructure; he joined that firm after serving in the project financing teams at Natixis. Dechelette previously worked at ETDE, the energies and services unit of the Bouygues Construction group, largely in the development of public-private partnership contracts.
Wolfgang Pinner, who was already head of the sustainable investment team at Erste Sparinvest, has been appointed as Chief Sustainability Investment Officer. The Austrian asset management firm has assets of EUR630m in its sustainable investment funds, and Pinner will aim to develop cooperations with businesses and institutions in the sustainable development sector, to establish strategies for the exercise of voting rights at shareholders’ meetings, to develop key performance indicators, and to define exclusionary criteria. In this connection, Erste Sparinvest has also announced that since the beginning of this year, all of its actively-managed investment funds are barred from investing in businesses which are active in the area of weapons prohibited by the United Nations. To this end, Erste Sparinvest will rely on the assistance of the German ethical ratings firm oekom research.
AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) on Thursday, 2 February announced the appointment of Laurent Seyer as global head of investment solutions. He will begin in his new role on 2 May this year, and will then become a member of the management board at AXA IM. He will report to Dominique Carrel-Billiars, CEO of AXA IM. Seyer, who has been CEO of Lyxor Asset Management since 2006, replaces Thibaud de Vitry, who left Axa IM a few weeks ago (see Newsmanagers of 9 January 2012).“Laurent Seyer will aim to maintain our cutting-edge innovative solutions in all areas: ALM management (LDI, fiduciary management and Solvency II solutions), multi-asset class management, and management of funds of hedge funds integrated within global solutions, and to accelerate commercial development so as to create more visibility for our product ranges,” says Carrel-Billiard, CEO of AXA Investment Managers. At Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking, the announcement of Seyer’s departure was followed on the same day by the announcement that Inès de Dinechin has been appointed as CEO of Lyxor Asset Management. The appointment will be effective from the end of March 2012.De Dinechin has spent most of her career in market activities, before being appointed as global head of fixed income, currency and credit structured products. She was appointed as director of human resources at Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking in 2009, when sh also become a member of the extended executive board at SG CIB.“Her experience will be a real advantage in consolidating leadership at Lyxor Asset Management in her four areas of expertise: alternative management, index-based and ETF management, quantitative management, and structured management,” a statement from SG CIB says.
Philippe Lecomte, CEO of Schroders France, is satisfied with the results for 2011. “We had a good year in 2011. Net subscriptions totalled EUR500m, 70% of it from institutional investors, who have been particularly interested in emerging markets equities, emerging market fixed income, and high yield credit,” the head of the Paris office says. In Paris, assets under management as of the end of 2011 totalled EUR3.5bn. In 2012, Lecomte is predicting subscriptions “on the same level as in 2011.” For the moment, the year appears to have started well, as “inflows are going well,” Lecomte says. In order to reach its inflow objectives, the CEO of Schroders France would like to launch a sales offensive, particularly in first quarter, for products dedicated to Asian equities such as the Schroder ISF Asian Bond Absolute Return and the Schroder ISF Asian Equity Yield.
The private equity firm TPG Capital has announced that it has made a formal offer to acquire the fund administrator GlobeOp for a total of about USD800m. GlobeOp found the terms of TPG Capital’s offer “honest and reasonable.” Assets under management at TPG Capital, largely in financial services, total about USD48bn.
Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking a annoncé le 2 février la nomination d’Inès de Dinechin au poste de Directeur Général de Lyxor Asset Management. Elle remplace Laurent Seyer qui quittera prochainement le groupe Société Générale pour poursuivre d’autres opportunités (lire par ailleurs). Cette nomination sera effective à compter de fin mars 2012.Inès de Dinechin a effectué l’essentiel de sa carrière dans les activités de marché, occupant plusieurs postes de responsable marché (ingénierie et vente de produits dérivés) avant d'être nommée responsable mondial des produits structurés de taux, change et crédit. Elle a été nommée Directeur des Ressources Humaines de Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking en 2009, date à laquelle elle est également devenue membre du Comité Exécutif élargi de SG CIB."Son expérience constitue un véritable atout pour consolider le leadership de Lyxor Asset Management dans ses quatre domaines d’expertise : la gestion alternative, la gestion indicielle & ETF, la gestion quantitative, et la gestion structurée», souligne un communiqué de SG CIB.
The Swedish investment fund association has for the first time since its inception in 1979 modified its membership rules, in order to widen its member base. Managers with asset management activities not previously defined as such may now join the association, which has also created a membership status for associate members, to apply to all firms with ties to the accounting and legal providers, system providers, and fund administrators. The association currently has 38 members.
Graham Elliot, CEO at BNP Paribas Investment Partners for the Middle East, on 1 January joined Robeco as CEO for the Middle East, the Netherlands-based asset management firm announced on 2 February. Elliot replaces Douglas Hansen-Luke, and will be responsible for distribution to institutional investors and key clients (including sovereign funds) in the Gulf region. Elliot will be based at the Dubai International Financial centre, and will aim to develop Robeco’s expertise in the area of frontier markets.
BNY Mellon has announced the recruitment of Yolanda Plaza-Charres as director of sales in its wealth management division for Latin America. She had previously served as director of private banking at BlackRock for the Americas.
Fonds Professionell relays reports in dpa/AFX and Bloomberg that only four financially solid asset management firms are still in the running to acquire the asset management unit of Deutsche Bank (excluding DWS Germany, Europe and Asia): they are the Australian firm Macquarie and the US firms JPMorgan, Ameriprise Financial (owner of Columbia and Threadneedle) and State Street. The second round of bidding will conclude at the end of next week.
Following a one-time write-down due to depreciation of the goodwill on its operations in the United States, BBVA has announced a contraction of 34.8% in its net profits in 2011, to EUR3bn, excluding one-time elements. Profits without taking the depreciation into account fell 12.8% to EUR4bn.Net profits for the wholesale banking and asset management unit, which includes corporate and investment banking, global markets and asset management, totalled EUR1.122bn, compared with EUR1.224bn in 2010.BBVA states that total assets in asset management worldwide (investment and pension funds) as of the end of December totalled nearly EUR73bn.
By GAAP accounting standards, the Blackstone Group has seen a net loss of USD269m, compared with USD370m in 2010, both of which take into account net charges related to the group’s IPO and acquisitions.As of the end of December, total assets under management were up 30% compared with the end of 2010 to USD166bn, while fee-earning assets were up 25% to a record USD137bn.
“Our product range has lined up well with current market demand at the start of this year, as investors have largely wanted to take on risk again. That applied to institutional investors and funds of funds in particular,” Hervé Thiard, CEO of the Paris office of Pictet & Cie Europe has told Newsmanagers. This taste for emerging market debt, credit, high yeild and US equity products has resulted in net inflows of about EUR150m, putting assets at about EUR2.7bn. Assets under management totalled EUR2.8bn thirteen months ago (see Newsmanagers of 13 December 2010), but 2011 was a year of transition, with major flows in both directions, while 2010 will go down as an outstanding fiscal year which brought Pictet inflows of a net EUR800m to high-risk assets.
Ahead of the breakup of the British Financial Services Authority into two separate entities in 2013, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) on 2 February submitted its Annual Funding Requirement (AFR), a 198-page document containing its proposed budget for 2012-2013. The proposed budget is 15.6% larger, at GBP578.4m, with the majority of the increase to be paid by large businesses. The share of the burden to be borne by fund managers would increase by GBP9.1m, or 32.4%, to GBP37.3m, largely due to enforcement activities and costs related to combating market abuses.
The Taiwanese pension fund LPF (Labour Pension Fund) has issued a request for proposals for six four-year mandates totalling a cumulative USD1bn, Asian Investor reports. The mandates will be for two portfolios to be at least 70% invested in local equities. Commissions paid to the manager selected have been set at 0.07%, or 0.1% if the manager outperforms the benchmark, the weighted index Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation (TSEC). The request for proposals will remain open until 20 February.