Les encours totaux du secteur de la gestion alternative ont baissé de 2,55 milliards de dollars en novembre, à 1.640 milliards de dollars, selon Eurekahedge. Cela s’explique par des retraits nets de 0,19 milliard de dollars et des pertes de 2,36 milliards. Eurekahedge note que les actifs des hedge funds asiatiques ont franchi la barre des 125 milliards de dollars pour la première fois depuis décembre 2008. Les hedge funds nord américains ont quant à eux enregistré dix mois consécutifs de collecte nette, attirant 56,22 milliards de dollars sur la période.

Sur la base de son «reputational risk radar», RepRisk a publié le 16 décembre la liste des dix sociétés les plus décriées dans les médias, les organismes gouvernementaux et les organisations non-gouvernementales. Cela peut concerner des problèmes comme des infractions aux droits de l’homme, des violations environnementales majeures et des entorses aux normes en vigueur dans les domaines de la législation du travail, de la santé et/ou de la sécurité. Le «bide-parade» est établi en fonction du Reputation Risk Index (RRI) pour 2010 qui a été lui-même dérivé de l’exploitation des articles de presse négatifs. Dès lors, le RRI ne mesure pas la réputation globale d’une entreprise mais il capture les critiques et fournit une indication sur l’exposition au risque réputationnel.Les entreprises les plus affectées sont dans l’ordre Transocean et BP (à cause de la plate-forme Deepwater Horizon dans le Golfe du Mexique), le britannique Vedanta Resources pour les dégâts environnementaux en Inde, l’américain ExxonMobil pour son exposition au pétrole et la pollution au Nigeria ainsi que pour l’exploitation des schistes bitumineux, le taiwanais Foxconn Electronics pour les nombreux suicides de salariés en Chine populaire. L’américain Chevron a été mis en cause dans des procès pour pollution en Equateur et le britannique BG Gas pour les dégâts environnementaux sur le gisement Karachaganak, les problèmes fiscaux avec le Kazakhstan et la controverse sur le projet de gaz naturel liquéfié dans le Queensland australien. Royal Dutch Shell a été mis en cause pour des affaires d'évasion fiscale et de corruption aux Etats-Unis, au Nigeria et aux Philippines, ainsi que pour de la maltraitance au Brésil, au Nicaragua, au Nigeria et en Irlande.L’indonésien Sinar Mas Group a subi des critiques pour s'être rendu coupable de déforestation afin de faire place à des plantations pour la production d’huile de palme tandis que le hongrois Magyar Aluminium Termelp es Kereskedelmi (MAL) a subi le contrecoup de la rupture de digues de son réservoir de boues toxiques en octobre.

Effective from 10th December 2010, the JPM Global Natural Resources Fund (SICAV) managed by Ian Henderson at J.P. Morgan Asset Management is soft closed to new investors."This fund has performed well and has attracted a large amount of assets under management. Although the fund is still not at a point where it can no longer pursue its stated investment strategy, the portfolio management team have noted that, if the fund continues to grow, that may be the case. Therefore to allow the fund to continue to meet its objectives and to protect the interests of existing investors, we have taken the decision to soft close the fund», says J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The fund’s assets were EUR3.2bn on December 15.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Les Echos reports that more than 100,000 tons of cocoa, equivalent to 3% of global production, were delivered on Tuesday, 14 December, the deadline for December contracts on Nyse Liffe. Operators are convinced that the British hedge fund Armajaro, led by Anthony Ward, which met with much criticism this summer for buying USD1bn of cocoa (240,100 tonnes, equivalent to about 6% to 7% of the market), is unloading stock. Since the context is less good than it was in June – since then, cocoa prices have fallen 19% from peaks of GBP2,348 per tonne – the operation is not considered an unmitigated success.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Sherborne, the investment vehicle for the activist investor Edward Bramson, which has achieved a 17.5% stake in F&C, has called for an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to be held, the Financial Times reports. The goal is to replace Nick McAndrew as chairman of F&C. Sherborne would also like to replace Brian Larcombe, non-executive director, with Ian Brindle.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The ratings agency Fitch Ratings on 16 December announced that it has raised the Asset Manager rating for Schroder Investment Management from “M2+” to “M1.” The rating covers all investment activities at the firm, except alternative management activities. The Fitch rating reflects the firm’s long history, its independence and its solidity in difficult market conditions. The profitability and liquidity of the firm ensure it a strong financial basis, as shown by the recruitmentss made in 2010, including a chief investment officer for fixed income. Fitch has also announced that it has rebuilt its institutional activities in the past two years, and assets under management have increased 64% since the end of 2008. As of the end of September 2010, assets under management totalled GBP181.5bn (59% institutional, 41% retail, excluding private banking), of which 45% is invested in equities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Fonds professionell reports that a spokesperson for the Bochum public prosecutor’s office on 16 December confirmed reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that LGT and LGT Treuhand will pay EUR46.35m to settle legal actions against them by the German tax authorities over information stored on a DVD which was stolen from LGT Treuhand in 2002, and sold in 2009 for EUR4.5m to the German intelligence service BND. LGT employees implicated in the affair will pay EUR3.65m. Neither LGT nor its employees have admitted any wrongdoing in the matter.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Basel Committee on 16 December published the final text of Basel III, including all rules governing owners’ equity at banks, which will be required to be trebled in order to prevent potential financial shocks in the future. The final text confirms the planned ratios and deadlines. Basel III requires banks to establish a minimal Tier I ratio of over 7%, which includes a “safety cushion” of 2.5%. Some changes have been made in other areas, such as the new set of international liquidity standards, which will give countries such as Denmark and Australia more flexibility. These countries and some others have a small government and corporate debt market, which could make it more difficult for them to adhere to Basel III criteria that expect most of the new safety cushion to be constituted from high-rated government bond issues. By the new rules, Denmark and Australia will be allowed to incorporate government debt from other countries and increase the proportion of secured bonds, which are subject to larger discounts. The Basel Committee has also published the results of a Basel III impact study covering 263 establishments worldwide. One of the main points in Basel III requires that by January 2019, establishments will be required to achieve a “hard” owners’ equity ratio (including social capital and profits which are not redistributed) of 7% of liabilities. Previously, the required percentage was 2%. If this measure had been applied at the end of 2009, the 94 largest banks on the planet (with owners’ equity of over EUR3bn) would have been short by EUR577bn in owners’ equity. A second group of 169 banks would have needed EUR25bn. “The transitional period (until 2019) gives banks all the time they need to deploy the new standards in a way that is in keeping with a healthy economic recovery, while consolidating protections in the system against economic and financial shocks,” the chairman of the Basel Committee, Nout Wellink, says in a statement.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Ingenico group announced on 16 December that it has obtained ISO 14001 certification for all of its corporate activities. The international certification “illustrates Ingenico’s desire to control the impact of its activities and products on the environment, and to continue the deployment of its Management System,” the group says in a statement. Ingenico’s major engagements are to be exemplary in its observation of the applicable environmental prescriptions, the taking into account of the environmental dimension in its product design, the deployment of a responsible purchasing policy which integrates environmental criteria, and increasing the awareness of employees.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The San Francisco financial services firm Stone & Youngberg LLC has been sentenced by an arbitration panel of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) to reimburse USD750,000 to the Kay Family Revocable Trust of Lenore and Charles Bleadon, the Wall Street Journal reports.The regulator finds that Stone & Youngberg advised the family trust to invest in a feeder fund for Madoff Securities, but did not engage in any meaningful due diligence, in complete disregard to its fiduciary duty to its clients.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The French financial asset management association (AFG) on 16 December announced the appointment of Bernard Descreux (La Banque Postale Asset Management) as chairman of the AFG management techniques commission. He succeeds Jean-François Boulier (CEO, Aviva Investors Europe).Descreux has been a board member at La Banque Postale AM (LBPAM) since 1999. Since 2001, he is in charge of bond management, diversified equities, and engineering and intermediation services. He is also chairman of La Banque Postale Structured Asset Management and AMlab, an incubator for innovative management firms, both of which are affiliates of LBPAM.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The non-governmental organisation Earthrights has published a report which blows the whistle on the Norwegisn government pension fund (NOK392bn in assets under management) for its investments in oil and gas companies with operations in Burma. According to the 40-page report by the NGO, the Norwegian sovereign fund has invested a total of about USD4.7bn in 15 oil and gas companies active in Burma. Among the guilty companies is the French firm Total, in which the Norwegian fund has invested USD1.6bn, and the US firm Chevron, with an investment of slightly over USD900m. The South Korean Posco and the Chinese CNOOC are also on the list, with investments of USD244.5m and USD168m. Among the violations the NGO finds in Burma are forced labour, murder, and expropriation of real estate. The NGO therefore recommends that the ethical council place under watch or exclude firms which violate the ethical standards set by the sovereign fund itself.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 3 January 2011, Florence Lombard, founding member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association, will succeed E. Craig Asche as CEO of the association, a statement dated 16 December announced.Lombard was also a founding member and president of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) until the end of 2008.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Nils Bolmstrand has resigned from his position as chief executive officer of Skandia Investment Group (SIG), and will be temporarily replaced from the end of the year by Marc Bulstrode, the current chief operating officer, until a successor can be found. Bolmstrand will remain at the Skandia group, in the insurance division, and will become head of products for Scandinavian activities. The move will allow him to be permanently based in Sweden, rather than commuting between Southampton in the UK and Stockholm.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In the past few days, there has been a resurgence of rumours of a sale of the Chi-X platform by its shareholders, La Tribute reports, citing Bloomberg. Shareholders are said to have recently received offers from Nyse-Euronext, Nasdaq OMX, Bats and DirectEdge. An acquisition of Chi-X, which is currently the numbe rtwo or three player in European markets, would strongly alter the rankings, and would give its acquirer more commission-pricing power, the newspaper reports.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Nearly 25% of new hedge funds launched in third quarter were UCITS III-compliant, according to statistics from Hedge Fund Research. The most sought-after strategies were equity hedge and macro. However, Hedge Fund Research has observed few launches of event-driven strategies or funds of hedge funds. In the quarter as a whole, 260 new hedge funds were launched, compared with 201 in the previous quarter. Over 12 months, there were 945 new hedge funds launched. Liquidations totalled 168 in third quarter, compared with 177 the previous quarter.

Thierry Callault, CEO of the OFI group, on 16 December announced that at present, assets total about EUR48bn, marking the end of an intervening slump since a total of EUR48.5bn at the end of October. This compared with EUR20.26bn as of the end of 2009, before the arrival of the asset management operations of mutual insurers Matmut and Macif, which have 66% and 34% voting rights, respectively.Of total assets under management, mandates represent about EUR30bn, and mutual funds account for about EUR18bn.Net inflows since the beginning of the year total over EUR1bn for all asset classes combined, Callault says.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US management firm Pimco (Allianz Global Investors) has announced that the guidelines for the bond fund Pimco Total Return (USD250bn) will be altered to allow the manager, Bill Gross, to invest up to 10% of the portfolio in preferred stock, convertible bonds and other assets related to equities, but not directly in equities, the Financial Times reports.The announcement provides further fuel to the current controversy over the direction bond markets are expected to take. At any rate, Lipper statistics for November show that the Total Return fund has undergone net redemptions of about USD2bn, its first net outflows for nearly two years.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In 2003, the British management firm F&C opened a branch office in Paris. The office, once led by Bruno Moneron, and then by Aurélien Lafaye, is now empty, following the departure of Lafaye (see Newsmanagers of 6 December 2010).F&C has told Newsmanagers that the French market will now be served from London, where all of its teams are now centralised. “We believe that our French clients can be more effectively serviced by a London-based team which will be closer to the business and the fund managers. (F&C acquired Thames River Capital in September 2010 and all their European business has been run successfully out of [London] for many years). Our clients have been informed and know the client directors who will continue to service them,” a spokesperson for the management firm says.

In November, total assets under management registered a slight decline of USD2.55 billion, bringing the total size of the industry to USD1.64 trillion, according to Eurekahedge. Asset flows for the month were marginal to slightly negative, with net outflows of US$0.19 billion while performance-based declines accounted for losses of USD2.36 billion.Assets in Asian hedge funds crossed USD125 billion for the first time since December 2008. North American hedge funds witnessed 10 consecutive months of net positive asset flows, attracting USD56.22 billion over this period.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US asset management firm Southeastern Asset Management on 16 December announced that it is selling half of its 5.33% stake in the German firm Hochtief to the Spanish firm ACS (in which it controls a 6.5% stake). This will allow ACS to increase its stake in Hochtief to 29.84%, very near the 30% threshold. From there it may increase its stake to 50%, the Börsen-Zeitung reports.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US management firm Stralem & Company (USD3bn in assets), a specialist in large caps, has recruited Manfred Müller, former head of wholesale at F&C in Frankfurt, as head of wholesale for open-ended funds in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The fund of funds DWS Vorsorge Dachfonds, specialised in retirement planning, now has over EUR1bn in asets. The product invests contributions to Riester and Rürup retirement savings plans in DWS funds, and also up to 30% in third-party funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Asian Investor reports that BBVA Asset Management, with assets under management of USD200bn, is seeking to sell its Latin American expertise to its Asian clients. With this in mind, BBVA AM is seeking a regional head of sales, who will be based in Hong Kong.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Michael Langlois, managing director and senior vice president at Permal Group, has been appointed head of wholesale distribution, Asia, from January 2011. He will assist Raymondo Yu, the new chairman for Asia Pacific, in a development offensive in Asia for the Ameriprise Financial group, of which Threadneedle is one of the asset management affiliates. Langlois’ mission will be to establish relationships with Asian financial establishments locally, as well as with mid-sized private banks present on the continent. In addition, he will work to recruit high net worth private clients for Threadneedle and Columbia, another management firm of the Ameriprise group.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Le Temps reports that at the last European summit of the year, EU heads of state and government accepted the conditions of Germany and agreed to the creation of the future permanent emergency support facility for the Euro zone. “Member states of the Euro zone are authorised to create a stability mechanism which will be activated if it proves indispensable to guarantee the stability of the euro as a whole,” the text says. The declared objective is to have the fund in place by 2013.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Cantonal Bank of Valais (BCVs) has reaffirmed that the development of the private banking sector will be among its top strategic priorities, Agefi Switzerland reports. The BCVs prefers the open architecture model and has no funds of its own. It prefers management mandates and high added value products. “The evolution of the international context in wealth management is transforming the fact that BCVs has no international ties into an advantage, as it means the firm is free from any foreign pressures,” says Nicolas Debons, the new head of the activity.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Clients of the hedge fund management firm Paulson & Co can look forward to good results. The Financial Times reports that the largest hedge fund from the firm, the Advantage Plus Fund, has made up for its poor performance in the first part of 2010. Though the fund showed a loss of 11% for the year to September, its investments have gained value in the past few weeks, largely thanks to its high exposure to gold, and its returns were +10.2% as of 10 December. One investor says that returns now total 14.3% for the year.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Companies with a high likelihood of default monitored by Moody’s (“B3 Negative and Lower Corporate Ratings”) have cumulative debt of over USD100bn that will mature between 2011 and 2015, according to a study recently published by the ratings agency. The number of companies exposed to defaults fell to 182 from a peak of nearly 300 in first half 2009. The development reflects an improvement in the quality of credit for companies in the speculative category, but many of the remaining companies will be facing significant refinancing needs. About 42% of the debt concerned has a negative outlook, while only 15% of the total has a positive outlook.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Norwegian finance minister on 16 December announced that the main outlines of the mandate for the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), formerly known as the Oil Fund, have been defined. According to the minister, Sigbjørn Johnsen, the new mandate brings no modifications of any kind for the investment strategy of the GPFG, but provides increased risk management requirements. The minister also announced that the new standards applicable from 1 January 2011 will now bring the GPFG into line with the rules applicable to the rest of the Norwegian financial sector in terms of pay scales, bonuses, and other forms of remuneration.