Les projets publics de construction de routes en Chine ont connu un coup d’arrêt du fait d’un manque de financement depuis les deux ou trois derniers mois dans certaines provinces, indique le journal qui rapporte des propos du ministre des transports du pays. Une situation qui devrait s’intensifier au quatrième trimestre et la réalisation des projets devrait être 20% inférieure au programme initial.

Lisbonne s'attend à ce que le produit intérieur brut se contracte de 2,8 %, soit bien plus que les précédentes estimations (-2,2 à -2,3 %)

L’agence a annoncé qu'elle allait surveiller et évaluer le caractère stable de la perspective du « Aaa » français dans les trois prochains mois

LuxCSD, coentreprise détenue à parité par la Banque centrale du Luxembourg et Clearstream International, a été désigné comme système de règlement-livraison sur valeurs mobilières au Luxembourg. Le service y fera office de point d‘accès national à Target 2 Securities (T2S).

Le directeur financier de Citigroup, John Gerspach, a confié hier à l’occasion d’une conférence téléphonique avec des analystes que la banque américaine avait engagé la liquidation de son unité de trading pour compte propre Equity Principal Strategies. L’opération, motivée par l’entrée en vigueur de la «règle Volcker», est déjà réalisée « presque aux deux tiers» selon le dirigeant. Une porte-parole a néanmoins tenu à souligner la part modeste de cette activité dans le trading de Citigroup.

Charles Evans, le président de la Réserve fédérale de Chicago, a indiqué que les opinions exprimées par les membres du FOMC laissent à penser que la Fed durcira sa politique monétaire plus vite qu’elle ne le devrait. «Il y a des différences sur l’état actuel de l’économie et sur les pressions inflationnistes», rappelant que pour sa part, il estime que «les pressions inflationnistes sont plus faibles que ce que beaucoup de personnes évoquent».

Dow Jones lance aujourd’hui deux nouveaux indices régionaux pour l’Asie et l’Europe. Des indices, dénommés Asia Dow et Europe Dow, dont la méthodologie de calcul reprend celle du Dow Jones Industrial Average américain. Ils regroupent effectivement chacun 30 valeurs.Le secteur financier est le plus représenté.

Le stock d'emprunts d'Etat américains détenus par les banques centrales étrangères a connu en septembre sa plus forte contraction depuis août 2007

Le Fonds de sauvetage européen pourrait ainsi aider les pays périphériques en difficulté à se refinancer à bon compte sur le marché

La demande a été élevée pour les titres Iberdrola, Enel et Telecom Italia. Ce dernier a dû offrir un coupon de 7 %

Le sommet du 23 octobre n'accouchera pas d'un remède miracle, même si des solutions se dessinent

L’inflation attendue à 6 % demeure dans la fourchette cible mise en place en 1999. Le pays dispose d'une marge de baisse de ses taux directeurs

L'augmentation de la participation du secteur privé au sauvetage de la Grèce semble néanmoins avancer

Les perspectives de l'économie allemande se sont détériorées à l’approche de l’hiver en raison d’un ralentissement du rythme des commandes de l'étranger, déclare la Bundesbank dans son rapport mensuel publié lundi. La banque centrale allemande précisé qu’après la poursuite de la reprise économique au troisième trimestre, le tableau est nettement moins rose pour les deux trimestres à venir. «Le flux de commandes, notamment en provenance de pays au-delà de l’Europe, a sensiblement diminué», note la Buba.

Les créanciers privés de l’Etat grec ne discuteront d’une éventuelle augmentation de la décote sur leurs titres que dans le cadre d’un plan plus large visant à résoudre la crise de la dette souveraine dans la zone euro, a prévenu l’Institut de la finance internationale (IFI), l’une des principales parties prenantes, a déclaré Charles Dallara, le directeur exécutif de l’IFI, qui regroupe les principales institutions financières mondiales.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the asset objectives for the WLR Recovery Fund V from WL Ross & Co have been lowered to USD2bn-USD2.5bn, down from a previously announced USD4bn, the Wall Street Journal reports.As of the end of August, subscriptions totalled only slightly more than one tenth of the initial objective, in a sign that private equity firms are having a lot of trouble bringing in money when the markets show chequered performance.Some investors have also held back out of uncertainty following the succession of Wilbur Ross Junior, 73, as head of the business, which is owned by Invesco.

From the beginning of the year to 13 October, six of the US mutual funds which have posted the worst returns are “focused funds,” which are concentrated in portfolios of less than 50 positions, and which invert more than half of their assets in the top 10 positions, the Wall Street Journal reports. These funds are intended to allow star managers to shine, the newspaper says.One such fund is the Legg Mason Capital Management Opportunity fund from Bill Miller, which has lost 34.7%, while the other two are the Fairholme Fund from Bruce Berkowitz (-27.6%), and the CGM Focus fund from Ken Heebner (-22.2%).

New York city pension funds are planning to invest up to USd4bn in hedge funds in the next few years, hedgefund.net reports. The municipal pension system, which includes five pension funds (USD119.5bn in total assets under management), currently has USD140m invested in hedge funds.

Eaton Vance has announced the birth of Navigate Fund Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the group, which will be dedicated to actively-managed ETFs. The group has appointed Stephen Clarke as chairman of the new firm; Clarke is a former vice chairman of Old Mutual Asset Management.

Edmond de Rothschild in France has sold 75% of its private equity fund of fund business, Private Equity Select, with EUR200m in assets, according to reports in the Financial Times. The buyer is David Seligman, founder of the firm, and his management team.

The Swiss alternative management firm Gottex Fund Management has announced the recruitment of Steven Lee Nyungwk as marketing director for the Asia-Pacific region. He will report to Max Gottschalk (co-founder and son of the chairman and CEO of Gottex), head of Asia-Pacific since June. Nyungwk will be based in Hong Kong. Since 2001, he had been at Wellington Management Company, where he focused on marketing, client assistance and development in Asia, including Korea, Hong Kong and China.

The activist investor Nelson Peltz, via his fund Trian Fund Management, has called on State Street to become more profitable and to consider selling off its asset management division, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal citing a letter sent to the board of directors of the group on Sunday evening. Peltz claims that a sale of State Street Global Advisors would free up value for the group.

Lyxor AM has responded to recent criticisms of synthetic replication ETFs. Its argument takes two forms. The first is to demonstrate that the asset management firm’s synthetic replication ETFs are “the most transparent in the world,” pointing out that for every ETF from the management firm, assets held are detailed daily on the firm’s website, along with counterparties and the swap used in the construction of the product.Security is also made a high priority, in response to investor concerns. At a recent Lyxor ETF Investor Day, the firm pointed out that all the swaps were managed “back to back” with the parent company, Société Générale, regardless of the ultimate counterparty. In other words, for all Lyxor ETFs, the counterparty risk related to swaps, which is limited by law to a maximum of 10% of the fund’s assets, is assumed by SocGen.Lyxor AM also insists that it undertakes a daily rebalancing of swaps to 0%, de facto cancelling out the risk of loss in case of bankruptcy of the counterparty bank. “And this is our constant modus operandi,” says Alain Dubois.The second arm of Lyxor AM’s argument is to claim that direct competition – physical replication funds – do not present equivalent transparency, though they have a better image with investors. “Some information about these ETFs is not published,” the Lyxor chairman claims, “particularly about establishments to whom the securities are lent, and on returns the manager mades from its ‘lending agent,’ which are not included in the total costs laid out in the Key Investor Information Document (KIID).” The counterparty risks for investors are identical for a synthetic replication ETF and a physical replication ETF which lends its securities. “It’s the same thing with different contracts,” Lyxor AM continues. “With one exception,” Dubois notes: “tracking error between the ETF fund and its benchmark index. Due to the workings of physical replication, the risk of tracking error is higher, and in this case, the risk is assumed by the investor.”

The chairman and CEO of Cogefi Gestion, Guillaume Jonchères, has not ruled out external growth, but still gives priority to performance and to winning over new clients, especially institutionals. Despite the market turbulence, the asset management firm has posted growth of 10% in its assets in 2011 up to the end of September, at about EUR550m.

Nicholas Cosmo, the owner of Agape World and Agape Merchant Advance, who was arrested in January 2009, was sentenced on 14 October to 25 years in prison for orchestrating a USD412m Ponzi scheme, the Wall Street Journal reports. Effective losses for the thousands of victims totalled about USD195m.

BlackRock on 16 August launched the ETF iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap Index Fund (acronym on NYSE/Arca: EEMS), with assets as of 13 October of USD60.89m. The product, which charges fees of 0.69%, replicates the MSCI emerging markets small cap index, which is largely used by institutional investors. It complements the iShares MSCRI Emerging Markets ETF, with no reduplication of the major positions.

In third quarter 2011, the number of single hedge funds that comply with the UCITS III directive increased by 40 funds, or 6%, to a total of 705, the Geneva-based firm Alix Capital has announced in its latest newsletter (see Newsmanagers of 10 October). Since the beginning of this year, the population of UCITS-compliant single hedge funds has increased by 21.9%.As of the end of September, there were 73 UCITS-compliant funds of hedge funds, which represents a 7% increase in July-September, and 28% growth in the first nine months of 2011.Total assets in the UCITS-compliant hedge fund and fund of hedge fund sector as of 30 September totalled EUR121bn, 7% more than at the end of June, and nearly 32% more than at the end of December.

In August, UCITS funds posted a net outflow of EUR20bn, following EUR14bn in redemptions in July, according to the most recent statistics from the European fund and asset management association (EFAMA), which brings together 23 professional associations representing 97% of all UCITS-compliant or non-UCITS funds.Long-term UCITS funds (or all funds except money markets) posted net outflows of EUR53bn. Diversified funds posted redemptions of EUR11bn, while bond funds had redemptions of EUR13bn. Equity funds finished the month of August with outflows fo EUR26bn, compared with redemptions of EUR1bn in July.Money market funds saw net outflows of EUR33bn in August, compared with EUR25bn in July. For their part, dedicated funds posted net inflows of EUR8bn in August. UCITS funds finished August with total inflows of EUR5.556trn, down 4.7% from the end of July.

Financial Times Deutschland reports that the Belgian private equity investor RHJ is in talks with its US counterpart General Atlantic Partners (GAP) over a partnership to jointly acquire BHF-Bank from Deutsche Bank. In order to raise the USD500m which are required, Handelsblatt says, RHJ has also contacted Pamplona, a London-based investment firm owned by Alex Naster, the Russian former star banker.The surprising element of this news is that one of the advisors to GAP is Klaus Esser, former head of Mannesmann. He is an old acquaintance of Josef Ackermann, chairman of the managing board at Deutsche Bank... and former chairman of the supervisory board at Mannesmann.

The position of director of third-party distribution at Goldman Sachs Asset Management for Germany and Austria, which has been left vacant by the departure of Michael Grüner (see Newsmanagers of 26 September), has been divided into two positions, with the internal promotions of David Erichlandwehr for Germany and Markus Weis for Austria, Fonds Professionell reports.