Faute de liquidité, indique l’Agefi, Markit va adapter ses indices de dérivés de crédit aux nouvelles conditions de marché en renonçant à créer de nouvelles séries d’indices constituées des CDS sur les émetteurs les plus liquides pour l’iTraxx LevX Subordinated. Par ailleurs, Markit a réduit le nombre de composants de 75 à 50 pour la quatrième série de l’iTraxx LevX Senior qui sera lancée le 20 mars, complète notamment le quotidien numérique.
Dans un entretien au Temps, Shahreza Yusof, responsable de l"investissement en actions américaines chez Aberdeen Asset Management, estime que les entreprises américaines pourraient surprendre positivement par leur capacité à réduire leurs coûts. « La rentabilité se mesure aux bénéfices et non aux revenus, d"où l"importance de la capacité à baisser les coûts », indique-t-il au quotidien.
Les hedge funds qui avaient gagné de l"argent l"an passé en pariant contre les banques d"investissement achètent désormais de l"or afin de miser contre les banques centrales, observe le Financial Times. Parmi eux figurent David Einhorn, fondateur de Greenlight Capital, mais aussi Eton Park et TPG-Axon. Un pari contre l"or est essentiellement un pari contre toutes les monnaies fiduciaires.
Selon L"Agefi suisse, Bellevue Group, formé de Bellevue Asset Management et Bank am Bellevue, a dégagé l"an dernier un bénéfice net récurrent de 26,9 millions de francs (72 millions en 2007). Son ratio coûts/produit, avec 50,1% (42,6%), sur une base courante, s"est maintenu à un niveau favorable au regard de l"ensemble de l"industrie bancaire. Grâce à une telle productivité ainsi qu"à son positionnement dans la gestion d"actifs et le financement de sociétés axé autour du marché suisse, le groupe est bien placé, selon son CEO Martin Bisang, pour tirer profit d"une reprise.
Sous réserve de sa réélection en tant qu’administrateur lors de l’Assemblée générale ordinaire qui se tiendra le 24 avril 2009, Hans-Ulrich Doerig, actuellement vice-président, prendra la présidence du conseil d’administration de Credit Suisse Group à compter de cette date. Walter B. Kielholz a décidé de quitter ses fonctions de président pour se consacrer à son nouveau mandat à Swiss Re. Cependant, il présentera à nouveau sa candidature afin de rester administrateur sans responsabilités opérationnelles.La banque précise que lors de l’Assemblée générale ordinaire, il sera proposé d'élire Urs Rohner, actuellement COO et general counsel, comme administrateur. S’il est élu, il assumera le mandat de vice-président à temps plein. Il sera également proposé d'élire au conseil d’administration John Tiner, CEO de la société britannique Resolution et ancien CEO de la FSA, ainsi qu’Andreas Koopmann, CEO de Bobst Group. Richard E. Thornburgh, administrateur depuis 2006, succédera à Hans-Ulrich Doerig au poste de président du Risk Committee. Thomas W. Bechtler, membre du Conseil d’administration depuis 1994, le quittera, ayant atteint la limite de cinq mandats.
In January, assets in the Government Pension Fund - Global, the former Oil Fund, showed a decline in assets of NOK1.5bn, to a total of NOK2.1trn, or EUR235.9bn, the Bank of Norway reports. This is the first decline since the NOK1.17trn decline reported last October compared with assets in September, which also brought total assets in the fund to NOK2.1trn, IPE reports.
HedgeFund Intelligence (HFI) reports that declines in hedge fund assets may run to at least 20% this year, following a contraction of nearly one third to USD1.8trn in 2008 due partly to average losses of 15%, the Börsen-Zeitung reports.The newspaper also reports that Commerzbank is apparently planning to sell its fund of hedge fund activity, Comas, which manages EUR900m, or 40% lower than at its highest level. The bank its reported to have invested over EUR100m of its own money in Comas funds.
Due to the currently prevailing market conditions, van der Moolen Holding NV and Global Securities Finance Solutions Holding BV (GSFS) on Friday agreed to cancel an agreement in principle signed last year (see Newsmanagers of 24 November 2008), in which van der Moolen agreed to acquire stakes of 49.9% in GSFS Asset Management BV (GSFS AM) and 33.3% in Global Securities Arbitrage BV (GSA) for EUR43.3m, of which EUR14.15m was to be in cash.As a result, though the existing partnership between van der Moolen and GSFS will not be affected, van der Moolen will now develop its trading and brokerage activities alone.
For a long time, the Templeton Growth Fund from Franklin Templeton has been a star performer among German equities funds. But net redemptions in the country totalled EUR700m last year, and assets fell by EUR7.6bn, to EUR8bn, whereby 83% of the decline is due to falling markets, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. In the past three years, the fund has lost more than 20%, which puts it in the middle of the rankings for international large cap equities funds. The DWS Top Dividende has limited its losses to 10% in the same period, and according to Morningstar, 250 funds have performed better than the Templeton Growth Fund and its European variant, the Templeton Growth (Euro) Fund. Assets in the two funds have fallen by about half, to EUR14.7bn and EUR3.4bn, respectively.
On Sunday in Luxembourg, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland ?refused in advance to be placed on blacklists by the G20,? Les Echos reports. ?The three countries confirmed their desire to do more to help prevent tax fraud, but ruled out the possibility of repealing their banking confidentiality laws, which are the source of their prosperity,? the newspaper reports.
The Financial Times reports that two new equities trading platforms will be unveiled on Monday. NYSE Euronext will launch its alternative platform NYSE Arca Europe. Meanwhile, the American firm Pipeline will announce plans to set up shop in Europe in second quarter.
The Milan stock exchange appears to be obeying a different logic than other stock markets in Europe, Asia, or the Americas, Il Sole - 24 Ore reports. Falls on the Italian market have accelerated in relation to other global markets in the past five trading sessions. Since Friday, 27 February, the S&P Mib has lost 15.62%, while the Frankfurt stock exchange has lost 4.61%, London has lost 7.82%, and Paris has lost 6.22%. In this environment, Italian CDS set a new record on Friday, at 199 basis points, compared with about 90 points in France and Germany.
Hedge fund who made money last year by betting against investment banks are now buying gold as a way of betting against central banks, says the Financial Times. The gold bulls include David Einhorn, founder of Greenlight Capital, Eton Park and TPG-Axon. A bet on gold is essentially a bet against all paper currencies.
Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust has announced that its bets on equities lost it GBP680m last year, making 2008 its worst fiscal year since 1974, the Times reports. The equities portfolio at the firm lost more than one quarter of its value, to GBP1.78bn, and net asset value fell 28.5% to 256.6 pence.
According to calculations by Expansión on the basis of data from the CNMV, Spanish high net worth investors between January 2008 and February 2009 changed the managers of Sicav funds representing EUR1.59bn, which is 5.8% of the EUR27.14bn overall in vehicles containing assets of high net worth private clients as of the end of September, the most recent date for which figures are available. 229 Sicav funds have changed managers, or 7% of the total.Managers who profited the most from the phenomenon are Interdin, Urquijo (Sabadell), Credit Suisse, Santander and Pictet. The management firms most punished were Nmás1, La Caixa, Riva y García, Fortis, and UBS, with total outflows ranging from EUR220m to EUR55m.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Baudouin Prot, CEO of BNP Paribas, has announced that he expects shareholders in Fortis to approve a new bid from the French bank at an extraordinary general assembly on 8-9 April. ?it is now very clear that it is the best solution for everyone in Belgium, for shareholders, employees, and clients of Fortis, and for the Belgian economy,? he says.
Following losses of 35% and 28% in 2008 for the Velociraptor and Albatros funds, its two funds of hedge funds, Fonditel, the firm that manages the pension fund for Telefónica, has decided to bid farewell to its chief investment officer, Íñigo Colomo, Expansión reports. The position has been taken over by the deputy CIO, Luis Peña. Total assets at Fonditel have fallen to EUR400m from EUR700m, and Velociraptor and Albatros had invested more than EUR7m with Madoff.
The Minneapolis/St Paul office of RBC Wealth Management has recruited the wealth management team working under Johnson Karels at UBS Financial Services, which includes four people, and which brings with it a portfolio of high net worth private clients worth USD200m, the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal reports.
At a press conference in Madrid, Catherine Vaughn, head of development for Highbridge in Europe, has unveiled the firm’s new US STEEP and Europe STEEP funds, which deliver the same statistical arbitrage strategy used for the JPMorgan Highbridge Statistical Market Neutral Fund, in UCITS III-compliant vehicles with daily net asset value reporting, Funds People reports. The portfolios include 650 positions for the Europe product, and 770 positions for the fund specialised in US equities. The US STEEP fund, launched in May, has outperformed its benchmark index by 2.11 points, while the Europe STEEP has performed 1.61point better than its benchmark. In January, the US STEEP lost 2.26%, compared with losses of 8.43% for the S&P 500, while the Europe STEEP posted stable results, compared with losses of 6.12% for the MSCI Europe.
Aviva Investors has recruited Alfonso del Moral as its director for Spain and Portugal, Funds People reports. In the past few days, del Moral has joined the Madrid office of the firm (which includes two sales staff and one customer service representative), where he replaces William Pawson, who has moved to Standard Life. Until the end of December, del Moral was head of sales at Schroders. He will report to Adam Lessing, director of development for Europe, and José Caturla, CEO of Aviva Gestión de Inversiones.
?Measurements of the results of Sicav and FCP funds invested in equities and managed by women reveal that these funds are more consistent than products managed by men, over five years, three years, and one year,? Le Revenu reports in an issue dedicated to the subject of women managers. ?Women are more humble in their investment decisions, and appear to have fewer ego problems than men,? the newspaper reports.According to data provided exclusively to Le Revenu by the French management association (AFG), of 3,200 managers in France included in the data, 12% to 13% are women. ?French women managers are more concentrated in employee savings products, where they represent 18% of the total, and are also often found managing Sicav and FCP funds invested in equities, bonds, and money markets, in which categories 15% of managers are women,? the newspaper reports.?One of the largest French management firms in terms of assets under management, Axa IM is also the most progressive: 47 out of 100 managers in Paris are women,? Le Revenu adds.
Hedge funds usually cannot not earn performance commissions of as much as 20% unless they achieve their ?high watermark? objectives, which may take a long time, in light of the losses experienced in 2008. However, the Wall Street Journal notes, some management firms, such as Eton Park Capital Management and Och-Ziff Capital Management, saw this problem ahead of time, and set up systems which will enable them to get around it. Eton Park will earn a performance commission reduced by half beginning this year, while Och-Ziff will earn a normal performance commission beginning in 2010.
To raise cash and pay off debts, the Australian management firms Babcock & Brown and Macquarie are planning to sell off major infrastructure assets in the United Kingdom, the Sunday Times reports. B&B has mandated Dresdner Kleinwort to sell off PD Ports, which operates the ports of Hartlepool and Immingham, for at least GBP400m.Several potential buyers are reported to have contacted Macquarie, which controls Thames Water, Bristol airport, and Condor Group (which operates ferries to the Isle of Wight). The first asset to be sold off may be the M6, while Macquarie has already sold half of its stake in a highway in the Sydney area.
The former head of Merrill Lynch Spain and the founder of Altamar Private Equity, Claudio Aguirre, has founded a new private equity firm, Sextante Partners. The firm will be directed by Maria Vasquez Ferrandize, who was head of alternative management at Abante until that company shut down its hedge fund activities, Funds People reports. Sextante Partners will operate in all asset classes.
The declining value of financial assets worldwide may have wiped out more than USD50trn in value, the equivalent of one year of global economic production, the Financial Times reports, citing statistics to be announced on Monday by the Asian development bank. Asia has been disproportionately affected by the losses.
The Financial Times reports that Lyxor Asset Management is planning to extend its range of ETF products in Asia. 15 new ETFs will be launched in Japan this year, in addition to the 13 already available there. The Société Générale affiliate is also planning to add to its product ranges in Hong Kong and Singapore this year, where it has 12 and 13 ETF products on offer, respectively, says Joseph Ho, Lyxor’s head of sales and marketing in Asia ex Japan.
Following similar moves on the part of Santander and BBVA, Bankinter has announced that it also will be stopping its hedge fund activities, and that it will be closing the Bankinter Montblanc fund, a multi-strategy fund of funds launched in April 2007. Assets in the fund as of the end of September totalled barely EUR0.35m, and the performance of the fund came in at 1.16%, according to Lipper data reported in Funds People.