State Street vient de lancer une nouvelle rubrique sur son site Internet qui regroupe les différentes études de sa série Vision publiées depuis 2006 (www.statestreet.com/vision). De la retraite à l’assurance en passant par les fonds souverains et les produits dérivés, tous les thèmes analysés par la série sont regroupés dans cette nouvelle section.

L’un des leviers de développement encore peu exploité par les sociétés de gestion françaises est l’international, a estimé Alain de Cidrac, directeur général du consultant Xioneo, à l’occasion du Forum Annuel de la Gestion d’actifs organisé par L’Agefi. Au cours de ce débat consacré aux nouveaux «business models» de la gestion et de la distribution, il a notamment constaté que les sociétés de gestion commencent à distribuer leurs fonds français, une tendance qui devrait être amplifiée avec la directive Ucits IV. L’autre axe de croissance internationale est la création de joint-ventures. Mais pour Olivier Huby, CEO de Mfex Mutual Funds Exchange, les sociétés de gestion françaises vont devoir faire des efforts au niveau logistique si elles veulent s’ouvrir davantage à l’international : " en France, il y a de très beaux produits, mais on ne sait pas les vendre». Pour lui, la grande problématique de l’architecture ouverte est la «plomberie» qui permet d’acheter un OPCVM non produit par son réseau, c’est-à-dire tout ce qui touche au routage et à l’exécution des ordres, au règlement des opérations, à la gestion des rétrocessions etc. Pour Alain de Cidrac, il existe d’autres leviers de développement pour les sociétés de gestion. Il estime que ces dernières peuvent agir sur l’offre, notamment en proposant des fonds de tiers, en accélérant la mise sur le marché des nouveaux produits, en segmentant davantage la clientèle et en intégrant la gestion du risque très en amont. Par ailleurs, concernant les relations avec les distributeurs, Alain de Cidrac estime que les sociétés de gestion doivent se focaliser sur les canaux les plus rentables. Il entrevoit enfin un recours croissant à l’externalisation pour toutes les activités des sociétés de gestion.

Sur les douze derniers mois, Pershing LLC, filiale de BNY Mellon, a ajouté une trentaine de sociétés de gestion, dont Neuberger Bergman, The Hartford Mutal Funds et T. Rowe Price, à la liste des promoteurs de fonds qui peuvent être traités sans frais de transactions sur sa plate-forme FundVest. Actuellement, cette plate-forme de Pershing Advisor Solutions permet de négocier 3.000 mutual funds de plus de 200 sociétés de gestion. Depuis mercredi, FundVest référence Franklin Templeton Investments et MFS Investment Management.

Bloomberg croit savoir de sources proches des discussions que Bank of America a mis en vente une demande de remboursement de créances réclamée à Lehman Brothers pour une valeur faciale voisine de 800 millions de dollars, rapporte l’Agefi.

Près de deux ans après avoir été l’une des victimes les plus en vue de la crise du crédit, Zoe Cruz projette de lancer une société de hedge funds, selon des personnes proches du dossier citées par le Wall Street Journal. L’ex co-présidente de Morgan Stanley, âgée de 54 ans, a commencé à recruter des collaborateurs pour une société qu’elle prévoit d’appeler Voras Capital Management. Le hedge fund en question devrait investir dans une variété d’actifs décotés et faire des paris macroéconomiques sur les devises et les valeurs mobilières, affirment les sources.

D’après State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), cité par The Wall Street Journal, l’encours des ETF aux Etats-Unis a gonflé de 5,1 % en septembre pour atteindre en fin de mois le record de 695 milliards de dollars, grâce à la performance des fonds d’actions internationales (+12,6 milliards à 162,6 milliards de dollars) et aux souscriptions nettes des produits obligataires.

James Simon va faire valoir ses droits à la retraite et quitter la société de hedge funds Renaissance Technologies, dont il est directeur général, au début de l’année prochaine, selon le Wall Street Journal. Lors d’une réunion jeudi, il a annoncé la nouvelle à ses employés et nommé ses successeurs. Les actuels co-présidents Peter Brown et Robert Mercer deviennent co-CEO.

On 13 October, the Stuttgart stock exchange will open trading of ETF funds on a specialised segment, the ETF Bestx, for which Deutsche Bank (db x-trackers) and Commerzbank (CamState) will be the first market-makers, and which will provide binding quotes of more than 300 products. The range will be specifically tailored to retail investors. The platform will be open for trading from 9 AM to 8 PM.

According to Hennessee Group, hedge funds earned an average of 3.2% in September, compared with 2.3% for the Dow Jones, but 3.6% for the S&P 500 and 5.6% for the Nasdaq. However, the performance averaged 21% in the first nine months of the year, which is higher than the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal notes. For its part, HedgeFund.net estimates performance in September at 2.7%, and the increase in assets in the same period at 3%, to USD1.948trn at the end of the month, with performance effects explaining the majority of gains. In the first nine months of the year, the aggregate index shows gains of 17%, the best results in 12 years.

Nearly two years after she became one of the highest-profile casualties of the credit crisis, Zoe Cruz is planning to launch a hedge-fund firm, according to people familiar with the situation cited by the Wall Street Journal. The 54-year-old former Morgan Stanley co-president has begun recruiting employees to join a firm she plans to call Voras Capital Management. The hedge fund is likely to invest in a variety of distressed assets and make macroeconomic bets on currencies and securities, according to these people.

James Simons will retire as chief executive of his hedge fund firm, Renaissance Technologies, at the start of next year. In a meeting Thursday, Mr. Simons told employees of his decision and named his successors. Current co-presidents Peter Brown and Robert Mercer will be co-CEOs.

Credit Suisse Asset Management Immobilien Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH announced on Thursday that its fund CS Euroreal has earned returns of 3.9% for the fiscal year ending on 30 September. Assets in the fund, which was reopened in June after being suspended from redemptions at the end of October 2008, have fallen from EUR6.9bn to EUR6bn currently, but net subscriptions paicked up in September (EUR25.2m). During the period in which redemptions were frozen, the fund posted net subscriptions of EUR430m. Gross liquidity in the fund totals EUR936m (15.5% of assets), while “free” liquidity weighs in at EUR492.5m (8.2%). For the current fiscal year, the management team, led by Karl-Heinz Heuß, is aiming for overall returns of 3.5% to 4%. The portfolio includes 114 properties in 11 European countries and 56 cities. Germany represents 40% of the total, and commercial real estate accounts for about 30% of the total. More than three quarters of properties in the portfolio are less than 10 years old.

A very clear rebound on emerging markets observed since second quarter is continuing, supported by a rise in values in developed countries and also a number of technical factors (depleting stocks of manufactured goods, base effects), Crédit Agricole claims in the most recent edition of its periodical Eclairages, dedicated to emerging markets (“Pays émergents : une reprise à confirmer,” October 2009).The study adds that there is still come uncertainty about mid-term outlooks, though most emerging markets are showing solid fundamentals. From the point of view of experts at Crédit Agricole, emerging markets will not rebound on their own. And the crisis has put rest to the hypothesis that emerging markets are no longer tied to developed ones. “In the long term, the weight of emerging markets will increase, but currently, there is not enough autonomy due to demand in emerging markets,” says Jean-Louis Martin, head of emerging markets in charge of economic research at Crédit Agricole S.A.Though the short-term rebound has emerged, doubts persist about the sustainability of the recovery in developed countries. “Overall,” writes Jean-Louis Martin, “though it is therefore highly probable that the pace of growth in emerging markets will be sustainably higher than that of developed countries, it cannot become disconnected from them. This is a further argument in favour of strengthening the influence of emerging markets in regulation of the global economy.”

In fourth quarter, sales of assets by major financial institutions are expected to continue to dominate merger activities in the global asset management sector, the Financial Institutions Group at Jefferies, formerly known as Jefferies Putnam Lovell, estimates. In Q3, 68% of transactions were attributable to operations of this type (compared with 38% in July-September 2008), particularly the sale of Columbia Management by Bank of America to Ameriprise, the acquisition of Insight Investment Management by BNY Mellon from Lloyds Banking group and the acquisition of a 64% stake in Nikko Asset Management by Sumitomo Trust & Management from Citigroup. In the first nine months of the year, sales of asset management activities represented 57% of transactions, a record, compared with 32% in the corresponding period of last year. Aaron Dorr, managing director of Jefferies FIG, points out that major financial institutions will continue to refocus themselves on strategic professions, and will continue to separate distribution of asset management products from production, retaining the former and selling off the latter.

In third quarter, there were 38 merger and acquisition operations tracked by Jefferies Financial Institutions Group (formerly Jefferies Putnam Lowell), compared with 88 in July-September 2008, but assets under management which changed hands in these deals totalled USD739bn, compared with USD728bn, and the average per transaction rose to USD140m from USD73m, while purchase prices declared for these operations totalled USD4.45bn, up from USD4.2bn. In the first nine months of the year, Jefferies FIG has counted 113 operations, compared with 174 in January-September 2008; about USD3trn in assets have changed hands, compared with USD1.3trn. The published value of these transactions represented USD18.4bn, of which USD13.5bn were related to the acquisition of Barclays Global Investors (BGI) by BlackRock. In the corrresponding period of last year, the volume of operations was USD11.9bn.

In the past twelve months, Pershing LLC, an affiliate of BNY Mellon, has added 30 asset management firms, including Neuberger Berman, The Hartford Mutual Funds and T. Rowe Price, to the list of fund promoters available for trading without fees on its fundVest platform. Currently, the platform from Pershing Advisor Solutions offers trading of 3,000 mutual funds from over 200 asset management firms. Since Wednesday, FundVest also offers funds from Franklin Templeton Investments and MFS Investment Management.

Friedrich Racher, a board member at Constantia Privatbank, has told Reuters that the German firm Hauck & Aufhäuser (H&A) has dropped out of negotiations over a possible acquisition of the Austrian bank (see Newsmanagers of 11 September), as it proved impossible to achieve a suitable evaluation of risk during the due diligence period, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. There are reportedly three more candidates to acquire the bank.

Swiss banking group Syz & Co announced on 8 October that assets in its Oyster family of funds have topped CHF5bn as of the end of September, with net inflows of over CHF1bn in the period under review. In the first nine months of the year, assets in Oyster, the Luxembourg Sicav of the SYZ & Co group, which includes a number of sub-funds, rose from CHF3.1bn as of the end of 2008 to more than CHF5bn currently, which represents 61% growth. Though the strong increase on stock markets has allowed for good performance from management, most of this growth in assets is due to net inflows of more than CHF1bn. Due to its business model and its composition, the size of the Sicav fund, 90% aimed at external investors, with more than 805 of assets invested in equities, is logically rather volatile, the group notes in a statement. “Although it led to a significant fall in asset levels in 2008, this volatility naturally works both ways, as may be observed in the strong growth observed since the beginning of the year,” the statement says. Assets in Oyster funds peaked at about CHF10bn in autumn 2007. Meanwhile, 4 new Oyster sub-funds were created in 2009 (credit, convertibles, market neutral and small cap US); these are currently in the process of being registered in several European countries, including Switzerland. Three of these new funds, in keeping with the model which has been the recipe for the Sicav’s success, are managed by renowned external managers. For legal reasons, more detailed information about these funds may be made available only after they have been licensed for sale. In parallel with Oyster, Syz & Co has launched a second laboratory Sicav which is not intended to be placed on sale to the general public, but which will be used as a testing-ground for new talents and strategies. The innovative concept allows for the firm to test new products in real market conditions and to establish a track record before offering products to investors. This second Sicav already has seven sub-funds.

On the basis of results published by 65% of funds that usually report, the Credit Suisse/Tremont index of hedge funds showed performance in September of 2.67%, compared with 1.53% in August, bringing total advances since the beginning of the year to 14.56%. In September, the best returns were for emerging markets funds (4.48%) and long/short equity (3.35%), while performance in the first nine months of the year totalled 24.11% and 16.80%, respectively. In January-September, the highest results were for convertibles arbitrage (40.11%).However, the dedicated short bias strategy in September showed losses of 5.53% after losses of 1.69% in August. For the first three quarters, its losses total 23.17%.

Credit Suisse on Thursday announced the launch of an Irish-registered fund (IEB42K6D09) which complies with the UCITS III directive, and which replicates the performence of the Credit Suisse FX Factor Index. The product, denominated in Euros, will be made available to institutional investors, family offices, high net worth private, and retail investors. It combines six strategies based on 18 currencies (Carry, Momentum, Valuation, Growth, Tmers of Trade and Emerging Markets), with attractive risk/return profiles and low correlation with other asset classes. The Credit Suisse FX Factor index was launched in April 2009, and backtesting reveals that in the past twelve months, it would have earned outperformance of 830 basis points above the Libor, with a Sharpe ratio of 1.69.

JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM) on Thursday announced the resignation of the Australian Campbell Fleming, who had been head of its UK activities for four years. He will be replaced by Roger Thompson, who is currently CFO for international activities. Fleming becomes head of distribution at Threadneedle, where he will report directly to Crispin Henderson, CEO.

Nils Bolmsland, who has recently been appointed as CEO of Skandia Investment group (see Newsmanagers of 14 September), on Thursday presented his management team. CFO Marc Bulstrode becomes COO, while James Millard will remain as CIO in charge of portfolio management and research. Richard Vincent is appointed as head of propositions, and will direct product development and open architecture, while Rob Williams becomes global investment sales and marketing director, in charge of institutional sales and business development marketing. Roy McKean, who remains chief risk, global and compliance officer, has also taken on legal affairs as part of his domain. SIG has EUR53bn in assets.

According to State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), cited by the Wall Street Journal, assets in US ETFs increased 5.1% in September to total a record USD695bn as of the end of the month, thanks to the good performance of international equities funds (+USD12.6bn, to USD162.6bn), and to net subscriptions to bond products.

Andrew Baker, CEO of the alternative management association (AIMA), says the AIFM hedge fund directive should focus on three key issues: registration and licensing, systematic reporting of pertinent information, and a practical European passport for management firms. Baker made the declaration on Thursday, as the professional association published its position paper on the draft directive and a newsletter for European politicians.

Le marché des changes continue à jouer l'affaiblissement du dollar, qui finance les «carry trades»

Le marché des changes continue à jouer l'affaiblissement du dollar, qui finance les « carry trades »

Octavio Granado, secrétaire d’Etat à la Sécurité sociale, a reconnu pour la première fois que le gouvernement espagnol envisage de suspendre, pour cette année, la dotation annuelle au Fonds de réserve pour les retraites, qui devait être de 8,02 milliards d’euros, rapporte Expansión. Il est vrai que quelque 50.000 entreprises ont accumulé des retards de cotisations sociales de 7,74 milliards d’euros.

Pershing (groupe BNY Mellon) et Aite Group viennent de publier un livre blanc (Fueling Growth : Outsourcing Soutions for Hedge Funds) qui passe en revue les problématiques liées à la fourniture de services d’externalisation.Compte tenu des évènements des derniers mois dont une forte augmentation des demandes de remboursement, de nombreux hedge funds ont été amenés à revoir l’ensemble de leurs stratégies d’investissement ainsi que les relations avec leurs principaux fournisseurs de services, prime brokers, administrateurs de fonds, sociétés de technologie.

Au premier semestre 2009, les actifs des hedge funds ont encore reculé, accusant une baisse de 8,5% à 1 670 milliards de dollars en juillet, selon les dernières statistiques communiquées par HedgeFund Intelligence. Depuis leur pic du premier semestre 2008 où ils avaient atteint 2700 milliards de dollars, les hedge funds affichent un recul de 38%. Toutefois, souligne l’enquête, les performances ont été au rendez-vous avec un rendement médian de plus de 5%, supérieur au rendement moyen. En juillet, le rythme des remboursements s’est sérieusement ralenti et par la suite, le mouvement s’est probablement renversé puisque de nombreux hedge funds ont fait état d’une progression de leurs actifs au cours des deux derniers mois non seulement en raison de bonnes performances mais aussi parce que la collecte nette est repartie à la hausse.Le nombre de hedge funds disposant d’au moins 1 milliard d’actifs est tombé à 291 au premier semestre contre 311 au début de 2009 et 395 au premier semestre 2008. Sans surprise, New York reste la capitale des hedge funds avec moins de sociétés (118 contre 123) mais près de 47% des actifs ( les actifs des seuls single-manager hedge funds et non les actifs alloués aux hedge funds par le biais de fonds de fonds). Vient ensuite Londres avec 15% des actifs contre 17% précédemment (et 55 sociétés contre 65). Le Connecticut reste en troisième position avec une légère progression de ses actifs à 10,5%. Paris représente 0,74% du total, avec 4 firmes disposant d’au moins 1 milliard de dollars et un encours de 10,11 milliards de dollars.A noter aussi que le montant des actifs européens gérés en Europe s'élevait en juillet 2009 à 334 milliards de dollars et que les actifs européens gérés par des firmes américaines s'élevaient à 16 milliards de dollars.

Une étude de Morningstar citée par le Wall Street Journal porte un nouveau coup à la gestion active. Elle montre que dans de nombreux cas, lorsque un fonds géré activement bat son indice en absolu, le risque additionnel qui est pris ne justifie pas les rendements obtenus.