L’opérateur boursier allemand prévoit d’ouvrir une chambre de compensation sur produits dérivés en Asie, qui sera basée à Singapour, dans le cadre d’une stratégie de développement de ses activités dans la zone, selon le quotidien citant des sources proches. La région concentre actuellement entre 15 et 20% des volumes mondiaux traités sur produits dérivés, selon l’Association des marchés à terme.

Le moral des conseillers en gestion de patrimoine est au plus bas niveau depuis sept ans, selon le baromètre TNS Sofres-BNP Paribas Cardif. Malgré la baisse de la collecte par cabinet, les clients leur font très majoritairement confiance, mais la profession reste méconnue du grand public.

Le nombre des inscriptions au chômage a sensiblement diminué la semaine dernière aux Etats-Unis mais leur recul semble dû pour l’essentiel à des problèmes techniques dans leur traitement. Ce nombre a diminué de 31.000 à un total CVS de 292.000, a fait savoir le département du Travail jeudi. Les inscriptions n’ont jamais été aussi basses depuis 2006, tranchant avec les prévisions des économistes qui donnaient en moyenne une légère hausse à 330.000. Un analyste du département a expliqué que deux Etats, l’un grand l’autre petit, étaient en train de mettre à jour leurs systèmes informatiques et n’avaient pas traité toutes les inscriptions reçues durant la semaine.

Les OPCVM monétaires de droit français ont enregistré 13,3 milliards d’euros de collecte nette en août, mois marqué par les turbulences sur le marché actions et la poursuite de la correction du marché obligataire. En raison de retraits sur les fonds actions, obligations ou diversifiés, l’ensemble des OPCVM a affiché une collecte nette de 12,3 milliards d’euros en août, selon les statistiques mensuelles d’EuroPerformance. L’effet marché, lui, s’est révélé négatif de 3 milliards. Au total, les fonds de droit français affichaient 764 milliards d’euros sous gestion fin août, un montant qui reste en repli de 1% par rapport à l’encours de fin 2012.

Le gestionnaire d’actifs immobiliers Hammerson envisage de déposer une offre d’achat sur le centre commercial Beaugrenelle à Paris, que son propriétaire à 75%, Gecina, a mis en vente. «Tout est fonction du prix et de notre propre évaluation, a indiqué David Atkins, le directeur général du groupe britannique, à Bloomberg. C’est un centre commercial grand et neuf dans le centre de Paris, et ce genre d’occasions ne se présente pas souvent». La foncière Gecina a mandaté cet été Morgan Stanley, ainsi que CA CIB et HSBC, pour vendre Beaugrenelle, qui doit rouvrir ses portes dans le 15ème arrondissement de Paris après une rénovation complète.

L’avocat général de la Cour de justice européenne a estimé que les pouvoirs donnés à l’Esma afin d’interdire en cas d’urgence les ventes à découvert de titres résultent d’une mauvaise interprétation des traités. Une demi-victoire pour la Grande-Bretagne, qui s’oppose à cette mesure. L’avocat général Niilo Jaeaeskinen n’a cependant pas contesté l'étendue des pouvoirs confiés à l’Autorité européenne des marchés, mais simplement estimé que cette décision aurait dû être votée à l’unanimité. La Cour de justice devrait statuer dans quelques mois et peut décider de suivre, ou pas, l’opinion de l’avocat général.

BlackRock will launch a long/short version of its emerging market long/short equity allocation fund, Citywire reveals. Jeff Shen is principal manager of the product, entitled BlackRock Emerging Market Allocation, which invests with no constraints in emerging market equities and bonds worldwide. The fund will be launched in autumn.

Franklin Templeton has launched a pair of bond funds which target high yield corporate bonds and sovereign debt, Citywire Global reports. The two funds will be housed in the Luxembourg-domiciled Sicav. The Franklin Global Corporate High Yield Bond fund is managed by Eric Takaha, while the Franklin Global Government Bond fund is managed by John Beck and David Zahn.

La société de gestion norvégienne Skagen a recruté Hilde Jenssen en tant que nouvelle gérante dans l’équipe de Skagen Kon-Tiki, son fonds d’actions mondiales et émergentes décotées, à compter du 1er octobre 2013.L’intéressée travaillait précédemment chez Skyview Investment Advisors aux Etats-Unis où elle était associée et gérante depuis 2009.L’équipe de Skagen Kon-Tiki se compose de Kristoffer Stensrud, gérant principal, Knut Harald Nilsson, Cathrine Gether et Erik Landgraff.

Une source impliquée dans l’opération a confié hier à IFR selon Reuters que le fonds souverain norvégien, le governement Pension Fund - Global, géré par Norges Bank Investment Management, filiale de gestion d’actifs de la banque centrale du pays, a mis en vente 13 millions d’actions EDF, représentant 0,7% du capital du groupe français, rapporte L’Agefi. Le prix unitaire de cession équivaut à un montant total de l’opération de près de 280 millions d’euros.

Forum Partners Investment Management, LLC (Forum) and La Française, an affiliate of Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe (CMNE), on 11 September announcd that they have signed a strategic partnership which will take the form of an investment by La Française in a 24% stake in Forum Partners, via an issue of new equities and a significant investment in the international range of real estate investment strategies from Forum. The partnership is subject to approval by the supervisory authorities, a statement from the two firms says. In addition, a close collaboration will be established to launch several new European investment products, particularly through a joint venture to develop European direct real estate investment. Forum Partners is a real estate investment management firm with USD5.7bn in assets under management for third parties. The partnership will combine the expertise of the Forum in the area of real estate investment via real estate private equity, publicly-traded real estate and real estate debt, with the proven leadership of La Française in French direct real estate and senior debt. To support the partnership, CMNE and La Française will invest over USD600m in major investment strategies by Forum, beginning with USD200m for the European debt platform, including mezzanine and senior debt. La Française will also invest in publicly-traded real estate activities internationally, and real estate capital invetment in Asia, as well as in potential development opportunities in the Americas. In addition, Foum and La Française will pool their global resources for distribution to professional and retail clients.

Amundi has obtained Service Engagement certification (SEI procedure – Environmental, Social and Governance criteria in portfolio management), launched recently by Afnor Certification. It is the first asset management firm to be certified by the association for French standards for service engagements associated with its SRI procedures, a press statement says. The Service Engagement for “Socially Responsible Invesmtent Procedure” may be obtained by any portfolio manager which respects strict service engagements, as follows: to analyse defined ESG criteria, with competence and impartiality; to update and make ratings reliable on a regular basis; to build portfolios which respect existing SRI crieria; to control the rules of SRI management independently and on an ongoing basis; to conduct dialogue and vote to promote progressive measures; to inform clients in full transparency; and to improve practices on an ongoing basis. The Service Engagement - “Socially Responsible Investment Procedure” certification procedure also defines requirements concerning organisation, monitoring and management of quality procedures. Amundi has assets under management of over EUR60bn in socially responsible investment.

The Edmond de Rothschild group is increasing its stake in the capital of its affiliate Edmond de Rothschild Capital Partners, a specialist in majority investments in midcap businesses, from 60% to 100%. The 40% will be purchased from co-founders Erick Fouque and Eric de Montgolfier, who will be leaving the private equity firm “to dedicate themselves to new entrepreneurial projects,” according to a statement. They will be replaced by Bertrand Demesse and Louis-Antoine Roullier, who have been working at the firm since 2005 and 2008, respectiely, and who have been promoted as managing partners. The Edmond de Rothschild group is “taking this opportunity to increase its stake in the capital as it believes in this illiquid asset class, in which they are seeking to strengthen themeselves by 2016, following the strategic plan of Christophe de Backer, CEO fo the Edmond de Rothschild group,” a spokesperson says. As part of this plan, new products will be launched. Edmond de Rothschild Capital Partners, founded in 2003, has over EUR2.2bn in assets under management.

Southeastern Asset Management has acquired a stake of nearly 12% in the capital of News Corp, the group controlled by Rupert Murdoch, USA Today reports. On the basis of its closing share price on Tuesday, the stake of Southeastern is valued at nearly USD400m. The alternative asset management firm thus becomes the second-largest shareholder, after Murdoch himself, who, according to Bloomberg, controls a 39% stake.

Fabio Caiani has been appointed as head of distribution at Nordea in Italy, Bluerating reports. Caiani will retain his position as head of retail activities at the Scandinavian asset management firm, which he has held since 2007.

The Luxembourg-registered equity fund Morgan Stanley Investment Funds (MSIF) Global Quality Fund, launched more than ne month ago (see Newsmaangers of 2 August) has been granted sales licenses for various asset classes for shares denominated in US dollars and/or euros in six European countries.A shares in US dollars (LU0955010870) are now available in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, while AH shares denominated in euros (LU0955011506) are available in Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands I (LU0955011175) and Z (LU0955011258) shares in US dollars may be sold in Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Z shares are also available in Portugal.

Ossiam simultaneously lists a new ETF strategy in its smart beta range for trading in Paris, London, Milan and Frankfurt on 12 September. The product, the Ossiam Risk Weghten Enhanced Commodity ex. Grains R UCITS ETC 1C (EUR) (acronym: CRWE), is a UCITS IV-compliant fund registered in Luxembourg and based on synthetic replication.The ETF replicates the Risk Weighted Enhanced Commodity ex. Grains TR index which offers a global exposure to commodities, excluding grains, for ethical reasons. The weighting of each commodity is inversely proportional to its volatility over one year.The new vehicle represents an extension of a new universe of smart beta investments already established by Ossiam for equities, Isabelle Bourcier, head of development, is already planning the next step, which may be a smart beta ETF for the bond asset class.“This product, with returns near those of equities, is aimed primarily at professionals with a mid-to long-term diversification objective, with risk controlling which characterises all Ossiam products,” Boursier tells Newsmanagers.Ossiam currently has assets of EUR920m, which represents an increase of 63.5% since the beginning of the year. Assets under management in 13 ETFs of the brand total about EUR720m.CharacteristicsName: Ossiam Risk Weighted Enhanced Commodity ex. Grains TR UCITS ETF 1C (EUR)ISIN code: LU0876440578Total expense ratio: 0.45%

The CDP Global 500 Climate Change Report 2013, published by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) includes two rankings of the 50 best businesses of the FTSE Global 500 companies in the area of performance in combating climate change (CPLI), on one hand, and transparency in communication on the subject (CDLI) on the other. French asset management firms are under-represented in these rankings with three business in the first case (L’Oréal, Axa and BNP Paribas) and two in the second (Sanofi and Schneider Electric).CDP states that the data were collected from 389 businesses at the request of 722 institutional investors, representing USD87trn in assets. Germany, Switzerland and the United Kngdom are over-represented in the CPLI rankings, in which only seven asset management firms have received a maximal score of 100 (BMW, Daimler, Philips Electronics, Nestlé, BNY Mellon, Cisco Systems and Gas Natural).However, the report reveals that 50 of the 500 largest publicly-traded businesses in the world are responsible for three quarters of greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions from the 50 most polluting businesses, primarily active in the energy, materials and utility sectors, increased 1.65% over the past four years. This increase represents the equivalent of 8.5 million additional pickups in streets, or the power consumption of 6 million homes per year.

Abu Dhabi is planning to invet up to USD5bn in infrastructure projects in Russia in the next seven years, the Financial Times reports, illustrating Russian efforts to attract money from sovereign funds. The engagement of the department of finance in Abu Dhabi is expected to be announced on Thursday by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the USD10bn fund supported by the government, founded in 2011 by Vladimar Putin.

As of 1 October, two people will join the management at the Munich-based UBS Real Estate KAG.Gabriele Merz, director of accounting for German and Luxembourg real estate funds since 2007, will replace Christine Bernhofer as chief financial officer. Bernhofer will be leaving the business at the end of the month to dedicate herself to charitable activities in Africa.Meanwhile, UBS Real Estate KAG has recruited Axel Vespermann, who had been head of the entire commercial real estate portfolio at Allianz Real Estate GmbH. He will be responsible for portfolio management, acquisitions and sales, asset management, construction and development.The other two members of the general management are Tilman Hickl (CEO) and Jörg Sihler.

Global Financial Products has recruited Ronald Wildmann and Steven Frey as additions to its teams, as senior commodity advisers. Wildmann and Frey previously worked at Basinvest, as commodity managers, according to Finews. The Global Financial Products teams include a total of 13 people.

Lazard Frères Gestion is preparing to launch Objectif Long Short Flexible, an international long/short fund of funds with a prudent profile, whose total volatility will be between 3% and 6%.The mutual fund combines flexible management with exposure to equities in the portfolio with allocation to “market neutral” and “directional” strategies, a statement says. The management team manages exposure to the equity markets by modulating the allocation between these strategies according to market outlooks. Flexible exposure to the equity market by modulating the allocation between these two strategies according to its market outlooks. Flexible exposure to equity markets for the fund may vary between -10% and +40% (net exposure). It is currently 27%, with a peak at 36% in January 2013.The asset management firm explains that the launch of the fund of funds is based on long/short strategies, based on the observation that bond markets are confronting rising interest rates which are expected to persist on one hand, while on the others, equities represent an asset class to be preferred within a diversified portfolio acquisition. With high volatility on equity markets, “long/short strategies provide a means to profit from opportunities related to this context while limiting risk,” it says.

La boutique de hedge funds Adelante Asset Management a fermé son fonds dette émergente mondiale Adelante Emerging Debt Fund fin juillet après 14 ans parce qu’elle pense que son style d’investissement n’est plus adapté à l’environnement actuel. Le fonds, qui était de 80 millions de dollars, a perdu 2 % sur les sept premiers de l’année. Il a dégagé un gain annualisé de 15,4 % entre son lancement en juillet 1999 et sa fermeture.

On 6 September, iShares US ETF Trust filed a form N-1A) with the SEC for four allocation ETFs, which will invest in ten other ETFs of the Core series launched by the firm in October 2012.The profiled products, for which neither the acronym nor the total expense ratio have yet been disclosed, are as follows: iShares Core Allocation Conservative ETF, iShares Core Allocation Moderate ETF, iShares Core Allocation Moderate Growth ETF and iShares Core Allocation Growth ETF.According to Mutual Fund Wire, assets in the Core range now total nearly USD100bn.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has launched an equity fund dedicated to frontier markets and the BRIC countries, Citywire reports. The Goldman Sachs Growth Markets Equity Portfolio fund was launched on 10 September, and will be team-managed. It will invest in companies which operate or are traded in countries of the “Next-11” group or in BRIC countries.

According to El Confidencial, Ignacio Sarría, founder and deputy CEO until 31 August of the Spanish firm Arcano Capital (EUR1bn in assets) has been recruited by New Mountain Capital (USD10bn). He will be a member of the development team, as the US asset management firm would like to strengthen its private equity platforms, while boosting the dynamism of sales of its hedge fund and its corporate bond fund.

On 1 January 2014, Erik Breen, chief investment officer for socially responsible investment at Robeco, will join the SRI team at Triodos Investment Management. He will be responsible for innovation. Breen is also a member of the board of governors and vice-chairman of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN). As of the end of 2012, Triodos Investment Management, an affiliate of Triodos Bank, had SRI assets of EUR2.2bn.

The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) on September 1 published a report entitled “The OCERP: a Proposal for a European Personal Pension Product,” on the establishment of a genuine European retirement savings product in line with the considerations undertaken for several years, and marked by the publication in 2010 of a white paper on pensions by the European Commission. The Officially Certified European Retirement Plan (OCERP) is intended as a blueprint for a “European brand” of personal pension products to be distributed on a cross-border basis. The product would allow individuals to choose between several investment options and ensure providers maintain a robust governance framework and administritive systems. Any product that meets these standards could be distributed throughout Europe with an EU passport. The report, which will be distributed to EU policy makers and institutions, contains a set of key recommended standards that a European personal pension product should comply with in order to be certified as an OCERP, and sold throughout Europe. It also presents different legislative approach scenarios to provide an EU passport to the OCERP and to regulate the conditions under which financial institutions could provide OCERPs across Europe. The creation of an EU framework for personal pension products would also contribute to channeling retail investors’ savings towards the proposed European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs) recently proposed by the European Commission. According to Peter De Proft, Director General of EFAMA, “the proposed high standards of consumer protection, governance and distribution will associate the OCERP with a high-quality EU label. As a blueprint for a European brand of personal pension products, the creation of the OCERP would help overcome the current fragmentation of the European pensions market and, thus, improve the cost-effectiveness of these products and their portability between Member States. By proposing that banks, insurers, pension funds and asset managers expand their product offering towards the OCERP, EFAMA proposes to follow an inclusive approach for the creation of personal pension products to serve the interests of all European citizens”.

Mark Walker, an equity analyst for the telecom and satellite sectors in Europe at Goldman Sachs, has joined the British firm RWC Partners, where he will work with Louise Keeling as an analyst for the Luxembourg fund RWC Global Horizon Fund (see Newsmanagers of 10 May).Keeling herself joined RWC in April as a partner, to set up a global equity team. She comes from Marathon Asset Management, where she worked with Jeremy Hosking to manage a global equity portfolio. The assistant for the global equity desk is Alice Jarman, who will this month join RWC from Searchlight Capital Partners, after working at Artemis Investment Management. Currently, RWC has assets of USD6.4bn, compared with USD4.8bn as of the end of December.

The Calastone company, a specialist in fund re-registration, has obtained investment from the private equity investors Accel Partners, and its shareholder Octopus Investments, totalling USD18m, Fundweb reports. Calastone claims that these investments will be used to accelerate the growth of Calastone’s activities in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe, where the firm works for SEI, Transact, Novia and Axa Elevate.