Proposed revisions to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) include some clauses which the AFG (the French asset management association) says are a subject of “concern,” in relation to actors as well as products. In particular, the association strongly opposes proposals by the European Commission to forbid makers of financial products from paying mandated managers and independent financial advisers.“The proposal, whose logic is understandable, does not work in practice. It would also drastically stunt the development of open architecture. In other words, the Commission would run against what it has previously supported,” says Paul-Henri de La Porte du Theil, president of the AFG. The proposals would also not benefit investors, he says, whereas complete and transparent information before the transaction would be the best way to ensure protection.The AFG is also concerned about proposals to distinguish between UCITS-compliant funds which are considered complex, and funds which are not complex. The proposal would significantly weaken the UCITS label, which is internationally recognised as a label for funds available to retail clients. From this point of view, the criterion of comprehension is the “promise” that should be retained, for all savings products and policies.The AIFM directive, whose level II dispositions are in the process of being composed, is not a source of comfort either. “Serious” concerns about the European passport for non-European players remain.The only point on which the association says it is satisfied is the legal framework for UCITS IV funds, which had now been transposed into French law, bringing increased legibility for French fund product ranges.

In a press release on October, 4th, BNY dismissed the charges in the civil lawsuit filed by the Office of the New York Attorney General according to which the bank would have overcharged its foreign exchange (FX) services to various customers, especially pension funds (see Newsmanagers of October, 5th). It stresses that these claims are «flat out wrong, both on the law and on the facts». It recognizes that capitulating to the Office’s demands might avoid some nasty headlines, but refuses «to be coerced into admitting to and paying for wrongdoing that does not exist».The statement stresses that BNY Mellon executed transactions within fully disclosed, daily guaranteed pricing ranges and that, anyway, the decision to use the company’s FX services rested solely with institutional clients and their investment managers who could opt out on daily basisBNY Mellon also insists ont the fact that these services offer institutional clients and investment managers attractive «cholesale» prices which otherwise would not be available for «retail» size trades. And, finally, the bank says that the lawsuit reflects «inappropriate overreaching into commercial relationships».

The Danish asset management firm Saxo Bank on 5 October announced the opening of an office in Moscow in order to offer Russian clients investment and brokerage services via its trading platform.The new rep-office will be led by Igor Dombrovan, who has also been appointed COO of Saxo Bank.

The British asset management firm Liontrust Asset Management on 5 October announced that it has completed its acquisition of the asset management activities of Occam Asset Management. As assets under management at Occam have fallen under USD150m, the acquisition price has been revised downward by 30%. Liontrust is also acquiring four Dublin-based funds and two hedge funds domiciled in the Cayman islands, which bring it two new asset classes: Asia and emerging markets. The Dublin funds have been renamed, so that the Occam Asia Absolute Return fund becomes Liontrust Asia Absolute Return, Occam Asia Focaus becomes Liontrust Asia, Occam Europe Focus becoms Liontrust Pan European, and Occam Emerging Markets Opportunities becoms Liontrust Emerging Markets Absolute Return. The Cayman Islands funds are the Liontrust Sorbus and Liontrust Diversity. Assets under management (in British and European equities) at Liontrust totalled GBP1.3bn as of mid-June 2011.

The financial services group Aragon AG of Wiesbaden has announced that it has acquired an 82.25% stake in the Berlin-based firm SRQ FinanzPartner from DAB-bank (EUR27bn in assets under management or administration as of the end of June), while the remainder of shares in the firm will continue to be held by management, financial planning advisers and employees. The total sale price has not been disclosed. The permission of supervisory authorities is expected by the end of this year.SRQ FinanzPartner serves about 90 partners with 10,500 clients in the mass-affluent segment. Its assets under management total about EUR1.4bn.

Old Mutual Asset Management (OMAM), the U.S.-based global asset management business of Old Mutual, has appointed Julian Ide as head of OMAM Global Distribution and Chief Executive Officer of Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK) Limited (OMAM UK). He succeeds Peter Baxter who is leaving the firm to pursue other opportunities. OMAM UK is a London-based investment boutique and affiliate of OMAM with approximately GBP4.5 billion of assets under management. Julian Ide will report to Peter L. Bain, Chief Executive Officer of OMAM and will complete the formation of Mr. Bain’s executive team. As part of his role, he will spearhead OMAM’s global distribution efforts in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to support the continued growth of OMAM’s affiliate managers. In addition, he will oversee OMAM UK’s investment teams, product offerings and successful retail and institutional distribution efforts. Julian Ide’s arrival is coupled with OMAM’s simultaneous announcement today of its divestiture of its U.S. retail mutual fund business. He joins from BBVA Asset Management where he was head of Institutional business.

Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) is initiating a new campaign in wealth management. “By the end of 2012, we want to complete the integration of ABN Amro Switzerland, launch our activities in Asia,a nd strengthen our management capacities for European clients in London and Luxembourg,” Michel Longhini, CEO of the private banking division of the Geneva-based business since September 2010, has told Agefi Hebdo. In Asia, the group has only one capital market license, in Singapore, and an asset management office in Hong Kong, where it has recently announced the creation of two joint ventures with a Taiwan insurer. In both markets, “we are preparing our applications for banking licenses,” the head of wealth management says. Asia represents 7% of assets, “and we would like to see local clients account for 10% to 15% of our assets in five years,” while UBP is aiming for total inflows of EUR10bn from its private clients.

Raoul Luttik, senior portfolio manager for emerging market debt at ING Investment Management, announced in a presentation in Paris on 5 October that despite the poor performance of the markets in September, which resulted in net redemptions to some retail subscribers (a phenomenon which will be likely to continue for some time, unless there is a significant reversal of the market trend), institutional investors clearly continue to have confidence in this asset class.There is no shortage of arguments in favour of emerging market debt, denominated either in “hard” or in local currencies, and these arguments have not been nullified by the events of September. Economic and fiscal fundamentals remain considerably more positive in general than in industrialised countries, while emerging market bonds present high returns, and securities denominated in local currencies a priori offer an additional upside through revaluation of the currencies.As of the end of August, thus before the heavy corrections and retail outflows of last month, ING IM had assets of EUR12bn for its emerging market debt strategy, compared with EUR10.9bn as of the end of December 2010. Assets under management in local currency funds, whose benchmark is the ELMI+ (money markets, futures), as of the end of June totalled over EUR2.93bn, for an average rating of BBB+. Local currency bond funds (average rating BBB-), benchmarked against the BGI-EM GD index, totalled about EUR1.54bn.

Francois Gouws and Yassine Bouhara, co-heads of global equities activities at UBS, have resigned in the wake of the recent scandal over unauthorised trading operations which resulted in losses of USD2.3bn for the Swiss bank. Their resignations are said in a statement to be due to “the overall responsibility which they had for the effective management of the Equities unit.”Mike Stewart, who joined UBS in July, has been appointed global head of Equities at UBS.

Barclays Wealth, the division of Barclays Bank dedicated to wealth management, via its affiliate Barclays Bank (Switzerland), based in Geneva, on 5 October announced the appointment of Isaac Topel as managing director, and Andres Cazenave as director in the International Private Bank, Latin America division, Agefi Switzerland reports. The two men will both be in charge of continuing the expansion of Barclays Wealth’s strategy in Latin America, serving high net worth and ultra high net worth clients from Geneva. For nearly ten years, Topel has served in a variety of positions at JP Morgan, most recently that of senior banker in the Swiss private banking division, for high net worth clients in the Latin American region. Cazenave, who is also a former senior banker in the same division at JP Morgan, has spent the past four years alongside Topel in wealth management for some key Latin American clients, from Geneva. Both men will report to Thomas Roiz, Market Head for Latin America, International Private Bank, Europe, Middle East and Africa division.

Michael Heijmeijer, founder of Cfinancials, has launched a platform dedicated to structured products, which is bringing managers and their clients genuine transparency for these products in the form of research and analysis aid tools, Agefi Switzerland reports. The interfaces are constructed to the custom needs of clients, banks or asset management firms, on the basis of a universe of 12 million financial products, including 2 million structured products, which are already available on the platform. The sub-set of structured includes all products available in Germany and Switzerland, through a partnership between Cfinancials and Scoach. Under the name Product Mastering, the service provides access to all pertinent information about a product, as well as detailed information and analysis of underlyings.

Gonet & Cie, whose headquarters are located in Geneva, opened a branch office in the canton of Vaud on 3 October, Agefi Switzerland reports. From 1 November, Pierre-Alain Devaud and Roy Kienast, who had previously been members of the board of directors of the Banque de Dépôts et de Gestion (BDG), will be in charge of developing the activities of the new Vaud office. They will have a team of five employees by the end of the year. A Gonet office in Singapore will also be operational in the next few weeks. A team of seven people has been recruited to serve South-East Asia in particular. The group, which currently has 83 employees, is expecting to hit 100 staff in first quarter 2012.

L’UMR détient 275 millions d’euros d’engagements en Private Equity, alors que l’ensemble de ses actifs sous gestion s'élève à 7.8 milliards d’euros. D’après Charles Vaquier, Directeur Général de l’UMR, il était difficile dans le passé, de trouver des entreprises non cotées dans lesquelles investir. A cause, notamment, de leurs coûts mais aussi un EBIDTA peu satisfaisant. Mais la situation a changé ces dernières années. Les investisseurs institutionnels trouvent un certain nombre d’opportunités en France, avec des entreprises proposant de meilleurs TRI que les entreprises cotées. Mais Solvency II pourrait calmer l’appétit des investisseurs pour le private equity d’autant plus que Bâle III ne poussera pas les Banques à injecter des fonds dans ce type de compagnies. « L’UMR investit actuellement 4% dans le private quity via plusieurs fonds, pour la plupart en France. » détaille Monsieur Vauquier. « Parce que la plupart des investisseurs français se sont déjà conformés aux exigences de Solvency II, leur allocation d’actifs en gestions alternatives est limitée à 10%. » « La bonne nouvelle avec Solvency II vient directement du fait qu’une telle limite ne sera pas applicable, et nous pourrons par conséquence augmenter notre allocation en private equity de 5% à 10%. » La Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations est actuellement en train d'étudier la possibilité de lancer un nouveau fonds de private equity et est en discussion avec d’autres investisseurs. Monsieur Vauquier a indiqué que l’UMR pourrait s’accorder sur un apport de 20/30 millions d’euros à ce nouveau fonds. « C’est le rôle des investisseurs nationaux d’aider l'économie réelle à se développer. »

Le groupe de services financiers Aragon AG de Wiesbaden a annoncé avoir acquis auprès de la DAB-bank (27 milliards d’encours gérés ou administrés à fin juin) une participation de 82,25 % dans le berlinois SRQ FinanzPartner, le reliquat des parts demeurant détenu par le management, des conseillers en planification financière et des collaborateurs. Le montant de la transaction n’a pas été dévoilé. L’autorisation des autorités de surveillance est attendue pour avant la fin de cette année.SRQ FinanzPartner dessert environ 90 partenaires avec 10.500 clients de milieu de gamme (mass-affluent). Ses encours sous administration se situent à environ 1,4 milliard d’euros.

BlackRock, the global leader in ETFs with its iShares brand, has issued a call for greater transparency in the ETF market, and for consistent regulation, at a time when this activity is under the eye of regulators. The US management firm has made five more presice proposals for regulations and market reforms. Firstly, BlackRock calls for a clear labeling of product structure and investment objectives. "“ETF” has become a blanket term describing many products that have a wide range of different structures. This has led to confusion among investors. Investors should know what they are buying and what a product’s investment objectives are.This can be achieved by establishing a global standard classification system with clear labels to clarify the differences between products,» the firm explains.Another recommendation is frequent and timely disclosure of all holdings and exposures . “Investors also need to understand what the product holds. To that end, sponsors should be required to disclose a clear picture of what the product holds and any other financial exposures it has,” BlackRock comments.The asset management firm also calls for clear standards for diversifying counterparties and quality of collateral loans. “In addition to disclosure, standards should be established regarding counterparty exposure and the quality of collateral posted by counterparties.”Fourth, BlackRock would like to see disclosure of all fees and costs aid, including those to counterparties . “Investors should have complete clarity regarding all the costs and revenues associated with any fund they buy, so they can clearly establish the total cost of ownership. Thus, in addition to clearly stating the management fee paid by the fund to the sponsor, the disclosure should include any costs or fees that affect the investors’ holdings, including those paid to companies related to the fund provider such as swap counterparties and securities lending participants”.Lastly, the asset management firm recommends universal trade reporting for all equity trades, including ETFs.

The performance of hedge funds in the past three months have been the rose since third quarter 2008, according to Hedge Fund Monitor, relayed by Les Echos. Average losses total 5.02% in the three months to 28 September. This is the reason for the major adjustments at Man Group, which will be laying off one employee in five by first quarter 2012. Smaller, more agile funds are doing better, however. “These are the funds which many final investors are looking for, since they are more agile and can buy or sell their positions more easily,” Anne-Gaëlle Pouille of PAAMCO, a fund of hedge funds, explains to the newspaper.

In the first eight months of 2011, total assets under management (in mandates and mutual funds) “has shown a certain resilience,” limiting its losses to 3.2%, to EUR2.651trn, very slightly above its levels at the end of 2009, according to a report on the French financial management market presented on 5 October by the French asset management association (AFG). Assets in mandates continued the momentum they have shown in previous years. They may have risen less rapidly, but show gains of slightly under 1%, to a total of EUR1.411trn. This growth is nearly all due to market effects, while net inflows are near zero for the eight-month period, due to a slowdown in life insurance due to uncertainty about taxation and the impact of increased competition from banking products. French-registered funds, however, saw an outflow of 7.1% to total assets of EUR1.24trn. The very poor performance of the market in summer affected all categories of funds, while market effects were particularly negative for equities and diversified funds. For equities funds, whose assets as of the end of August totalled EUR232.5bn, compared with EUR279.2bn as of the end of 2010, market effects totalled EUR36.3bn, while outflows totalled EUR10.4bn. Money market funds have seen a sharp slowdown in inflows in the eight-month period, compared with the same period in 2010, to EUR16.6bn, compared with EUR48bn in the same period of 2010. The relative weight of money market funds, which in May 2009 reached record levels (42% of total assets under management), now represent about 30% of assets under management, a normal level historically.

A wave of new portfolio management firm creations has continued in 2011, according to a summary of activity on the French financial management market presented by the French asset management association on 5 October. 30 asset management firms have been licensed or are awaiting their definitive licenses, and 12 other firms are underway. At the end of September, the population of asset management firms active in France totalled over 600, compared with 592 at the end of 2010, and 567 at the end of 2009. The number of mutual funds, which has fallen sharply since mid-2008, began to rise again slightly in 2011, with creations offsetting the continuing rationalisation efforts. This increase in the number of mutual funds is said to be partly due to the launch of new product ranges to face up to the competition created by the entry into force of UCITS IV and sales efforts to adapt the product range and asset management strategies to new market conditions.

La Banque européenne d’investissement lance un appel à manifestations d’intérêt visant à sélectionner un ou plusieurs fonds d’aménagement urbain chargé(s) de gérer une enveloppe d’environ 66,2 millions d’EUR allouée par le Fonds de participation JESSICA pour la Sardaigne pour appuyer des investissements dans des projets urbains spécifiques liés à l’aménagement urbain, à la revitalisation urbaine, à l’efficacité énergétique et à l’utilisation de sources d'énergies renouvelables au titre de l’initiative JESSICA. Une présentation concernant l’appel à manifestation d’intérêt sera publiée le 11 octobre 2011. Cette présentation est fournie à titre indicatif uniquement et ne remplace aucune des dispositions de l’appel à manifestations d’intérêt. En cas de divergence, les dispositions de l’appel à manifestations d’intérêt feront foi. Pour lire l’avis complet: cliquez ici

Les opérateurs boursiers ont reçu hier un communiqué de griefs de plus de 130 pages de la part de la Commission détaillant les points d’inquiétude concernant leur projet d’union. Sans dévoiler le contenu des objections contenus dans le document, Deutsche Börse et Nyse Euronext ont tenu à souligner qu’il s’agissait d’une étape normale dans un processus de rapprochement.

La plate-forme de fonds indiciels cotés (ETF) de BlackRock fait quatre propositions pour réformer ce marché: clarifier la labellisation de la structure des produits et de leurs objectifs d’investissement, diffuser des informations fréquentes et appropriées sur les détentions et positions de l’ETF, instaurer des standards clairs sur la diversification des contreparties et la qualité du collatéral, et promouvoir la transparence sur l’ensemble des frais et coûts.

Le gouvernement tchèque est opposé au projet de mise en œuvre d’une taxe sur les transactions financières au niveau européen, a indiqué hier le Premier ministre Petr Necas. Il avait auparavant fait valoir que la taxe, qui devrait permettre de lever 57 milliards d’euros par an, affecterait la clientèle des banques dans la mesure où les frais bancaires seront plus élevés.

Le spécialiste de l’investissement en capital-risque dans les TPE et PME entre au capital d’Arflex, un fabricant de modules de bains, dans le cadre d’une opération portant sur un montant global de 1,54 million d’euros, représentant 35% du capital de la société.

Après le discours de la banque centrale, les marchés anticipent majoritairement une baisse de 50 points de base dès le mois prochain

Le quotidien souligne que la société de private equity américaine est sur le point d’acquérir une participation de 48% au capital de Bahcesehir, un groupe d’éducation privée. La transaction reste soumise à l’approbation du gouvernement turc. Le quotidien veut croire qu’il s’agit d’un signe des promesses du marché turc pour l’investissement étranger.

Le gouvernement confirme ses objectifs de déficit pour 2012 et réclame le droit de bénéficier du FESF pour réduire ses coûts de financement

Les encours totaux affichent une baisse à fin août mais le nombre de fonds et de sociétés de gestion est en progression

Avec un recul des encours totaux des mandats et OPCVM sur le marché français de 3,2% à fin août, soit 87 milliards sur 2011, le secteur a limité la casse selon l’AFG. Mais le choc de septembre a dû aggraver le recul. Les sociétés de gestion sont désormais plus de 600.

La FSA britannique propose la création d'un matelas de liquidité et la mise en place de stress tests pour les contreparties centrales

Le quotidien britannique assure de sources proches des enchères que le groupe japonais a conclu avec le fonds souverain Mubadala un accord de financement lié à l’offre envisagée sur l’éditeur musical mis en vente par Citigroup. Sony disposerait également du soutien de la banque d’investissement Raine. De quoi renforcer la position du groupe japonais face à d’autres prétendants comme Universal Music ou Warner Music. Citigroup entend retirer entre 3,0 et 3,5 milliards de dollars de la vente d’EMI, peut-être jusqu’à 4,0 milliards en cas de cession par appartements. Les offres de second tour devaient parvenir au vendeur hier soir.