In total, assets at Franklin Resources, AllianceBernstein, Invesco and Legg Mason fell by USD53.4bn in November 2011.Franklin was the hardest-hit in volume, with a contraction of USD18.3bn, putting it at USd675.8bn as of 30 November. Invesco saw a decline in its assets under management of USD13.3bn in one month, to USD622.4bn, while AllianceBernstein’s AUM decreased by USD13bn, to USD411bn. Legg Mason’s assets under management have fallen by USD8.8bn to USD620.6bn.

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has announced the recruitment of Michael Ho as chief investment officer for the Active Emerging Markets Equities and Global Macro divisions. Ho will be based in Boston, and joins SSgA from Mellon Capital Management, where as chief investment officer he had been responsible for about USD220bn in assets under management, a statement says.

Dexia Asset Management has appointed Cécile de Lasteyrie as head of SRI development, from December 2011. She will now serve as the ambassador for all socially responsible investment (SRI) expertise at Dexia AM, and will contribute to SRI strategy for the firm, in close collaboration with Isabelle Cabie, Global Head of SRI, and her team of SRI analysts, a statement dated 13 December announces. De Lasteyrie joined Dexia AM in 2005 as head of the consultant relations and request for proposals unit, and then became director of marketing and communication. In 2008, she was appointed director of sales for France. For the past two years, she has been head of the Client Development department. Since her arrival at Dexia AM, de Lasteyrie has worked on several SRI contracts for institutional clients in the various roles she has occupied. As director of marketing and communication, she also worked to position Dexia AM as a pioneer in sustainable and responsible investments.

The pension fund for That public employees, with assets under management of about USD13bn, is planning to increase its exposure to international markets to 35%, up from 19% currently, Asian Investor reports. With this in mind, the fund will ask the government to increase the 25% allowed limit, which it expects to reach in the next 24 months. Further allocations to international assets are expected to be invested in alternative, real estate and infrastructure strategies, among others.

The Luxembourg-registered, UCITS-compliant international equity fund AXA World Fund Framlington Natural Resources, from Axa Investment Managers, has received a sales license for Germany.The product, with 70-90 positions (see Newsmanagers of 7 December) is managed by Sébastien Lagarde, senior portfolio manager, and Olivier Eugène, portfolio manager, who are also responsible for the AWF Framlington Hybrid Resources and AWF Framlington Junior Energy funds.

Deka Immobilien has acquired an office property under construction for an undisclosed amount from HDH Büro GmbH & Co KG. The 24,000 square metre property located in the City-Süd district of Hamburg will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended retail fund WestInvest ImmoValue, a product reserved for institutional investors.

In order to buy more time to invest the amounts committed by investors in the real estate private equity fund MSREF VII, Morgan Stanley has agreed to lower both its fee on investments and its management commission. The firm has also agreed to reimburse about USD700m to subscribers, who include the sovereign funds GIC (Singapore) CIC (China, which had invested USD800m), and the Canada Pension Plan, the Wall Street Journal reports.The size of the fund has been reduced from USD4.7bn to USD4bn, of which only USD2.5bn are already invested. In exchange, a majority of more than two thirds of subscribers have agreed to a 12-month delay to the deadline from which Morgan Stanley would be required to reimburse all the money if assets are not wholly invested, to the end of June 2013. Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds is reported to have initially sought an 18-month extension.

The California pension fund CalPERS on 13 December announced that it has made gains of about USD695m on its investments in the GI Partners Fund I, a fund launched ten years ago, which has recently been closed. CalPERS had invested USD500m in the fund in 2001, in assets related to IT. The investment has generated annualised net returns of 31%, CalPERS says in a statement. CalPERS remains engaged with GI Partners, which invests primarily in North America and Western Europe. The Californian pension fund has invested USD500m in the GI Partners Fund II, and USD500m in the GI Partners Fund III. GI Partners manages over USD2bn in assets from the real estate portfolio of CalPERS CalEast.

Tim Love and Joachim Nogueira, who had managed a long/short equity portfolio focused on emerging markets at CQS, have joined GAM In London, as investment director and investment manager, respectively.The two men will be in charge of the management of a long-only, actively managed fund which will also be specialised in emerging markets, which GAM is planning to launch in first quarter 2012.Love, who will be the hierarchical superior of Nogueira, will himself report to David M. Solo, group CEO.

AXA Investment Managers has announced that Nick Hayes, senior portfolio manager, AXA Investment Managers is now responsible for the management of the AXA Sterling Corporate Bond Fund. He has taken over the management of the fund from Theodora Zemek, global head of fixed income and a member of the AXA IM management board. Nick Hayes has managed the AXA Sterling Strategic Bond Fund since he joined AXA IM in June 2010. Theodora Zemek was last year appointed as a member of AXA IM’s management board. As global head of fixed income she is responsible for the management of the fixed income expertise, with a team of over 80 investment professionals who manage over EUR273bn in assets globally. The changes were effective from 1 December 2011.

Threadneedle Investments has announced in a statement that its Asia-Pacific specialist manager Gigi Chan will now be based in Singapore rather than London, in order to support a local presence and the growth of the British asset management firm in that region of the world. Chan is the first manager at Threadneedle to be transferred to Asia, but others are expected to join her, in order to create a local team, the asset management firm says.

Martin Gilbert, CEO of Aberdeen Asset Management, has sold 148,456 ordinary shares (all the shares he received in 2008 through a long-term incentive plan), and 1,236,956 ordinary shares in the firm. The two transactions were completed on 6 December, at a price of 212 pence per share, which comes to a total of GBP2.93m. Following the transactions, Gilbert retains 0.62% of capital in the firm. Other Aberdeen executives have also sold shares, including Hugh Young.

The British firm First State Investments has recruited two managers as additions to the team dedicated to international equities, Fundweb reports. Julie Thomas will concentrate on financial sector shares, while Ben Yeoh will specialise in the health sector. Thomas had previously worked at Oriel Securities, Threadneedle AM, ADIA and Morley AM. Yeoh had previously worked at Atlantic Securities.

British pension fund professionals are paying close attention to risk management, in an effort to confront market volatility, according to an annual survey by Baring Asset Management (Barings). Nearly 100% of professionals surveyed place risk management at the top of the list of their concerns when awarding a management mandate. In order to limit the effects of increased market volatility, one third of professionals have increased levels of risk/return analysis. 48% of respondents, meanwhile, say they are working on improved diversification of portfolios, while 26% give the priority to multi-asset class products. Multi-asset class products now represent 18% of portfolios, compared with only 3% last year. Meanwhile, exposure to equities has been lowered to 46%, from 55% previously, whlie exposure to bonds has increased to 26%. In the next two quarters, nearly 90% of professionals surveyed estimate that the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will be the largest macroeconomic challenge for investors, putting it ahead of excessive debt in the United States (48%), the potential for a bubble in China (31%) and high inflation in the United Kingdom (14%).

The Luxembourg-based asset management firm Gamax Management has signed a distribution agreement with the insurer Legal & General International, by the terms of which Gamax funds will be available to British clients of the insurer, Investment Europe reports. This is the first entry into the British market for Gamax, which has been a part of the Italian financial services group Mediolanum since 2001. Assets under management at Gamax total about EUR500m. Funds are managed by the Munich-based firm DJE Kapital AG.

The Italian online fund supermarket Fundstore, in which Banca Ifigest is the largest shareholder, has announced the arrival of a new client manager, Valentina Zappa, Bluerating reports. She will handle commercial development of a platform owned by Banca Ifigest, which handles placement of funds to retail investors and management of commercial relations with asset management firms and foreign-registered funds.

The Abu Dhabi sovereign fund ADIA (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) is planning to acquire a 9.9% stake in the utility company Kemble Water Limited, the holding company for the Thames Water group, the SWF Institute reports. ADIA will buy the stake from a consortium of investors led by Macquarie.

Pioneer Investments has launched Pioneer Funds – Multi Asset Real Return, a flexible and global, multi asset classes fund. The Luxembourg based fund is a mirror of a US domiciled fund launched in May 2010. It will be managed by the same team as the US product which is led by Michele Garau as lead portfolio manager, together with Kenneth Taubes, head of investment management US, and Howard Weiss, associate portfolio manager"The portfolio management team select the optimal mix of assets for portfolio inclusion, based on their evaluation of economic growth and inflation levels. The fund is not constrained by single asset classes to hedge inflation, but can gain exposure to a broad spectrum of traditional financial securities and real assets through closed end funds. The portfolio management team can rapidly position the fund for changing market environments, significantly and substantially exploiting the most attractively valued assets and sectors opportunistically. The fund’s “go- anywhere” approach provides a more diversified, inflation-hedge complément», explains Pioneer. «We believe that the flexible, dynamic approach to asset allocation we use in this fund offers an advantage over a more limited inflation hedging strategy focused largely on TIPS,» adds Kenneth J. Taubes.

According to his most recent report, the court-appointed trustee in charge of gaining compensation for victims of the fraudster Bernard Madoff, has collected USD8.69bn, half of the estimated direct losses to victims, not counting the billions of dollars in losses for financial institutions and feeder funds. But he has paid out only USD325m, to 1,232 investors who lost money. This is a drop of water in the ocean compared with the gigantic USD64.8bn Pinzo scheme exposed in December 2008, based on client accounts. Reimbursement is subject to a web of appeals, and to laborious clarification of the chain of responsibility.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which brings together the shared interests of hundreds of securities firms, banks and asset managers, has released a white paper addressing high-frequency trading (HFT).The paper notes the lack of a clear definition for high-frequency trading, but seeks to address the concerns being raised by members of the public and other market participants regarding HFT. It discusses current regulatory efforts to strengthen market structure, areas where regulators should conduct further study and possibly address through regulatory action, and regulatory proposals that SIFMA believes should not be pursued. The professional association also says it opposes the introduction of new taxes on financial transactions, and is opposed to a wholesale ban on high-frequency trading or other forms of computer-based trading.The white paper can be found at the following link: http://www.sifma.org/issues/item.aspx?id=8589936694

According to statistics from BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research, in October hedge funds saw net redemptions of USD9bn, more than triple the USD2.59bn in outflows in September.Assets as of 31 October were down to USD1.66trn, from USD1.73trn as of 30 September.The largest losses in assets under management by percentage were from macro funds (-1.6%, or USD1.8bn), and long/short equity funds (-1.5%, or USD2.6bn). The only strategies in positive territory were equity long bias, with net inflows of USD600m, and merger arbitrage, with USD200m, 0.6% and 1% of assets, respectively.

Neptune Investment Management plans to launch the Neptune China Max Alpha Fund on 15th December 2011. The new fund has an investment objective of generating capital growth from a concentrated portfolio of between 20-30 securities issued by Chinese companies, or in those issued by companies transacting a significant proportion of their business in China. It will be joint-managed by Robin Geffen, Douglas Turnbull and Adam Kelly. This team-based approach will see each member leveraging Neptune’s global sector research to contribute their top 8-10 Chinese stockpicks, regardless of the stock’s market capitalisation, to construct a highly concentrated portfolio of best ideas. The new Chinese equity product is launched as an extension to Neptune’s existing Max Alpha fund range, which already offers investors access to the Global, European, North American and Japanese markets.

Groupama a réalisé 400 millions d’euros de plus-values sur des cessions d’OAT, cédé un portefeuille de 500 millions d’euros d’actions (parfois en moins-values) et, selon Le Monde, réalisé 250 millions de plus-values immobilières. La solution d’un rapprochement avec Covéa «n’est pas retenue à ce stade, puisque le schéma avec la CDC exclut une prise de contrôle de fait de Groupama», confie à l’Agefi, un proche du dossier.

Par sa nouvelle offre de gestion conseillée, SwissLife Banque Privée, filiale commune des groupes Swiss Life & Viel & Cie, ambitionne de conquérir une clientèle soucieuse de décider seule de ses investissements, tout en bénéficiant de conseils personnalisés. Cette offre, propose des conseils adaptés au profil de risque retenu par le client.Les recommandations, sur toutes classes d’actifs précisent un objectif de cours, un «stop-loss», un niveau de risque et s’accompagnent d’une préconisation en termes d’allocation d’actifs.Cette prestation est placée sous la responsabilité d’Emmanuel Collard, gérant.

Le groupe familial Gorgé, spécialisé dans la protection des biens et des hommes, dans le domaine du nucléaire notamment, a annoncé le 13 décembre le lancement d’une augmentation de capital privée à hauteur de 10% garantie par le Fonds stratégique d’investissement, rapporte Les Echos. Ce dernier devrait assumer une part prépondérante de l’opération, au minimum 50%, qui devrait rapporter 8 millions d’euros.

Groupama, la Caisse des Dépôts et Icade ont annoncé le 13 décembre un projet d’accord, dans le cadre de négociations exclusives, pour un rapprochement entre Icade et Silic dans le cadre d’une opération d’échange de titres, ainsi que pour la souscription par la Caisse des dépôts de 300 millions d’euros d’actions de préférence émises par GAN Eurocourtage, filiale à 100% de Groupama.Le rapprochement proposé entre Icade et Silic donnerait naissance à la première foncière de parcs tertiaires et de bureaux en France avec un patrimoine de plus de 9 milliards d’euros. Le nouvel ensemble deviendrait un acteur majeur du Grand Paris avec un potentiel de développement important. Il bénéficierait également d’un statut boursier de premier plan et d’une structure financière solide. L’opération serait réalisée selon les étapes suivantes : avant le 31 décembre 2011, par le transfert par Groupama à la Caisse des Dépôts, d’environ 6,5% du capital de Silic en échange d’une participation directe ou indirecte au capital d’Icade d’environ 2,7%. A l’occasion de cette opération, la Caisse des Dépôts apporterait la totalité de sa participation dans Icade à une société holding contrôlée par la Caisse des Dépôts ; dans un second temps, Groupama apporterait le solde de sa participation dans Silic à la holding susvisée. dans un troisième temps, consécutivement à la réalisation de ces apports, Icade déposerait une offre publique d’échange sur le solde du capital de Silic, la société holding s’étant engagée à apporter à l’offre publique la totalité de sa participation de 44% du capital de Silic. L’ensemble de ces différentes étapes, serait réalisé sur la base d’une parité d’échange de 5 actions Icade pour 4 actions Silic, coupons 2011 attachés. Dans ce cadre, Icade envisagerait, après le transfert du bloc de Groupama et réalisation de l’offre, la distribution en 2012 au titre de l’exercice 2011 d’un dividende d’un montant de 3,70 euros par action Icade, une portion de ce dividende pouvant prendre la forme d’un dividende exceptionnel.

Le fonds de pension californien a annoncé le 13 décembre qu’il avait réalisé un gain d’environ 695 millions de dollars sur ses investissements dans le fonds GI Partners Fund I, un fonds lancé il y a dix ans qui vient de fermer.CalPERS avait investi 500 millions de dollars dans ce fonds en 2001, dans des actifs liés aux technologies. L’investissement a généré un rendement net annualisé de 31%, souligne CalPERS dans un communiqué. CalPERS reste engagé auprès de GI Partners, qui investit surtout en Amérique du Nord et en Europe de l’Ouest. Le fonds de pension californien a investi 500 millions dans le GI Partners Fund II et 500 millions de dollars également dans le GI Partners Fund III. GI Partners gère par ailleurs plus de 2 milliards de dollars d’actifs du portefeuille immobilier de CalPERS CalEast.

Afin d’obtenir un délai supplémentaire pour investir les montants promis par les investisseurs du fonds immobilier de private equity MSREF VII, Morgan Stanley a dû accepter d’abaisser à la fois sa commission sur les investissements réalisés et la commission de gestion. De plus, il consent à rembourser environ 700 millions de dollars aux souscripteurs, parmi lesquels figurent les fonds souverains GIC (Singapour), CIC (Chine, qui a investi 800 millions de dollars), et le Canada Pension Plan, rapporte The Wall Street Journal.La taille du fonds a en effet été réduite à 4 milliards de dollars, dont 2,5 milliards seulement sont déjà investis. En échange, les souscripteurs ont accepté à une majorité de plus des deux tiers de reporter de 12 mois, à fin juin 2013, la date limite à partir de laquelle Morgan Stanley serait obligé de rembourser l’intégralité de l’argent si l’encours n'était pas investi en totalité d’ici là. De fait, Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds avait demandé une extension de 18 mois.

Au total, les encours de Franklin Resources, AllianceBernstein, Invesco et Legg Mason ont chuté en novembre 2011 de 53,4 milliards de dollars.Franklin a été le plus touché en volume avec une contraction de 18,3 milliards pour revenir à 675,8 milliards de dollars au 30 novembre. Invesco a vu ses actifs sous gestion baisser de 13,3 milliards sur un mois, à 622,4 milliards pendant qu’AllianceBernstein supportait une chute de 13 milliards, à 411 milliards de dollars. Quant à Legg Mason, ses actifs sous gestion ont diminué de 8,8 milliards à 620,6 milliards.

La dernière étude sur le développement durable de la Banque Sarasin intitulée «Perte de crédit ou tournant vers la durabilité ?» analyse les progrès accomplis par le secteur bancaire. Nordea, Standard Chartered et Toronto-Dominion Bank sortent clairement gagnantes en termes de «durabilité» parmi les plus grandes banques du monde, alors que Credit Suisse et UBS figurent du côté des perdants.Les trois premières nommées se concentrent sur les affaires bancaires grand public et évitent généralement les risques. Leurs mécanismes de contrôle internes sont relativement efficaces et elles obtiennent aussi d’excellentes notes pour ce qui concerne les collaborateurs. Les banques obtenant un résultat supérieur à la moyenne ont également pour point commun d’avoir traversé la crise financière sans grand dommage. La plupart des autres établissements ont obtenu des notes moyennes et ne se différencient pas vraiment les uns des autres.Les deux grandes banques suisses UBS et Credit Suisse ne figurent plus dans l’univers durable, car leur rating de durabilité est tombé au-dessous de la moyenne. Les problèmes persistants de non-respect des procédures d’UBS soulèvent de nombreuses questions concernant les mécanismes d’incitation et les systèmes de contrôle internes.Le service d’analyse de durabilité de Sarasin a d’autre part placé Credit Suisse sous surveillance depuis quelque temps déjà, car son rating était proche des valeurs limites. Cette banque a en effet été confrontée à divers problèmes de conformité ces dernières années. Elle a de plus annoncé la suppression de 2.000 emplois et son intention d’en supprimer d’autres dans le cadre de l’intégration de la Banque Clariden Leu.