Les investisseurs allemands, inactifs au premier semestre, ont renoué avec les acquisitions dans les bureaux au troisième trimestre

Le caractère stabilisant de l’intervention de la BCE se voit aussi à travers l’accroissement de l’écart entre la volatilité historique et implicite

L’autorité de sécurité financière japonaise envisage de relever le seuil maximal de participation que peut prendre un établissement financier dans une société non financière à 10 ou 15%, selon le quotidien nippon. Ce seuil est actuellement de 5%. Le but serait de compenser la fin en mars 2013 des incitations fiscales encourageant l’investissement dans les PME du pays.

Le Livre Beige de la Fed dresse le portrait d'une économie américaine toujours ankylosée par la situation du marché de l'emploi

Notée à un cran de la catégorie spéculative par S&P et Moody's, l'Espagne suivra la réaction des marchés obligataires pour déclencher l'aide européenne

Le quotidien allemand rapporte de sources financières que le groupe de vente par correspondance a mandaté des banques afin d’évaluer l’opportunité d’une vente de sa filiale française. L’opération pourrait concerner tout ou partie des 51% qu’il détient dans les 3 Suisses, selon le quotidien. Otto a dû passer une charge pour perte de 50 millions d’euros pour sa participation dans la société française.

Déjà associés en France depuis 2011, les deux groupes ont acquis ensemble deux immeubles en Allemagne auprès de RBS, pour 784 millions d’euros.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) par l’intermédiaire du Government Pension Fund - Global (GPFG), l’ancien fonds pétrolier norvégien, et son partenaire de coentreprise, l’assureur Axa France par l’intermédiaire de Axa Real Estate Investments (Axa REIM), ont annoncé le 10 octobre l’acquisition auprès de RBS de deux immeubles en Allemagne pour 784 millions d’euros.La transaction attribue une part de 50 % dans chacun de ces actifs (Die Welle de 81.600 mètres carrés à Francfort et le Neues Kranzler Eck de 72.400 mètres carrés à Berlin) à chaque partenaire, qui acquittera également la moitié du montant de l’investissement.C’est le premier investissement de GPFG en Allemagne, sachant que NBIM (filiale de gestion d’actifs de la Banque de Norvège) a créé une coentreprise avec Axa France en 2011. Le fonds norvégien a déjà investi dans l’immobilier parisien avec Generali (lire Newsmanagers du 6 juillet) ainsi qu’au Royaume-Uni avec The Crown Estate (lire Newsmanagers du 9 octobre).

Hedge Invest Sgr, société de gestion italienne spécialisée dans la gestion alternative, vient de lancer la Sicav Hedge Invest International Funds, rapporte Bluerating. Cette plate-forme de droit irlandais a été créée afin d’offrir aux investisseurs la possibilité d’investir dans des gérants alternatifs single manager avec tous les avantages du cadre Ucits. Le seuil d’entrée est en outre de 10.000 euros. Les deux premiers compartiments de la Sicav sont : HI Numen Credit Fund, un fonds long/short credit géré par Filippo Lanza et Kushal Jumar. HI Principia Fund, un fonds long/short actions européennes confié à Marc Chapman.

In Q2 2012, the total automation rate (ISO and proprietary files) of orders received by Luxembourg and Irish TAs reached 77%, compared to 75.6% in Q4 2011, according to a new report from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) published in cooperation with SWIFT,In Luxemburg, the total automation rate (ISO + proprietary ftp) increased by 2.9 percentage points to 73.1% in Q2 2012 compared to Q4 2011. The ISO standardisation rate reached 55.2% (+ 2.5 percentage points).In Ireland, the total automation rate increased by 0.4 percentage points to 84.6% in Q2 2012; while ftps still represent the bulk of it, the ISO adoption rate made a progression of 4.2 percentage points to 17.3% in Q2 2012. The ISO standardization rate has doubled in Ireland over the last two years, reaching 17.3% in Q2 2012 against 8.5% in Q2 2010.The total number of orders has stabilised at 11.9 million orders in the first half of 2012. The number of manually processed orders decreased by 7% to 2.8 million received faxes (against 3 million in H2 2011). This still represents a daily average of some 25,000 incoming faxes.

Societe Generale Private Banking has appointed Jean-Pierre Flais as chief operating officer (COO) for the private bank, with immediate effect. He becomes a member of the executive committee and reports to Jean-François Mazaud and Patrick Folléa, respectively head and deputy head of Societe Generale Private Banking. As COO, Jean-Pierre Flais is in charge of supervising the resources (IT, operations and transversal projects) and general secretariat teams. Prior to this appointment, Jean-Pierre Flais was deputy chief executive officer of Societe Generale Private Banking Hambros in London since 2007. His successor will be announced in due course.

As of 30 September, assets in long-term mutual funds managed by Virtus Investment Partners totalled more than USD23.61bn, compared with nearly USD21.13bn as of 30 June. This increase is primarily due to net subscriptions of nearly USD1.6bn and a positive market effect of USD912m.

A survey by Greenwich Associates of 232 head traders and traders at several buy-side institutions (asset management firms, corporate treasuries, pension funds, charities, hedge funds, banks and insurance companies) finds that about 20% of respondents in 2012 reduced the budget they allocate to their market trading activities compared with 2011, while 30% have increased it. However, Greenwich Associates notes that 44% of hedge funds in the sample have reduced their budgets, and that 40% have maintained them unchanged. This result shows that hedge funds are moving much more aggressively than other institutional investors to reduce the size and cost of their market trading activities in the midst of a general slowdown in securities trading activities.

Gabelli Securities, an affiliate of GAMCO Investors, has announced that Daniel M. Miller has been elected as chaiman of the institutional asset management affiliate Gabelli & Company. Miller succeeds Jim Webster but retains his role as coordinator of institutional research. He will also assist the incoming new president of Gabelli & Company.Miller is also portfolio manager for the best ideas fund Gabelli Focus Five Fund, and managing director of GAMCO Asset Management.

M&G Investments in France has topped EUR3bn in assets under management, three times more than the target the Paris team had set five years ago when the Parisian office opened.This level was achieved largely thanks to an “exceptional” year in 2012, says Brice Anger, head of the sales team at M&G France, in an interview with Newsmanagers. Since the beginning of the year, the office, with nine members, has posted net subscriptions of EUR1bn in France, largely from private banks, for mandated and advised management, and from independent financial advisers.In terms of funds, the M&G Optimal Income has been the basis for the success of the French team. The flexible bond fund represents half of assets in France for the firm, and has been very popular with IFAs since the beginning of the year. But Anger says the firm does not depend on a single product, and points out that in France, six funds represent over EUR100m in assets, and three more have assets between EUR50m and EUR100m. “Overall, nine funds are regularly subscribed to by our clients,” says Anger. These lead products also include the Global Dividend and Macro Bond funds.Anger is particularly pleased with the development of M&G in the IFA market. ‘We are now the second-place firm in terms of reputation and recognition with IFAs in the MyFlow and Apredia rankings.” These clients now represent 20% of assets. Most assets are in discretionary management (private banks, funds of funds), while the remaining 20% are for institutionals, a client base which M&G is targeting largely through its partnership with the Compagnie Financière Jacques Cœur.Given this strong start for M&G, what can one expect in the years to come? Anger says it is difficult to make predictions in numbers, as we are living in a world that has become more complex and volatile. But he hopes to remain one of the asset management firms that count in France.

The European SRI market, which is highly diverse in terms of strategies, ranging from best-in-class to shareholder dialogue and exclusion, is currently dominated by exclusionary and ESG integration approaches, according to the most recent Eurosif “European SRI Study.” Between 2009 and 2011, assets subject to an exclusionary approach more than doubled, while integration grew by more modest proportions. The study also finds that growth in socially responsible investment strategies reviewed were in every case higher than those in the management market between 2009 and 2011, with a special mention for normative exclusionary filtering, which had spectacular growth of 138%, compared with 118.9% for exclusion and 113% for best-in-class. La Française AM, whose assets under management in open-ended SRI funds total nearly EUR700m, is studying the possibility of setting up normative exclusionary filtering. In this encouraging context, the penetration rate for the retail segment remains very weak. “Aside from the employee savings segment, the figures even show a collapse in the retail segment in Europe,” Anne-Catherine Husson-Traore, CEO of Novethic, says on 10 October at the launch of the third annual SRI week in France. The French asset management association (AFG), which is highly active in the area of socially responsible investment, esitmates that the situation in France is developing in a positive direction. “France is the country in Europe which has gone furthest with SRI. We might estimate that 30% of management applies processes which refer to ESG criteria,” the president of the AFG, Paul-Henri de La Porte du Theil, states. France is also the only country where a transparency code (AFG-FIR) has been put in place.

With nearly 260 employees, Axa Investment Managers has EUR20bn under management in Asia-Pacific ex Japan, and is planning to develop in this fast-growing region, by presenting itself not only as a promoter of products, but also as a provider of solutions, foregrounding its own areas of expertise: Axa Fixed Income, Axa Framlington, Axa Rosenberg, Axa Funds of Hedge Funds, Axa Private Equity, Axa Real Estate and Axa Structured Finance, Jean-Pierre Leoni, a member of the executive board in charge of the Asia-Pacific region, explained in Paris on Wednesday.Assets in Asia ex Japan are 75% invested in bonds, 20% in equities, and 5% in alternative management. Net subscriptions since the beginning of this year have totalled EUR1bn, while the (“ambitious”) initial objective was EUR2bn for the year as a whole. However, “smart beta” and real estate projects may very quickly boost assets.The largest markets for Axa IM are Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, China and Australia. The strongest growth in assets for Axa IM this year has been in Taiwan and South Korea.

Funds on sale in Sweden in September posted net redemptions of SEK1.1bn (EUR0.12bn), according to the most recent statistics from the local fund association, Fondbolagens Förening. Outflows were driven by money market funds, which have seen outflows of SEK3.2bn, and hedge funds, which have lost SEK1.7bn. Since the beginning of the year, these two categories of funds show losses, of SEK8.2bn and SEK6.1bn, respectively. However, equity funds in September are showing positive inflows of SEK2.1bn. Inflows have largely gone to global equity funds (+SEK2bn), Europe (+SEK1bn), and Eastern Europe (+SEK901m), while Swedish funds have seen outflows of SEK1.3bn. Balanced funds have also posted inflows of SEK1.3bn, bond funds have seen outflows of SEK0.3bn, but they remain the strongest category since the beginning of the year (+SEK13.1bn). Equity funds show +SEK6.6bn, and balanced funds show inflows of SEK6bn. As of the end of August, Swedish funds represented assets of SEK1.963trn (EUR228bn), of which SEK1.045trn were managed in equity funds.

Hedge Invest Sgr, société de gestion italienne spécialisée dans la gestion alternative, vient de lancer la Sicav Hedge Invest International Funds, rapporte Bluerating. Cette plate-forme de droit irlandais a été créée afin d’offrir aux investisseurs la possibilité d’investir dans des gérants alternatifs single manager avec tous les avantages du cadre Ucits. Le seuil d’entrée est en outre de 10.000 euros. Les deux premiers compartiments de la Sicav sont : HI Numen Credit Fund, un fonds long/short credit géré par Filippo Lanza et Kushal Jumar. HI Principia Fund, un fonds long/short actions européennes confié à Marc Chapman.

Mutual Fund Wire relays reports by Bloomberg that the ETF replicating the Total Return Fund, a bond fund managed by Bill Gross at Pimco, has already passed USD3bn in assets (exactly USD3.01bn as of 9 October), since its launch on 1 March.The fund has earned 10.4% since its launch, while the original product (USD278bn) has gained only 6.5% in the same period.

The US firm AllianceBernstein has announced that it has reimbursed investors in its AllianceBerinstein Legacy Securities fund, a public-private investment partnership (PPIP), including profits. The Treasury Department, which contributed 50% to the fund, for an investment of USD1.06bn, received a redemption of USD1.54bn, which represents an internal rate of return, after fees, of 18.7% since the creation of the PPIP in October 2009.The fund has also paid the Treasury USD12bn in proceeds from warrants, and repaid USD2.13bn in debt transferred to its by the Treasury, with interest.The fund was managed by AllianceBernstein, Greenfield Partners, Rialto Capital Management and Altura Capital Group.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), via the Government Pension Fund – Global (GPFG), formerly the Norwegian Oil Fund, and its joint venture partner, the insurer Axa France, via Axa Real Estate Investments (Axa REIM), on 10 October announced the acquisition of two properties in Germany from RBS for EUR784m.The transaction grants a 50% stake in each of the properties (Die Welle, 81,600 square metres in Frankfurt, and Neues Kranzler Eck, 72,400 square metres in Berlin) to each partner, who will also share the investment cost evenly.This is the first investment for GPFG in Germany, though NBIM (the asset management affiliate of the Bank of Norway) founded the joint venture with Axa France in 2011. The Norwegian fund has already invested in Parisian real estate with Generali (see Newsmanagers of 6 July) and in the United Kingdom with The Crown Estate (see Newsmanagers of 9 October).

As part of its drive to build up and streamline its pan-European business, Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) announces new senior management roles. James Dilworth, CEO Europe at AllianzGI has created six corresponding units for European business development.Tobias Pross heads up institutional business development for Europe, Nick Smith is responsible for retail sales in Europe (ex-Germany), while retail sales in Germany is headed by Mathias Müller.The senior team will further consist of Thomas Linker, who will continue to manage the key relationships with the multinational distributors, Frank Wolfert who will be responsible for relations within the Allianz Group and Martin Keil whose ‘developing regions’ division will form an integral part of the new Europeanstructure. All six managers report to James Dilworth.

According to reports in Reuters cited by Agefi, The Netherlands-based Rabobank is studying three bids for its asset management arm Robeco. Two bids have come from a consortium of private equity funds (Advent, CVC) and the Japanese financial services group Ortix. The third, from the US giant AMG and the fund Permira, would separate activities in Europe and the United States. The valuation is said to exceed EUR2bn.

Responsible investment allocations to emerging markets have increased by almost 30% since 2009, according to a global survey published today by responsible investment research specialists EIRIS.

Global wealth is falling, according to the annual Global Wealth Report published by Credit Suisse Research Institute. Between mid-2011 and mid-2012, these assets have fallen 5.2% in US dollars, or USD49,000 per adult worldwide, to USD223trn. The decline has been steepest in Europe, with a decline in wealth of 13.6%. Credit Suisse predicts, however, that global wealth will rise by nearly 50% in the next fice years, to a total of USD330trn.As of mid-2012, the rankings of the richest countries by wealth per adult are topped by Switzerland, with average wealth of USD468,186 per person. The country is followed by Australia, Norway and Luxembourg. France is in sixth place in terms of average wealth, with USD265,463. Inherited wealth appears to represent 30% to 50% of total household wealth in OECD countries.The global population of ultra-high net worth individuals (UNHWI), with a net wealth of over USD50m, numbers 84,500 people. Of this total, 29,300 people have personal wealth of at least USD100m in assets, while 2,700 have wealth exceeding USD500m. North America dominates the regional rankings, with 40,000 UHNW residents (47%), while Europe has 22,000 (26%), and Asia-Pacific (excluding China and India) has 12,800 (15%).According to estimates by Credit Suisse, the number of millionaires worldwide is expected to increase by about 18 million people in the next five years, to a total of 46 million in 2017. The United States currently has the most millionaires, with 11.02 million, compared with 9.2 million in Europe. In France, there are 2.28 million millionaires, more than in the United Kingdom (1.5 million) and Germany (1.4 million).

Blackstone has raised USD13.3bn (EUR10.3bn) for a fund dedicated to real estate, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII, Agefi reports. The fund represents the largest vehicle raised in this asset class, according to statistics from Preqin. The 250 investors in the fund are mostly US pension funds. “About 35% of capital in the fund has already been engaged or invested in a wide range of assets and geographical regions,” Blackstone said yesterday in a statement, adding that the group had USD50bn in real estate assets under management as of the end of September.

BlackRock has announced that its iShares division is releasing its first global corporate bond ETF in Europe. The product will be first listed in London, and replicates the Barclays Global Aggregate Corporate Bond Index. The index is composed of about 50% bonds from US corporates, but also includes European, Canadian, Australian and Japanese issues.CharacteristicsName: iShares Global Corporate BondISIN code: IE00B7J7TB45TER: 0.20%

Funds People reports that BNP Paribas Securities Services has been granted a custody and administration mandate on behalf of the Australian asset management firm AMP (AUD160bn in assets). The successful migration of 1,000 funds has taken nine months.

Following Charles Schwab and other promoters, Canada’s BMP Asset Management (Banque of Montreal group) has positioned itself in the price war kicked off by the US firm Vanguard, slashing management commissions on two of its ETFs. The firm has announced that from 1 November, it will be reducing management commission by 31.8% to 0.15% for the S&P 500 Hedged to CAD Index ETF (acronym: ZUE) and by 28.6% to 0.20% for the BMO Aggregate Bond Index EtF (ZAG).Assets in the 44 ETFs from BMO total CAD7bn.