Assets under management at Pictet & Cie as of the end of September totalled CHF365bn, Nicolas Pictet, partner at the Geneva-based bank and chairman of the Swiss private bankers’ association, announced on 12 January, Agefi Switzerland reports. Net inflows rose 4% between January and the end of September 2011, which did not prevent assets under management from declining by CHF17bn in the period, from CHF382bn as of the end of March. “This evolution is due solely to market and currency effects,” says Pictet. In the past year, the group has recruited 90 employees, most of whom are based in Switzerland in the banking professions. Pictet & Cie currently has over 3,100 employees, including about 2,000 in Switzerland.

Between the end of 2007 and September 2011, assets in Italian-registered funds were almost halved, from EUR303bn to EUR159bn, a Cerulli study of the Italian asset management market funds. In the same period, assets in foreign-registered funds increased by EUR231bn, to EUR254bn, Recent tax reforms projects intended to favour Italian asset management may come a little too late to save Italian funds, Cerulli notes. In total, assets in funds on sale in Italy declined from EUR534bn as of the end of 2007 to EUR414bn in September 2011. After a decline in 2008, assets rose again in 2009 and 2010. But 2011 brought another change in direction. Falling markets were not unconnected with this decline. But funds were primarily penalised by redemptions since September 2010. They should have begun to increase only in July, with a peak in September at EUR4.6bn. Cerulli finds that nothing indicates that the trend will reverse in the next few months. In terms of asset management firms, the 10 largest players in terms of assets managed to increase their market share from 31.4% to 33.8%, despite a fall in assets. Among them is BNP Paribas, in tenth place. The top three are Intesa SanPaolo, UniCredit and UBI. But except for Mediolanum, the companies which posted the strongest net subscriptions between 2009 and 2011 are not in the top 10.

BlackRock has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Claymore Canada. Based in Toronto, Claymore is an independent Canadian subsidiary of Guggenheim Funds Services Group, a subsidiary of Guggenheim Partners. The transaction will allow BlackRock to strengthen its presence in Canada, and to add to the complementary iShares ETF range, a statement says. As of 31 December 2011, BlackRock offered 48 ETF funds in Canadian under the iShares brand, totalling CAD29bn in assets. Claymore Canada has 34 ETF funds in its range, and two closed-end funds, totalling CAD7bn.

Deka Immobilen has acquired the Rothenbach Center complex (14,300 square metres), located in Nuremberg, from the LaSalleEuroGrowthII fund, for about EUR38m. The property will be added to the portfolio of the institutional real estate fund WestInvest TargetSelect Shopping.

Assets in investment funds worldwide were down 4.7% in third quarter, to a total of USD18.580trn as of the end of September 2011, according to international statistics published on 12 January by the European finance and asset management association (EFAMA). In US dollars, assets are down by as much as 10.9%, to USD25.090trn, due to the appreciation of the US dollar against the euro. Third quarter ended with net outflows of USD104bn, compared with a net inflow of USD147bn in second quarter. The cause of the downturn was that long-term funds which saw a net inflow of USD58bn in third quarter, whereas they attracted USD206bn in second quarter. Bond funds saw inflows of only USD7bn, compared with USD70bn in inflows in second quarter. Equity funds had net redemptions totalling USD79bn, following net inflows of USD16bn, and diversified funds finished the quarter under review with a net outflow of USD14bn. In the United States, net outflows from long-term funds totalled only USD13bn, though they totalled USD78bn in Europe. Money market funds show outflows of EUR46bn in third quarter, compared with EUR59bn previously. In Europe, outflows slowed to EUR5bn, compared with EUR30bn in second quarter, while they increased in the United States, from EUR32bn in second quarter to EUR42bn in third quarter. As of the end of third quarter 2011, assets in equity funds represented 36% of the total, compared with 22% for bond funds and 19% for money market funds.

US retail investors may now subscribe to the John Hancock Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (JHAAX) via their independent financial advisers. The fund is actually a US version of the GARD fund from Standard Life Investments (SLI). The British fund is listed generically as a “sub-advisor” to the fund for portfolio management. The fund will be available to stand-alone US investors via the asset allocation fund John Hancock Alternative Asset Allocation (JAAAX) or several John Hancock Lifestyle funds. The GARS strategy has USD19bn in assets at SLI, while John Hancock Funds has assets of USD64bn in asset allocation funds of funds as of 30 November 2011. Total assets under management at SLI add up to USD233.4bn.

The Lyxor hedge fund index lost 0.36% in December, and is down 6.59% for the year.In December, the best-performing strategies were CTA Long Term (1.29%), convertible bonds and volatility arbitrage (1.22%), and distressed securities (0.57%).

ING is calling off plans for an initial public offering of the entity including insurance and asset management activities in Europe and Asia, Agefi reports. “There is no market for IPOs in Europe now,” says Jan Hommen, CEO for the group.

From the end of December 2010 to the end of December 2011, assets under management at AllianceBernstein fell by USD80bn, to USD406bn, while assets at Legg Mason contracted by USD44.8bn, to USD627bn.In the same period, assets at Franklin Templeton held stable, as a decline of USD25.9bn in equities was offset by an increase of USD35.7bn in fixed income, which also offset a decline of USD9.7bn in hybrid products. Overall, counting a USD0.5bn fall in money market funds, the group had total assets of USD670.3bn as of the end of December, compared with USD670.7bn twelve months earlier.Invesco has posted an increase of USD9.3bn compared with the end of 2010, to finish last year with USD625.3bn.

Agefi reports that Dexia will next week begin the process to sell its asset management unit, Dexia AM. It has mandated Barclays to conduct the sale, after receiving 30 expressions of interest.

The insurer Groupama has begun the process of selling GAN Eurocourtage , and its insurance and brokerage activities in the United Kingdom, according to an announcement to employees made yesterday and reported by AFP, Les Echos reports. The newspaper states that the firm has placed only damage insurance activities up for sale (EUR819m in earnings in 2010) at GAN Eurocourtage, but not the life insurance portion of the business (EUR768m in earnings). There will be no shortage of candidates to buy the activity, as GAN Eurocourtage now has a profit margin of over 350%, thanks to EUR300m from the CDC.

The Swiss private bankers’ association (ABPS) is continuing to campaign for recognition of its members’ special characteristics, Agefi Switzerland reports. It is now aiming to bring about a revision of the law on capital adequacy and distribution of risks, which is under consultation until 16 January. Under its application of the Basel III accords, the law states that assets of partners are considered Core Equity Tier 1 (CET1) only if an agreement determines that all partners sustain equal losses in case of severe problems. The clause would not be relevant in cases where all partners are infinitely liable, the ABPS claims, adding that the Basel III rules do not consider the particular qualities of private banks.

As reported on Tuesday, Quilvest Gestion is launching the Saint Germain Euro Yield fund, a bond fund whose investment universe includes securities rated BB- to BBB+, in order to deliver consistent returns for securities in the portfolio. Geographically, the portfolio is centred on Germany, France, and the countries of northern Europe, which are considered the most solid European issuers. Target bonds are from issues of EUR300m or more. With a Buy and Hold Strategy and a target maturity of 2017, the management team is aiming for average gross annual returns, in light of present market conditions (as of 6 January 2012) of 6% over the recommended investment duration. The fund is managed by Thibault Prebay and Rémi Lelu de Brach, chief investment officer for fixed income and manager at Quilvest Gestion, respectively. Characteristics ISIN codes: I share class: FR0011167394/ P share class: FR0011142306 Front-end fee: 25% maximum TTC Management fees: 0.60% maximum TTC (I share class) / 1.20% maximum TTC (P share class) Net asset value of shares at launch: EUR10,000 (I share class) / EUR1,000 (P share class) Benchmark index (informational purposes only): 50% Iboxx euro corporate + 50% Markit iBoxx EUR High Yield Main Cum Crossover LC Recommended investment duration: maximum 5 years

According to the most recent statistics from the Spanish Inverco association of asset management firms, securities funds show average losses for last year as a whole of 0.52%, and returns of 1.48% per year over three years, 0.22% over five years, and 1.33% over ten years.Total assets in securities funds, Sicavs, real estate funds and funds from foreign asset management firms as of the end of December totalled EUR203.41bn, down 6.41% compared with EUR217.49bn recorded one year previously.Assets under management in securities funds last year were down 7.4% to EUR127.77bn, while real estate funds were down 26.6% to slightly under EUR4.5bn. Funds from foreign asset management firms lost only 2.1% of asstes, at EUR47bn. Assets in Sicavs were down 4.8% to EUR24.14bn.Inverco states that net redemptions from securities funds totalled EUR8.42bn for 2011 as a whole, compared with EUR23.89bn in 2010. By category, the heaviest net outflows were from short-term euro bond funds, at EUR6.23bn, while the largest net subscriptions went to guaranteed funds investing primarily in bonds, at EUR6.72bn.

As the sales documentation for the Primeo funds it sold was considered incomplete, Bank Austria has been sentenced by the commercial court in Vienna to pay EUR350,000 in damages and interest to two investors who filed suit against the Madoff products, Fonds Professionell reports. The losses are reported to have totalled EUR700m.The verdict has not yet been pronounced for execution, and Bank Austria has announced that it plans to appeal the decision, claiming that it was merely an “editor” of the prospectus, not the “author” of the document.

Marck Bickford-Smith is leaving T. Rowe Price International to become joint chief investment officer (CIO) at Charlemagne Capital from the end of this month, Money Marketing reports. Bickford-Smith, who spent the years from 1988-1995 in Asia for Robert Fleming and then Jardine Fleming, has returned to London to work at T. Rowe Price. He will work alongside Julian Mayo, also CIO.Assets at Charlemagne as of 3 January totalled USD2.33bn in five product lines.

The British investment advisory group Ingenious has announced the launch of the Vindemia 2 EIS Fund (Vindemia 2), which will succeed the Vindemia EIS Fund, which was closed in July 2011.Vindemia 2, which hopes to raise about GBP10m, will be closed to new investors on 2 April. The fund will aim for average annual returns after taxes of 22.7%.The minimal investment is GBP10,000, with a 30% tax break.

Thomas A. Nelson and Tony Coffey will manage the fund portion of the new Franklin Templeton Multi-Asset Real Return Fund, which invests primarily in other mutual funds from the Franklin Templeton group, while Warren Keyser, at Franklin Templeton Institutional, will manage the portion of the fund investing in US Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). The new product will aim for performance higher than inflation in the United States over a complete 5-year cycle. For A-class shares, the front-end fee is 5.75%, and management commission is 1.30%, a SEC filing dated 15 December states.

In November, European investors moved into USD bond funds (EUR750m across government, corporate and short term) and USD-denominated money market funds (EUR12.5bn), but out of EUR bonds (EUR10.8bn), according to Lipper. Investors were net withdrawers from fixed income funds overall, with the asset class suffering outflows of EUR13.6bn. This total was worse than on the equity side (outflows of EUR10.5bn) for the first time since April. The European funds industry saw outflows of EUR9bn in November, the best for six months thanks to inflows of EUR18.3bn into money market products.Standard Life topped the group sales chart this month, with net sales of EUR1.1bn, ahead of Prudential/M&G (EUR680m). Both groups enjoyed inflows across their bond, equity and mixed asset products.European sales activity in 2011 may well finish with more than EUR45bn of outflows (excluding money market), although this masks a significant divide between the first half of the year (inflows of EUR96bn) and the second half (outflows around EUR140bn), predicts Lipper. Fund sales in 2011 will likely be best remembered for the scale of inflows for global bond products (dominated by Franklin Templeton) and also, despite stock market conditions, for global equity funds (with Morgan Stanley and M&G most prominent among active managers).

Negotiations over private sector involvement (PSI) are getting heated in Athens, Agefi reports. The Greek government is alarmed at the prospect of its potential collapse. Several sources cited by the Reuters and Bloomberg agencies say that the case is potentially explosive due to positions built up by some hedge funds. York Capital, Och Ziff and Marathon Asset Management are part of a group of investors who may derail an agreement. The funds are hoping to pull the agreement off track and gain a full repayment. But the strategy is risky, the newspaper states. Greece may force the hedge funds, which are dragging their feet in the hope of making fat profits, to agree to the new deal, a European source tells Reuters. The mechanism is not very coherent with the theoretically “voluntary” nature of PSI.

The year 2012 will be a hard one for non-financial sector businesses of the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), according to a study published on 12 January by Moody’s Investors Service. The agency explains that its predictions are largely due to the European debt crisis, the weakness of the macroeconomic context, a downturn in consumer confidence and a degration of financing conditions.“This year, we are expecting far more ratings downgrades than upgrades, both for investment grade category and speculative grade category businesses,” says Jean-Michel Carayon, senior vice president in the Credit Policy group, and co-author of the study. “This trend is part of an ongoing degradation observed in late 2011: in the first three quarters, ratings upgrades outnumbered downgrades by 2:1, but in fourth quarter, there were nine times more downgrades than upgrades.”The turbulence on financial markets, efforts to clean up public finances and reduction in debt in the banking sector would continue to slow growth in 2012, Moody’s predicts. The ratings agency predictions include a high level of uncertainty, particularly for the euro zone, about the risk of significant downgrades which might affect the credit quality of businesses.Moody’s points out that issuers in the speculative category have significant financing needs, and their liquidity profile, currently solid, will give them only short-term flexibility. Restricted access to credit markets over a longer term may put the ability of many busineses in the speculative category to retain their liquidity profile to the test, which would be enough to call their rating into question. In regard to the current macroeconomic scenarios, Moody’s predicts a slight increase in default rates in 2012 in the speculative category from its low level of under 3% in 2011. In the case of a more pessimistic macroeconomic scenario and recession in the euro zone, the default rate might rise to the high end of the single-digit range.Public issuers and businesses whose activities are geographically concentrated in economically poorly-performing countries are more exposed to negative sources of tension in difficult economic conjuncture. According to Moody’s austerity measures are more directly damaging to companies whose earnings depend strongly on public spending.

As of the end of December, assets in individual pension funds in Spain totalled EUR49.14bn, according to VDOS, relayed by Funds People. It fell by EUR1.495bn in 2011, due to a negative market effect of EUR1.1bn, and net outflows of EUR844m.

BlackRock a finalisé un accord avec Claymore Investments pour le rachat de ses activités canadiennes. Basée à Toronto, Claymore Canada est une filiale de Guggenheim Funds Services Group. Le rachat permettra à BlackRock de renforcer sa présence au Canada et d'étoffer la gamme iShares d’ETF complémentaires, précise un communiqué. Au 31 décembre 2011, BlackRock proposait sur le marché canadien une gamme de 48 ETF sous la marque iShares, totalisant 29 milliards de dollars canadiens. Claymore Canada compte 34 ETF dans sa gamme et deux fonds fermés, pour un total de 7 milliards de dollars canadiens.

Les actifs sous gestion de Pictet & Cie s’élevaient fin septembre à 365 milliards de francs, a indiqué le 12 janvier Nicolas Pictet, l’associé de la banque genevoise éponyme et président de l’Association des banquiers privés suisses, rapporte L’Agefi suisse. La collecte nette a progressé de 4% entre janvier et fin septembre 2011, ce qui n’a cependant pas empêché un recul de 17 milliards en six mois des avoirs gérés qui s’inscrivaient à 382 milliards de francs fin mars.«Cette évolution s’explique uniquement par les effets de marché et de change», a précisé Nicolas Pictet. Sur l’année écoulée, le groupe a recruté 90 nouveaux collaborateurs, dont une majorité est active en Suisse et dans tous les domaines de la banque. Pictet & Cie compte actuellement plus de 3100 collaborateurs, dont 2000 environ en Suisse.

Beaucoup d’entreprises pourraient devoir, dans les prochains mois, recapitaliser leurs fonds de retraite, rapporte L’Agefi qui reprend les conclusions du cabinet d’analyse financière AlphaValue. Outre la baisse des marchés, qui pèse sur la valeur des actifs détenus dans les fonds, la faiblesse actuelle des taux sans risque tire en effet les taux actuariels vers le bas, d’où une remontée des engagements de retraite. Le déficit de pension des 460 entreprises européennes suivies par AlphaValue s'élevait, fin 2010, à un peu moins de 300 milliards d’euros. En ajustant à la baisse le taux actuariel, pour mieux refléter la réalité, ces entreprises pourraient avoir à provisionner 180 milliards d’euros supplémentaires, note le quotidien.

Les investisseurs européens ont investi 750 millions d’euros dans des fonds obligataires libellés en dollars et 12,5 milliards dans des fonds monétaires en dollars en novembre 2011, selon les dernières statistiques de Lipper. Dans le même temps, ils sortaient des fonds obligataires en euros, à hauteur de 10,8 milliards d’euros. En novembre, les fonds fixed income commercialisés en Europe ont vu sortir 13,6 milliards d’euros. Pour la première fois depuis avril, ils ont fait moins bien que les fonds actions, qui ont accusé des rachats nets de 10,5 milliards d’euros. Au total, les fonds européens ont subi en novembre des retraits de 9 milliards d’euros, ce qui est le meilleur résultat depuis six mois grâce à 18,3 milliards d’euros de souscriptions dans les fonds monétaires.Concernant les sociétés de gestion, Standard Life a affiché les plus fortes souscriptions nettes en novembre avec 1,1 milliard d’euros, devant Prudential/M&G (680 millions d’euros). Les deux groupes ont enregistré des rentrées sur leurs fonds obligataires, actions et diversifiés.Sur l’ensemble de 2011, les fonds commercialisés en Europe devraient afficher des rachats nets de 45 milliards d’euros, hors fonds monétaires, anticipe Lipper. Un résultat qui masque deux semestres très différents : des souscriptions nettes de 96 milliards d’euros sur le premier et des rachats d’environ 140 milliards sur le second. L’année aura été marquée par l’ampleur des souscriptions dans les fonds obligataires, dominées par Franklin Templeton, et aussi par les souscriptions pour les fonds obligataires mondiaux et notamment ceux de Morgan Stanley et M&G.

La filiale de gestion de la banque privée hambourgeoise M.M. Warburg, Warburg Invest indique avoir recruté en octobre Matthias Mansel comme directeur de la gestion des fonds actions. L’intéressé était auparavant membre du comité directeur de LBBW Asset Management, chargé de la gestion du risque.D’autre part, Warburg Invest a embauché en juin Christoph Gebert comme gérant de fonds senior pour le secteur des petites et moyennes entreprises allemandes. Il était auparavant directeur et gérant de portefeuille senior chez Oppenheim ACA, une boutique d’investissement spécialiste des PME.

Marck Bickford-Smith quitte T. Rowe Price International pour devenir d’ici à la fin du mois co-directeur des investissement (joint-CIO) de Charlemagne Capital, rapporte Money Marketing. L’intéressé, qui a passé la période 1988-1995 en Asie pour Robert Fleming puis Jardine Fleming, est rentré à Londres pour travailler chez T. Rowe Price. Il sera la doublure de Julian Mayo, le CIO.L’encours de Charlemagne au 3 janvier ressortait à 2,33 milliards de dollars sur cinq lignes de produits.

TPG, société américaine de private equity, serait disposée selon Reuters à investir environ un milliard de dollars dans le groupe japonais d'électronique en quête de fonds afin de soutenir le projet d’un partenaire industriel, rapporte L’Agefi.

Selon L’Agefi, Dexia va lancer la semaine prochaine le processus de vente de son pôle de gestion d’actifs, Dexia AM. Il a mandaté Barclays à cet effet, après avoir reçu une trentaine de marques d’intérêt.