Lazard Frères Gestion a annoncé, mardi 13 juillet, le renforcement de son équipe de banquiers privés avec l’arrivée de Rémi Chleq, en qualité de banquier privé senior. Le nouveau promu vient renforcer l'équipe de développement de la gestion privée dirigée par Sophie de Nadaillac, associée-gérant de Lazard Frères Gestion.Âgé de 40 ans, Rémi Chleq était responsable d’une équipe de banquiers privés de 5 personnes depuis mars 2007 pour la banque Credit Suisse.
Dexia a porté plainte mercredi 13 juillet contre Deutsche Bank pour récupérer des pertes liées à 1 milliard de dollars de titres américains adossés à des prêts hypothécaires (« subprimes »), rapporte Les Echos. L'établissement franco-belge accuse Deutsche Bank de ne pas lui avoir fourni des informations correctes lorsqu’elle lui a vendu ces produits. Selon Dexia, « l’action en justice vise à récupérer les pertes sur les titres d’une valeur de plus de 1 milliard de dollars, adossés à des prêts hypothécaires que la banque a achetés à Deutsche Bank ».De son côté, précise le quotidien, la banque allemande estime la plainte «injustifiée».
Allianz Global Investors a annoncé, mercredi 13 juillet, la nomination, à compter du 1er juillet, d’Andreas Hilka en tant que managing director, responsable des retraites pour l’Europe. L’intéressé occupe un poste nouvellement créé, qui lui permet d’assurer le développement et la mise en oeuvre d’une stratégie centrée sur les solutions et plans de retraite en Europe. Il rapportera à Elizabeth Corley, CEO d’Allianz Global Investors pour la région Europe.Agé de 43 ans, Andreas Hilka travaillait auparavant au sein du groupe Credit Suisse à Francfort en qualité de responsable des solutions multi-asset pour l’Autriche, l’Allemagne, le Luxembourg et la Pologne, et de responsable Europe/Moyen Orient/Afrique des solutions pour la retraite.
Après l’accord de la majorité des actionnaires de NYSE Euronext obtenu jeudi dernier, ce sont les actionnaires de Deutsche Börse qui ont apporté plus de 80% de leurs actions pour la fusion avec NYSE Euronext, dépassant ainsi le seuil requis de 75% du capital, au terme d’une offre arrivée à échéance mercredi minuit.La fusion doit encore obtenir l’approbation des autorités de la concurrence car le nouvel ensemble se retrouvera en position quasi monopolistique sur certains segments d’activité comme le marché des dérivés en Europe.
Louis Vuitton n’abaisse pas ses prix. Mais le pendant à Wall Street de cette marque de luxe, Bain Capital, a commencé à faire des soldes pour placer son nouveau fonds de capital investissement de 2 milliards de dollars focalisé sur l’Asie, rapporte The Wall Street Journal.Jusqu'à présent Bain pratiquait une commission de gestion de 2 % et une commission de surperformance de 30 %, alors que ses concurrents appliquaient une formule 1,5%/20 %. A présent, il propose soit 2%/20%, soit 1%/30%.Selon les investisseurs, cette ristourne provient du fait que les derniers fonds de Bain ont généré des performances finalement comparables à celles de la concurrence, ce qui rend difficile de pratiquer des tarifs plus élevés.
La Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung rapporte qu’un troisième candidat vient de se déclarer dans la course pour être le premier à lancer un ETF sur des obligations chinoises en yuans : Invesco PowerShares vient de déposer une demande d’agrément auprès de la SEC pour le PowerShares Asia Pacific Bond Portfolio, quelques jours après Wisdom Tree. Exchange Traded Spreads avait présenté un dossier similaire dès mai pour le ETF Offshore RMB Bond Fund.
Pour le deuxième trimestre, JPMorgan Chase affiche un bénéfice net de 5,43 milliards de dollars contre 5,55 milliards pour janvier-mars et 4,79 milliards pour la période correspondante de l’an dernier.Le bénéfice net de la gestion d’actifs a fléchi à 439 millions de dollars contre 466 millions pour le premier trimestre, mais il est en hausse de 12 % sur les 391 millions d’avril-juin 2010.Au 30 juin, les encours ressortaient à 1.300 milliards de dollars, soit 181 milliards de plus qu’un an auparavant.JPMorgan précise que les rentrées nettes du deuxième trimestre 2011 ont porté sur 3 milliards de dollars et qu’elles ont atteint 57 milliards de dollars pour les douze mois à fin juin. En ce qui concerne le trimestre sous revue, les souscriptions nettes des produits de long terme ont porté sur 19 milliards de dollars, mais les produits monétaires ont subi des sorties nettes de 16 milliards.
L’américain indexIQ a annoncé le 13 juillet le lancement sur la plate-forme NYSE-Arca de ce qu’il affirme être le premier ETF consacré aux moyennes capitalisations des pays émergents, le IQ Emerging Markets Mid Cap ETF (EMER) qui réplique le IQ Emerging Markets Mid Cap Index (IQMDEMG). Le taux de frais sur encours est fixé à 0,75 %.
Au 13 juillet, Pictet Asset Management a lancé six fonds indiciels «géographiques» de droit luxembourgeois (partie 1) chacun comportant six classes de parts et avec deux méthodes antidilution (soit spread, soit swing). Auparavant, le gestionnaire helvétique avait déjà huit fonds dans cette famille ; l'équipe gère 32 milliards de dollars dans ces fonds et sous forme de mandats (à fin mai) Il existe des parts institutionnelles (souscription minimale : 1 million de dollars) et des parts retail.Les nouveaux produits Pictet LatAm Index, BRIC Index, Brazil index, Russia Index, India Index et China Index, répliquent au plus près, en physique, les indices MSCI des pays ou zones correspondants. Les TFE des différentes classes de parts sont échelonnés entre 0,45 % et 1,05 %.
Fabio Ferra et Karsten-Dirk Steffens, business development directors, vont diriger de Zurich la nouvelle représentation d’Aviva Investors dans la Confédération. Le premier était senior sales director, le second head of client service chez Axa Investment Managers pour la Suisse. Ils sont subordonnés à Gabriele Miodini head of financial institutions, Europe. Leur mission est de développer un réseau de distribution en Suisse.
Chequers Capital, ex-filiale de Charterhouse, vient de boucler son fonds XVI en trois mois, note L’Agefi. Le nouveau véhicule, qui investira comme le précédent dans des opérations de rachats à effet de levier pour des entreprises françaises dont la valeur n’excède pas 300 millions, a réuni 850 millions d’euros. Depuis 1993, la société revendique un taux de rendement interne (TRI) brut annuel de 40% environ.
Les Echos qui reprend le dernier classement réalisé par Scorpio Partnership rapporte que Bank of America confirme sa première banque privée dans le monde en termes d’actifs sous gestion (1.944 milliards de dollars) devant Morgan Stanley (1.628 milliards) puis le suisse UBS (1.560 milliards) et Wells Fargo. Avec 340 milliards de dollars d’actifs sous gestion, la première banque française, BNP Paribas, se place en neuvième position, après avoir gagné deux places grâce à la consolidation du belge Fortis. Au global, les actifs sous gestion ont progressé de 11,12 % en 2010. Les petites structures font légèrement mieux que les grandes, avec une croissance des actifs sous gestion de 12,4 % contre 10 %. Reste que le marché est toujours largement concentré, note le quotidien, les vingt principales banques privées dans le monde concentrant 81,6 % des actifs confiés aux équipes de gestion de fortune en 2010 (contre 77,1 % en 2009).
Citywire reports that the Brazilian management boutique Victoire Brasil Investimientos, founded in 2004 by former Citigroup managers, in February launched its first UCITS-compliant fund, Victoire Brasil Select, with a concentrated portfolio of 15-20 positions, of which 38% are large caps. The fund is managed by André Caminada and Werner Roger.
Les Echos relays the most recent rankings by Scorpio Partnership, which find that Bank of America retains its position as the largest private bank in the world in terms of assets under management (USD1.944trn), followed by Morgan Stanley (USD1.628trn), and then the Swiss bank UBS (USD1.560trn), and Wells Fargo. With USD340bn in assets under management, the largest French bank, BNP Paribas, ranks ninth, having gained two places due to the consolidation of the Belgian bank Fortis.Overall, assets under management rose 11.12% in 2010. Smaller structures have done slightly better than large ones, with growth in assets under management of 12.4%, compared with 10%. The market remains highly concentrated, with the 20 largest private banks in the world accounting for 81.6% of assets entrusted to wealth management teams in 2010 (compared with 77.1% in 2009).
German power supplier RWE has sold a 74.9% stake in Amprion GmbH to a consortium of institutional investors and electricity distributors, including MEAG, the asset manager for Munich Re and Ergo (EUR202bn). The sale price has not been disclosed. MEAG, which is diversifying its portfolio, stated on 14 July that the consortium has entrusted management of the participation to a fund launched and managed by Commerz Real. For its part, RWE will retain the remaining 25.1% stake in Amprion, a firm which operates high tension electricity transport networks.
The family office for the heirs to Harald Quandt, which also manages the wealth of other families, Auda International (USD4.5bn in private equity), has recruited Ferdinand von Sydow as managing director, from mid-September, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Von Sydow will be in charge of developing the institutional client base. He is currently one of the directors of the real estate asset management firm IVG International Funds (EUR12.5bn).
As announced in late June (see Newsmanagers of 28/06/2011), HSBC ETFs has launched three ETFs on NYSE-Euronext in Paris: HSBC MSCI EM Latin America, HSBC MSCI Canada, and HSBC South Africa.As of the end of last month, NYSE Euronext listed 565 ETFs from 17 issuers 656 times. This year, there have been 115 new listings, of which 26 are cross listings. Activity represents an average of 8,575 daily trades, a 7.4% decline compared with June 2010, but a 7.07% increase compared with the month of May, when there were an average of 8,009 transactions (see Newsmanagers of 09/06/2011). That represents a total of EUR409.8m, up 2.5% compared with June 2010.These ETFs as a whole cover more than 360 indices, composed of a wide range of assets (equities, bonds, commodities, etc), and represent global assets of EUR142.5bn, up 22.1% since June 2010 (EUR116.7bn).
By the end of 2015, assets under management in United States ETFs are expected to double, to USD2trn, largely due to the emergence of products focused on new asset classes and new indices, with new methods for using ETFs as portfolio construction tools.These are the findings of a study by BNY Mellon Asset Servicing and Strategic Insight, entitled “ETFs 2.0: The Next Wave of Growth and Opportunity in the U.S. ETF Market,” which finds that the proportion of ETF funds replicating traditional indices will fall, while non-traditional and alternative funds will account for a larger slice of the pie. Loren Fox, senior research analyst at Strategic Insight, says the varieties of non-traditional ETFs that will be likely to increase their market share will be those based on commodities strategies, inverse funds, leveraged funds, actively-managed ETFs, and ETFs that are similar to hedge funds.
For second quarter, SEB on 14 July declared a net profit of SEK3.37bn, compared with SEK2.62bn in January-March, and SEK2bn in April-June 2010. In first half, profits total SEK5.99bn, compared with SEK2.69bn.For wealth management, operating profits totalled SEK309m in April-June, compared with SEK405m in first quarter, and SEK380m in the corresponding period of last year. The cost/income ratio has deteriorated to 71%, compared with 65% and 66%, respectively.Assets as of the end of June totalled SEK1.298trn, of which 42% are in the form of investment funds, compared with SEK1.303trn as of the end of March, and SEK1.258trn one year previously.Net subscriptions in second quarter totalled SEK7bn for institutional clients, and SEK5.5bn for private banking, compared with SEK9.5bn and SEK5.1bn in January-March. In second quarter 2010, subscriptions totalled SEK5.8bn and SEK3bnm, respectively.
Anthony Bolton has announced that his Fidelity China Special Situations Fund has seen losses due to the fact that two Chinese firms listed in the United States (including China Integrated Companies) in which he had invested have been charged with fraud, Money Marketing reports. The manager says that with his team, he will now dedicate more time to due diligence, having underestimated the risks related to investments in China. Several positions have been liquidated at a loss, including those corresponding to the two companies incriminated in the fraud.
Three major US asset management firms have nearly simultaneously announced their asset volumes as of the end of June. In all three cases, assets are down compared with the end of May. At Franklin Resources, the total is USD734.2bn, compared with USD735.8bn, while at Legg Mason assets are down to USD662.5bn from USD670bn, and at Invesco they are now USD653.7bn, compared with USD661.4bn.By comparison, as of 31 December 2010, assets under management at Franklin resources totalled USD670.7bn. At Legg Mason, they were USD671.8bn, and at Invesco, they were USD616bn.
Bruno Zaraya, head of retail distribution at Métropole Gestion, will no longer be a part of the company after his holiday leave is completed, which confirms what the H24 website had reported.Zaraya, who spent one year at Métropole Gestion after serving as director of sales at Sal. Oppenheim since December 2008, and previous to that, head of partnerships and key accounts for France at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (2003-2008), is leaving the business to undertake an entrepreneurial project. The firm led by François Marie Wocjik, for its part, is currently recruiting a replacement for Zaraya.
In the past, when private equity investors needed money to make a major acquisition, they teamed up with rivals. Now, they appear to have found another source of financing: their investors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The British firm Apax Partners has signed an agreement with the affiliates of two major pension funds, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board of Canada, to acquire Kinetic Concepts Inc., a hospital wound-care and hospital bed provider, for USD6.3bn, including debt. The offer at USD68.40 per share represents a 17% premium over the shares’ last closing price before the operation was announced.
The real estate portfolio management firm Viveris REIM on Wednesday, 13 July announced that it is founding a charity for engagement in responsible investment, which will soon be followed by the creation of an environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment reference which will be included into the firm’s process of acquiring and managing properties. “Reflections on the definition of sustainable development principles for the business as a whole and the management of its real estate assets were begun in 2010 with EthiFinance, an independent extra-financial ratings agency. The charter defines the philosophy which guides Viveris REIM, and the firm’s major commitments to its partners (shareholders, employees, providers, civil society) in responsible investment and management of real estate properties,” a statement says. Viveris REIM has also signed to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
In second quarter, JPMorgan Chase saw net profits of USD5.43bn, compared with USD5.55bn in January-March, and USD4.79bn in the corresponding period of last year.Net profits in asset management were down to USD439m, compared with USD466m for first quarter, but are up 12% compared with USD391m in April-June 2010.As of 30 June, assets totalled USD1.3trn, USD181bn higher than one year previously.JPMorgan states that net inflows in second quarter 2011 totalled USD3bn, and that they totalled USD57bn in the twelve months to the end of June. In the quarter under review, net subscriptions to long-term products totalled USD19bn, but money market products saw net outflows of USD16bn.
Louis Vuitton may not be lowering its prices, but the Wall Street version of the luxury retailer, Bain Capital, has begun putting up the sale posters for its new USD2bn capital investment fund focused on Asia, the Wall Street Journal reports.Bain had previously charged a management commission of 2% and a performance commission of 30%, while its rivals charged 1.5% and 20%. Now, Bain is offering either 2%/20%, or 1%/30%.Investors say the discounts are due to the fact that the most recent Bain funds generated returns that were ultimately comparable to those of its competitors, which makes it more difficult to charge higher fees.
Lazard Frères Gestion on Tuesday, 13 July announced that it has added to its private banking team with the arrival of Rémi Chleq as a senior private banker. The new recruit will join the private management development team led by Sophie de Nadaillac, managing partner at Lazard Frères Gestion.Chleq, 40, had been head of a team of 5 private bankers at Credit Suisse since March 2007.
State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) announced on Wednesday, 13 July that it has added to its treasury team with the appointments of Kevin Thomson and Adam Sadiq. Both will become regional directors of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The two will be based in London, and will report to Jennifer Hole, head of EMEA treasury activities at SSgA, and will be responsible for distribution of liquidity products throughout the EMEA region. Previously, Thompson was head of business development at ICD, a website provider, where he was in charge of developing activities outside North America. Sadiq served as head of development for treasury and short-term fixed income activities at Western Asset Management Company.
As Andrew Doman is becoming chairman of the board at Russell Investments, he will be replaced as president & CEO of Russell Investments by Len Brennan, who will retain his position as CEO for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, to which he was appointed on 11 July (see Newsmanagers of 7 July). Ed Zore, who had been chairman since 2008, will remain on the board as an administrator. Brennan is a company man, having spent most of his career at Russell since 1985. He spent a six-year stint at Rainier Investment Management, founded by three former Russell employees in 2005, and served there are president and CEO, before returning to the fold.
The European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) on Thursday, 14 July published a consultation document (ESMA/2011/209) laying out its detailed proposals for the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). The move comes in response to a request for assistance from the European Commission to the European authority which preceded the ESMA, the CESR, in December 2010.The ESMA will submit a final recommendation to the Commission on 16 November 2011. Participants will have two months to submit responses to the ESMA. In the light of responses received by 13 September, the ESMA will finalise its proposals and submit them to the Commission by the deadline stated above.