Après avoir rappelé le rôle-clé du "global custodian" dans le monde de la gestion d'actifs, Bernard Blaud est revenu sur l'actualité de ce secteur d'activité et sur le mouvement de consolidation auquel ce dernier ne pourra échapper. A ce jeu, l'opposition entre européens et américains ne fait aucun doute...

Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) a annoncé le 14 janvier la nomination de Mathieu Maurier en tant que directeur commercial et des relations clients, en remplacement de Sébastien Danloy (voir article par ailleurs). Il devient membre du comité de direction de SGSS et sera rattaché à Alain Closier, directeur du métier titres de Société Générale. Mathieu Maurier, précédemment directeur général adjoint de SGSS Russie au sein de Rosbank, a plus de 16 ans d’expérience dans le développement du métier titres à l’international. Il aura pour principales missions de poursuivre la stratégie de développement commerciale de SGSS et d’accompagner la croissance de ses clients, notamment au travers des 28 implantations du métier titres dans le monde.

Le Conseil d’administration de l’Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital (AFIC) qui regroupe l’ensemble des structures de Capital Investissement (Capital Risque, Capital Développement, Capital Transmission / LBO, Capital Retournement) installées en France a annoncé, vendredi 14 janvier, la nomination de Paul Perpère au poste de délégué général, à compter de ce jour, lundi 17 janvier 2011.Agé de 49 ans, l’intéressé exerçait jusqu'à présent la fonction de sous-directeur en charge de la Fiscalité directe des entreprises à la Direction de la Législation Fiscale (DLF) du ministère de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie.

L’an dernier, la croissance était au rendez-vous pour la société de gestion Aliénor Capital. Grâce à une collecte nette de 50 millions d’euros, qui porte les encours à un demi-milliard d’euros sous gestion à la fin 2010. Et 2011 devrait être l’occasion pour la maison de développements importants. En matière de produits tout d’abord, «nous entamons la commercialisation et le développement de notre nouveau fonds, Aliénor Emergents Latitude», annonce Arnaud Raimon, président et directeur de la gestion de la société basée à Bordeaux. Lancé fin décembre 2010, il s’agit d’un produit investi majoritairement sur les ETF. L’allocation d’actifs mène à une répartition géographique et sectorielle du portefeuille, qui peut également comporter des titres en direct. Revendiquant une gestion flexible, le produit peut être exposé entre 0 % et 100 %. «Nous comptons être entièrement investis sauf en cas d’arrivée d’une crise, qu’elle soit boursière, économique ou même politique», précise le président qui co-gère le fonds dont l’encours s'élève aujourd’hui à un million d’euros, avec Arthur Joannard.Par ailleurs, après l’ouverture d’un bureau parisien l’an dernier, qui sert d’avant-poste à Guillaume de Charry, associé et responsable du développement, et le recrutement de deux personnes - une aux opérations et l’autre en analyse - Aliénor Capital pourrait aussi annoncer prochainement l’arrivée d’un nouveau gérant. Et ce renforcement de l'équipe de gestion devrait répondre à l’agrandissement de la gamme, avec un ou deux nouveaux produits prévus dès cette année. Les nouveaux fonds garderont la même approche qui a fait la réputation de la société de gestion, «soit une gestion libre permettant une flexibilité de 0 % à 100 % sur l’exposition», souligne Arnaud Raimon. En attendant, un autre produit déjà présent dans la gamme, mérite qu’on lui prête davantage attention, selon le responsable de la maison. Il s’agit d’Aliénor Alter Euro, un fonds prudent que l'équipe présente activement à ses clients. D’après Arnaud Raimon, une véritable demande existe pour ce type de produits. «Les fonds diversifiés prudents gérés de façon réactive, disponibles sous la forme d’unités de compte, peuvent venir compléter un fonds en euro pour des investisseurs échaudés par un contexte financier chahuté et en demande de sécurité, mais déçus par le rendement faible de ces derniers», souligne-t-il.Enfin, en termes de gestion, la société avoue avoir sans doute pêché par excès de prudence en 2010. «Nous avons en effet coupé nos positions actions avec un bon timing lors de la crise Grecque, mais avons attendu la fin de l’été pour réinvestir sur les marchés», explique Arnaud Raimon. Reste que, pour 2011, ce dernier affiche désormais de fortes convictions en tablant notamment sur une hausse des actions (en particulier typées «growth»)...

Avec le MMA Praxis International Index Fund, MMA Praxis Mutual Funds vient de lancer un fonds socialement responsable pour lequel il compte trouver suffisamment de titres pour atteindre une exposition de 20 % aux marchés émergents, indique The Wall Street Journal.Le gestionnaire s’efforcera d’exclure les actions des sociétés les moins conformes aux critères de l’investissement socialement responsable (ISR), celles des secteurs du tabac, de l’alcool et de l’armement, mais n’espère pas que toutes les firmes retenues rempliront la totalité des critères, a indiqué Chad Horning, le CIO de MMA Praxis.

A fin décembre, les actifs gérés par Invesco se montaient à 616 milliards de dollars contre 604,5 milliards un an plus tôt, les encours des fonds d’actions se tassant à 294,1 milliards de dollars contre 294,4 milliards. L’encours des ETF s’est contracté pour sa part à 80,3 milliards de dollars contre 89,9 milliards.En décembre, Invesco a bouclé l’acquisition des activités de gestion d’actifs asiatiques d’AIG Global Real Estate comportant 5,4 milliards de dollars d’actifs alternatifs (sur un total de 78,1 milliards fin décembre), dont 0,2 milliard de gestion passive (sur 60 milliards).

Le pôle asset management de JPMorgan a dégagé au quatrième trimestre 2010 un bénéfice net de 507 millions de dollars, soit une hausse de 20 % par rapport au trimestre correspondant de 2009. Cela reflète notamment une hausse des revenus nets de 19 % sur un an à 2,6 milliards de dollars. Sur le trimestre, JP Morgan a accusé des rachats nets de 2 milliards de dollars. Sur l’année, la société affiche également un solde négatif, de 20 milliards de dollars. Les encours ont néanmoins progressé de 4 % sur le dernier trimestre à 1.300 milliards de dollars, grâce à l’effet de marché.

Sonal Desai est nommée «back-up» de Michael Hasenstab sur la gestion de trois fonds de Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group : Templeton Global Bond Fund, Templeton Global Bond (Euro) Fund et Templeton Global Total Return Fund. Elle secondera le gérant dans la gestion de ces produits.Sonal Desai, PhD, a rejoint Franklin Templeton en octobre 2009 au poste de directrice de la recherche pour le département obligations internationales de Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group, en charge de délivrer l’ensemble des analyses macroéconomiques pour l’équipe obligataire.

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) a nommé Kevin Addison au poste de responsable des ventes wholesale en remplacement de Tony Maddock qui a rejoint Lazard AM.Kevin Addison , qui a rejoint Swip en 2008, sera rattaché à John Brett, directeur des ventes et du marketing chez Swip.

Graham Kitchen remplacera Bill McQuaker en tant que responsable des actions chez Henderson Global Investors. Alors que la société de gestion vient d’acquérir Gartmore, Bill McQuaker a décidé de se concentrer en priorité sur la gestion de ses fonds. Il devient l’adjoint de Graham Kitchen.

F&C a fait un point vendredi sur son programme de réduction des coûts, alors que l’un de ses actionnaires, Sherborne, cherche à prendre le pouvoir, contestant sa stratégie. La société de gestion britannique a annoncé qu’elle était en négociations avec un prestataire de services d’externalisation et qu’elle va réduire ses coûts d’exploitation d’au moins 9 millions de livres par an, estime la société de gestion britannique. Les économies commenceront à se faire sentir au deuxième trimestre 2011 et prendront fin d’ici au troisième trimestre 2012. L’accord d’externalisation affectera environ 100 salariés, représentant 70 % du personnel travaillant sur l’opérationnel actuellement, sachant qu’un certain nombre d’entre eux devraient travailler pour le prestataire de services retenu. Les employés dans l’investissement, la distribution et les services clients ne sont pas impactés par ces mesures.F&C estime aussi pouvoir économiser 3 millions de livres supplémentaires grâce à la baisse des besoins en matière d’immobilier liés aux réductions d’effectifs. L’objectif de cette initiative, annoncée en août dernier, est de créer une base de coûts susceptible de s’adapter au changement de profil de la société de gestion. F&C indique par ailleurs qu’il va poursuivre son programme de réductions de coûts et notamment rationnaliser sa gamme.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } RBC Dexia Investor Services announced on Friday, 14 Janyary that it has appointed Sébastien Danloy as Managing Director in Luxembourg, effective from 2 May 2011. Danloy, who will report to Tony Johnson, Global Head, Sales & Distribution, will be in charge of developing the firm’s activities in Luxembourg. “He will place the emphasis on market strategy, management of strategic clients, and the effectiveness of our engagement with governmental, regulatory and industrial entities nationwide,” a statement says. Danloy had previously served as Global Head of Sales & Relationship Management at Société Générale Securities Services. The appointment is subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Pope Benedict XVI has appointed cardinal Attilio Nicora as chairman of the new Financial Information Authority (Autorità di informazione finanziaria, or AIF) at the Vatican. The entity will also include the Vatican Bank, and the ministry of finance for the apostolic state, the Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica (APS), the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The cardinal, a reputed lawyer, will retain his position as president of the APS.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Gruppo Banca Leonardo announced on Friday, 14 January that it has acquired Sal. Oppenheim jr & Cie Corporate Finance (Suisse) SA, a consulting firm dedicated to corporate finance. Sal. Oppenheim CF Switzerland has 12 years of experience in this market, and has a client base composed of Swiss mid-sized and large businesses, multinational corporations and private investors. The Swiss firm has 14 employees, and has undertaken more than 60 missions in the past 10 years for a transaction volume of over CHF30bn, a statement says. Sal. Oppenheim CF will continue to cover mergers and acquisitions and equities markets, and will provide services in the area of debt restructuring in the entire sector, including real estate. As a part of the operation, the asset management affiliate 4IP and the real estate expertise activity will be separated. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } AXA Winterthur has announced the appointment of Kamila Horackova as head of Asset Management Agefi Switzerland reports. At the same time, she becomes a member of the board, where she will begin on 14 March. She succeeds Mattias Henry, who was appointed CFO on 6 December, who has been the interim director of asset management. Horackova has been director of asset management for AXA Czech and Slovakia since 2007.

F&C has announced plans to enhance flexibility of its cost baseand annual cost savings of GBP12 million. The primary aim of this initiative is to create an operational cost base which will more readily adapt to future changes in F&C’s business profile as the UK asset manager focuses on diversifying its business and caters for new client needs. As a core part of this project the group has been in discussions with a number of potential outsourcing providers and is now close to selecting a preferred partner from a short-list of two (subject to contract, due diligence and completion of employee consultation processes). The asset management company will also reorganise its remaining business processes around the outsourced operational model. The restructuring programme will create an operational cost base that varies with assets under management and transaction levels.F&C estimates this restructuring programme will reduce annual operating costs by at least GBP9 million. Based on the expected implementation timescale, the first of these savings will commence in Q2 2011 and be substantially achieved by Q3 2012. Associated one-off net costs to achieve these reductions are expected to be no more than one full-year of the annual savings.The outsourcing arrangement will affect approximately 110 staff, which represents around 70% of the group’s existing operations staff, a significant number of whom are expected to transfer to the outsourcing provider. This initiative does not affect the staffing of investment, distribution and client service functions.The group has also identified an additional potential annual cost saving of GBP3 million arising from reduced premises requirements following the reduction in head count.In addition to the initiatives announced on Friday, F&C continues to review further opportunities for cost reduction and business simplification, including product rationalisation.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Kevin Addison as head of wholesale sales, replacing Tony Maddock, who has joined Lazard AM. Addison, who joined SWIP in 2008, will report to John Brett, director of sales and marketing at SWIP.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Graham Kitchen will replace Bill McQuaker as head of equities at Henderson Global Investors. When the firm acquired Gartmore recently, McQuaker decided to concentrate primarily on management of his funds. He becomes assistant to his successor.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Michel Camdessus on 14 January submitted his report to Chrstine Lagarde, French minister of the economy, as controller for bonuses handed out by banks which received government support for their owners’ equity levels, according to rules decided at the Pittsburgh G20 summit at the instigation of France, in relation to limiting pay scales for market professionals. The report concludes that the standards have been satisfactorily adopted by French banks overall. It points out that the application of the new standards and the actions of the bonus controller reduced bonuses distributed for the year 2009 by about EUR800m. “The full and complete application of the rules remains a priority for 2011. I expect banks to continue their efforts at moderation in 2011,” Lagarde says in a statement. To increase transparency of bonuses, Lagarde has asked the prudential control authority and the French banking association to offer a standardised presentation within two months, in the form of a poster which would be the same for all banks, to inform employees about bonuses which the banking and financial regulation laws require to be identified in a report presented at the general shareholders’ meetings of the establishments concerned.

After pointing out the key role of the global custodian in asset management worldwide, Bernard Blaud discusses recent developments in the sector of activity as well as the consolidation movement which it cannot avoid. There is no doubt that European and American firms are opposed in this area.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With the MMA Praxis International Index Fund, MMA Praxis Mutual Funds has launched a socially responsible investment fund for which it hopes to find enough investments to achieve a 20% exposure to emerging markets, the Wall Street Journal reports.The manager will make an effort to exclude shares in companies with poor compliance with socially responsible investment (SRI) criteria, and the tobbaco, alcohol and weapons sectors, but does not hope that all companies in the portfolio will meet all the criteria, says Chad Horning, CIO of MMA Praxis.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Prudential Investments has announced the launch of the Prudential Real Assets Fund, a fund whose portfolio is invested largely in real assets such as real estate, metals, oil and other commodities, “which offer potential protection against inflation and rising interest rates,” the asset management firm notes.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 12 January, the management of the fund Capital UFF FCP, which is eligible for PEA (equity savings plans), has been contracted to Carmignac Gestion, and the product renamed UFF Grande Europe 0-100. The product was previously managed by Aviva Investors France, which helped to redefine the orientation of the fund: “the uncertain evolution of conjuncture and the new fiscal situation in 2011, which makes PEA once again attractive, has led the Union financière de France (UFF) to analyse its range of funds eligible for PEA,” the product presentation states.The fund invests at least 75% of its assets in equities from the European Community. Stock-picking selects the shares with the most potential, and up to 25% of the fund is invested in the best “opportunities” from countries outside the European Union (including Turkey and Russia). From this point of view, the fund faithfully reflects the management undertaken by Carmignac Gestion for its Carmignac Grande Europe fund.The exposure of UFF Grande Europe 0-100 to equities markets is completely flexible, and may vary from 0 to 100%, due to the use of derivative instruments, which implies a wholly separate management, both from the range of funds available from UFF through its PEA, and from funds currently managed by Carmignac Gestion for its own clients. This highly reactive mode of management is “particularly well-adapted to confront periods of volatility on the market such as we may see in 2011,” explains Nicholas Schimel, president and CEO of UFF. CharacteristicsName: UFF Grande Europe 0-100ISIN code: FR0000034548 Minimal subscription: EUR762.25 (C and D shares); EUR300,000 (V shares)Management fees: 2.25% (from 1 March 2011) for C and D shares; 1.75% for V sharesPerformance commission: 10% of net performance of funds exceeding 7.5% in annualised terms

Jim O’Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who invented the term «Bric», plans to add Mexico, South Korea, Turkey and Indonesia into a new grouping with Brazil, Russia, India and China that he dubs “growth markets”.“It’s just pathetic to call these four emerging markets,” he told the Financial Times.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The IT specialist firm Markit on 17 January announced the launch of a series of emerging market debt indices. The Markit iBoxx USD Emerging Markets Sovereigns indices, which aim to meet growing demand on the part of investors for emerging market debt, come as additions to the GEMX index, launched in 2008, which tracks the performance of government debt from emerging markets in local currencies.

The European securities specialist Nicolas Walewski, founder of Alken Asset Management, on 14 January in Paris announced the launch of an absolute return fund, Alken Absolute Return Europe (AARE).The European long/short equities fund, which complies with the UCITS III directive, has daily liquidity, aims for capital growth in the mid-term, and invests largely in European equities, with the main objective of generating alpha in the case of long as well as short-term investments.The objective is to remain focused on the best ideas which generated absolute returns of 64% for the Alken Capital One fund since its launch on 21 July 2008 in European equities, through active management of the portfolio.The fund aims for gross exposure of 50% to 150%, and net exposure of -20% to 75%. For the long portion of the portfolio, which is not highly concentrated, absolute return will be the priority, and when opportunities present themselves, the fund will also make small arbitrages, For the short portion of the portfolio, the fund, which will invest in individual shares as well as indices and baskets, will act as a hedge fund and directly.An initial share class will be offered from 17 January with a commission of 0.9%, instead of 1.5%, The offering is scheduled for 31 January.As of 31 December, assets under management at Alken AM totalled over EUR2.7bn, of which EUR2.18bn were in the Alken European Opportunities fund, which has outperformed the Stoxx 600 index by 21% since its launch in January 2006, and by over 6% in 2010.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Italian arm of the French firm Européenne de Gestion Privée has been liquidated by the Italian minister of the economy and finance, at the request of Consob and with a supporting opinion from the Bank of Italy, Bluerating reports. The move comes in response to irregularities and violations of regulations which occurred in the administration of the Italian entity.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Some major asset management firms have shown that an investment in their own shares brings better performance than the funds they offer, Expansión reports. Shares in Schroders and Aberdeen have gained 48% and 75% in value in the past twelve months. Shares in F&C have gained 33%, and T. Rowe Price is up 21%, while shares in Henderson gained 20.7%. Shares in Invesco were in line with the market, rising 11.5%, while BlackRock shares lost 16%.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Since 2006, when the asset management and real estate management activities were merged, Alexander Klein has been COO in charge of all back-office activities at SEB Investment, the fund management firm of SEB Asset Management Germany. He has been appointed as a board member at SEB Investment from 1 January 2011, and will retain his position as COO. He will be in charge of finance, risk management, controlling, and IT.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to financial industry sources, Deutsche Bank is rumoured to have backed down from plans to sell BHF-Bank as a single entity, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. LGT may now acquire only the wealth management and SMB banking activities, while Deutsche Bank would retain some market activities of BHF.