Romain Ohayon, qui était depuis 2007 directeur d’investissement chez Qualium, rejoint Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners comme directeur de participations dans l'équipe Capital Développement Small Caps dirigée par Alexandre Foulon, directeur associé. Cette équipe, dans laquelle l’autre directeur de participations est André Renaison, compte désormais six personnes. Elle gère une gamme de FCPI/FIP pour 120 millions d’euros et un FCPR, Cabestan Capital, «en cours de finalisation de levée» et déjà doté de 100 millions d’euros.

La filiale suisse du britannique Henderson Global Investors a annoncé avoir recruté début septembre Fidan Shtanaj comme senior sales manager pour le suivi de la clientèle institutionnelle en Suisse germanophone.L’intéressé, qui est subordonné à Ariane Dehn, head of sales pour la Suisse, était depuis 2002 au service de Credit Suisse. En dernier lieu, il avait le titre de relationship manager/sales, depuis 2008.

EFG International a annoncé le 18 octobre une restructuration significative qui va se traduire en 2011 par une perte IFRS. «Les activités de private banking demeurent concurrentielles et rentables, mais des mesures significatives s’imposent pour remédier aux activités non rentables et non fondamentales», indique le groupe dans un communiqué. Les actifs sous gestion du groupe s'élevaient à fin juin à environ 80 milliards de francs suisses.Le nombre de bureaux et de centres opérationnels sera sensiblement réduit, permettant «une baisse des coûts, une focalisation accrue et un allègement de la structure».Au cours des 18 mois à venir, la sortie de certaines activités devrait réduire les actifs sous gestion d’environ 10% et entraîner une baisse de l’effectif total d’environ 10- 15%.La redéfinition des activités se traduira par un gain financier net d’environ 35 millions de francs suisses par an, réalisé partiellement en 2012 et en totalité à compter de 2013. Des charges de restructurations exceptionnelles, ainsi qu’une perte de valeur du goodwill et des immobilisations incorporelles qui y sont associés seront enregistrées cette année, entraînant une perte IFRS.Toutefois, les activités sous-jacentes génèrent globalement des résultats conformes aux attentes formulées au moment de la publication des résultats d’EFG International pour le premier semestre 2011, et une contribution positive aux fonds propres sera enregistrée en 2011.Au cours des prochaines années, EFG International, qui vise une collecte nette en progression de 5% à 10% par an et une réduction du ratio coûts/revenus à moins de 75% sur les trois prochaines années, compte enregistrer «une solide croissance à deux chiffres du résultat». L’établissement s’estime «bien positionné» pour se maintenir parmi les meilleures banques privées et considère qu’une croissance rentable et contrôlée devrait générer un résultat net IFRS annuel de 200 millions de francs suisses d’ici à trois ans.

BSI a nommé Jean-Louis Platteau responsable du Private Banking Romandie et de la succursale genevoise de la banque, rapporte L’Agefi suisse.Jean-Louis Platteau a notamment occupé le poste de CEO de Dexia Suisse, avant de rejoindre la Banque Cantonale de Genève (BCGE) comme responsable de la division Private Banking.

Le groupe bancaire genevois Syz annonce l’arrivée d’Alessia Toricelli Dolfi au sein de l'équipe de Business Development de sa division de gestion institutionnelle Syz Asset Management, rapporte L’Agefi suisse.Auparavant, Alessia Toricelli Dolfi était responsable de la clientèle institutionnelle de Dexia Asset Management en Suisse romande et au Tessin.

Eaton Vance Management has announced the reopening of its Eaton Vance Global Macro Absolute Return fund, as of Wednesday, 19 October 2011. The product had been closed to new subscribers on 1 October 2010, as growth in assets was too steep. The global income teams have since been strengthened, and the asset management firm estimates that the fund can now handle larger asset volumes.

Noel Archard, an executive of iShares, and Harold Bradley, chief investment officer at the Kauffman foundation, will testify on Wednesday before a US Senate subcommittee about the role that ETFs play in the market, according to IndexUniverse, which is covering the event.

Ignis Asset Management is planning to develop its pension fund and other institutional investor client base, Financial News reports, citing a presentation by the firm to analysts. The new strategy follows the arrival of a new head of sales, Claude Chene.

Iain Galloway left Standard Life Investments in July. He is replaced by Stan Pearson, head of European equities, as manager of the European Equities Unconstrained fund.

Azim Meghji has been appointed as head of credit at Santander Asset Management UK, and will manage the Santander Sterling Corporate Bond Fund (GBP977m), which is currently managed by Patrick Smith. He will now report to John Bearman, CIO of Santander AM UK.Meghji had previously been head of fund management of all London-based credit funds for retail and institutional clients at HSBC Global Asset Management.

The Zurich-based bank zweiplus (an affiliate of Banque Sarasin, Rabobank group) on 18 October announced the launch of the Investment Depot ++ Fundstars Plus platform in Germany. The platform allows German independent financial advisers and wealth managers to offer their clients services from an institution with a full banking license in Switzerland.Alfred W. Moeckli, CEO of bank zweiplus, says that the platform offers clients with a fund account in Switzerland a wide range of investment funds with sales licenses for Germany, from renowned asset management firms.Investment Depot ++ Fundstars Plus also provides access to investment funds which may all be concentrated in a single account at bank zweiplus. At any time, with the help of the adviser, the client may create a fund portfolio corresponding to his or her needs. The formula offers unit-linked savings plans from EUR50 per month, or an initial investment of EUR5,000. There is also a regular withdrawal plan for accounts with EUR30,000 or more.bankzweiplus has also recruited two specialists from Fondsdepot Bank, head of sales Roland Donder and his deputy, Oliver Honigman, who had been head of partner management, and thus also head of external distribution.

Guido Hansmeyer, senior sales manager at Invesco Asset Management in Frankfurt, has been recruited by the British management firm F&C Thames River for the newly-created position of head of wholesale distribution for Germany.Matthew Sethard-Wright, international sales director, says that Germany is a key market for F&C Thames River. The sales team is planning to extend its client base among German IFAs, family offices and wealth managers.

F&C has announced the appointment of Stephan van IJzendoorn as senior portfolio manager for its Amsterdam‐based Euro government bonds team.He joins F&C from Allianz Global Investors where he was senior portfolio manager. At F&C, he will report to Michiel de Bruin, head of Euro government bonds, whose team has over EUR23 billion assets under management in European government bonds.In total, the London‐listed asset management firm has over EUR119bn under management,

The sales team at ING Investment Management in Spain has been asked with opening up the Latin American market for the Dutch asset management firm, Funds People reports. The effort will focus on institutional clients.Jaime Rodriguez Pato, director for Spain and Portugal, will also be head for Latin America, while Iván Mascaró Guzmán will focus on Chile, Mexico and Peru. Pedro Coelho will be in charge of Brazil.

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the asset management firm for State Street Corporation, has hired Hein Kuijpers as vice president and head of sales for financial intermediary clients in Benelux, a newly-created position.Kuijpers will be based in Amsterdam, and will work to develop SSgA client relationships in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg markets. He will report to Eleanor Hope-Bell, head of the financial intermediaries group for Northern Europe.The appointment of Kuijpers is a part of SSgA’s strategy to develop the ETF activities of SPDR in the region, a statement says.Kuijpers had previously been director of sales at Fidelity Investments International, where he had been head of retail and institutional clients.

Sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to Expansión that the US private equity investor Carlyle has acquired an 85% stake in the Spanish firm Telecable, based in the region of Asturias, for EUR340m.Of this total, EUR308m goes to Liberbank, which is selling a 77% stake and retaining 15% of capital, while EUR32m go to the newspaper publisher La Nueva España, for its 8% stake in Telecable.

Barely 5% of funds of hedge funds add value. Investors would even do as well as simply select a basket of hedge funds at random, Financial Times Fund Management reports, citing an academic study which has not yet been published (“Assessing the Performance of Funds of Hedge Funds,” B. Dewaele, H. Pirotte, N. Tuchschmid and E. Wallerstein).

In the first nine months of this year, the Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM) business unit at Bank of America Corporation (BofA) has posted net profits of nearly USD1.39bn, compared with USD1.02bn in January-September 2010.GWIM, which recruited 475 financial advisers in third quarter, has posted USD347m in net profit in third quarter, compared with USD506m in second quarter, and USD269m in the corresponding period of last year.Assets as of the end of September totalled USD616.9bn, compared with USD661bn as of the end of June, and USd611.5bn one year earlier.BofA states that commission revenues for asset management set a record at USD1.56bn in third quarter, 17% more than in July-September 2010, due to positive market performance and an increase in net subscriptions to long-term products.

Romain Ohayon, who since 2007 had been investment officer at Qualium, has joined Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners as director of participations in the Capital Development Small Caps team, led by Alexandre Foulon, managing partner.The team, in which the other director of participations is André Renaison, now includes six people. It manages a range of FCPI/FIP with EUR120m in assets, and an FCPR, Cabestan Capital, “which is completing its fundraising stage,” and already has EUR100m in assets.

The centre for money market expertise for the entire Robeco Group, the Paris team at Robeco Gestions, currently has total assets of about EUR1.5bn, which remains largely unchanged compared with the end of 2010. In France, the team, led by Sabine Lodin de Lépinay, manages about EUR1bn in assets, including EUR853.6m in the Robeco Euro Cash fund as of the end of September.Half of all assets in the fund, which invests in very short maturity securities rated by S&P, come from France; the product has also done very well on the Spanish and German markets. The fund has seen net inflows of about EUR150m.However, the highest-risk fund, Robeco Euro Money Market, has seen some outflows, which have moved to the more stable Euro Cash fund.According to de Lépinay and Geoffroy Lenoir, senior fund manager, Robeco Gestions has now considerably reduced the maturities on its portfolio of money market products, and is at near-zero sensitivity to interest rates. The team is primarily positioned on French banks, and retains a restrictive attitude to Spanish and Italian institutions. It has no exposure to Greece, Portugal or Ireland. The trick is to locate liquid paper, and to work with repurchase agreements whenever possible.

Russell Investments has announced an extension to the geographical coverage of its defensive and dynamic indices.The indices, which were launched early in 2011, and which had previously covered only the US equities universe, will now be extended to the 10,000 equities monitored by Russell indices worldwide.According to research undertaken largely by Russell, a defensive investment strategy may outperform other investment styles on the market over high-volatility periods as a whole.

Tommi Saukkoriipi has joined the Swedish bank SEB, where he will manage the SEB Nordic fund, which invests in Scandinavian equities, and is licensed for sale in France.The portfolio manager joins the firm from the Scandinavian firm Nordea, where he had also been manager of a Nordic fund, Nordea Nordic Equity. He will be replaced there by Martin Nilsson.SEB has also hired Per Colléen, who had previously worked at DnB Nor AM, as its new head of Swedish and Nordic equities, a newly-created unit which includes several former SEB teams for this asset class.

Eleanor Seeet has replaced Deborah Ho as head of Nikko Asset Management Asia (Nikko AM Asia), Asian Investor reports. The movement follows the acquisition of the Singaporean asset management firm DBS AM by Nikko AM; the target firm is now known as Nikko AM Asia.Seet, who had previously worked at iShares, will be in charge of managing the activities of Nikko AM in Singapore and South-East Asia.Ho, who had been director of BDS AM for four and a half years, and who was appointed as head of Nikko AM Asia following the acquisition, had no comment about the reasons for her departure.In parallel with the arrival of Seet, Nikko AM Asia has also made two senior hires, including a COO and a head of deontology.

Traders with ultra-high-speed software were not to blame, when the Deutsche Börse fell victim to a flash crash in late August, in which stock-index futures fell by 4% and then rebounded a few minutes later, but financial institutions were. The effect was caused by a barrage of orders from banks, the Wall Street Journal reports.An internal report by Deutsche Börse, which was not widely distributed, shows that high-frequency traders actually helped to absorb part of the shock to the market.

In first half, earnings for the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) increased by 17%, to about EUR6bn, and profits nearly tripled, to EUR814m, Handelsbaltt reports.The Abu Dhabi sovereign fund holds stakes in Austria’s ÖMV and Spain’s Cepsa, in the oil sector, and in the German firm Ferrostaal in engineering.

EFG International on 18 October announced a major restructuring which will result in a net loss by IFRS accounting standards. “Private banking activities remain unprofitable and not fundamental,” the group says in a statement. Assets under management by the group as of the end of June totalled about CHF80bn.The number of offices and operational centres will be significantly reduced, in order to allow for “a reduction to costs, and increased focus and agility for the structure.” In the next 18 months, an exit from some activities will result in a reduction in assets under management of about 10%, and will lead to total staff reductions of about 10-15%.The redefinition of activities will result in a net financial gain of about CHF35m per year, to be realised partially in 2012, and fully in 2013. One-time restructuring charges, and a lost in goodwill value and associated amortizations will be written down this year, resulting in a loss by IFRS accounting standards.However, underlying activities are generating overall results in keeping with the projections made at the time that EFG International’s results for first half 2011 were announced, and a positive contribution to owners’ equity levels will be posted for 2011.In the next few years, EFG International, which is aiming for a 5% to 10% per year net inflow and a reduction of the cost/income ratio to less than 75%, is planning to post “solid double-digit growth in profits.” The firm says it is “well-positioned” to continue to be one of the top private banks, and estimates that profitable and controlled growth should generate annual IFRS net profits of CHF200m in three years’ time.

The Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has granted Ping An trust a quota as a Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) of USD300m, Z-Ben Advisors reports.The firm, which becomes the third trust company to receive a QDI quota in China, after Shanghai International Trust (USD200m) and Citic Trust, has announced that it will select foreign investment advisers on the basis of their past performance, their familiarity with the objectives of Chinese investors, and their ability to put adequate risk management measures in place.Ping An Trust has also announced that it already has working relationships with several foreign asset management firms and investment banks, but no names have been given.

BSI has appointed Jean-Louis Platteau as head of private banking for French-speaking Switzerland and the Geneva branch of the bank, Agefi Switzerland reports. Platteau had served as CEO of Dexia Switzerland, before joining the Cantonal Bank of Geneva (BCGE) as head of the Private Banking division.

The Swiss affiliate of the British asset management firm Henderson Global Investors has announced that in early September it recruited Fidan Shtanaj as senior sales manager to assist institutional clients in German-speaking Switzerland.Shtanaj, who will report to Ariane Dehn, head of sales for Switzerland, had been at Credit Suisse since 2002. He had most recently been relationship manager/sales, since 2008.

The Geneva-based banking group Syz has announced the arrival of Alessia Toricelli Dolfi as a member of its Business Development team in the institutional management division of SYZ Asset Management, Agefi Switzerland reports. Dolfi had previously been head of institutional clients at Dexia Asset Management for French-speaking Switzerland and the Ticino region.