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16/02/2010

Nominations chez Lombard Odier

Lombard Odier a annoncé le 15 février plusieurs nominations qui marquent la volonté du groupe de consolider sa présence en France tant dans la gestion institutionnelle que dans la gestion privée.Géraud Dambrine est nommé directeur général, responsable des ventes pour la France auprès des investisseurs institutionnels et des partenaires de distribution. Géraud Dambrine a précédemment travaillé chez Fidelity puis Goldman Sachs Asset Management.Valérie Montel est nommée Responsable de l’ingénierie patrimoniale pour les grands clients privés. Elle a notamment travaillé à la Banque Privée 1818.Alexandre Croisier est nommé banquier privé senior. Il était depuis 2005 banquier privé chez HSBC Private Bank où il assurait le développement et le suivi de grands dirigeants d’entreprise.Coralie Jaxel est nommée banquier privé. Elle était depuis 2004 banquier privé chez HSBC Private Bank.
16/02/2010

Les banques françaises n'en ont pas fini avec les actifs toxiques

Il reste plus de 100 milliards d’euros d’actifs toxiques dans les portefeuilles des banques françaises, rapporte la Tribune. Ils seront gérés jusqu'à leur échéance ou leur liquidation. Dans ce cadre, la Société Générale vient de passer 1,4 milliard d’euros de provisions et s’attend à de nouvelles dépréciations qui pourraient atteindre entre 700 millions et 1,5 milliard d’euros en 2010, selon les analystes de JP Morgan. Le Crédit Agricole conserve encore 13,9 milliards d’euros d’actifs toxiques. Enfin, BNP Paribas a notamment une exposition de 4,6 milliards d’euros à l’immobilier commercial américain qui subit de grosses difficultés. Le risque reste fort dans ce domaine, ajoute le quotidien.
16/02/2010

Santander AM changes strategy

With the appointment of Juan Alcaraz, the former head of Allfunds Bank, as the number two at the private banking and asset management division of Santander, the market will see an evolution of Santander Asset Management towards open architecture, Expansión reports. The new strategy will be to offer equities and bond funds based on markets where the asset management firm has specialists (Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Puerto Rico), and to outsource products covering other regions of the world.
16/02/2010

LaCrosse Global signs partnership with RiskMetrics

The hedge fund administrator LaCrosse Global Fund Services announced just before the weekend that it has signed a partnership agreement with the RiskMetrics group, by which its clients will be allowed to use tools from the data provider for risk reporting and other purposes. LaCrosse says in a statement that the RiskMetrics platform HedgePlatform Community allows hedge funds and funds of funds to offer transparency on the subject of risk without giving details of its positions if it prefers not to do so. “In a secure environment, hedge funds control the granularity level and the statistics which they choose to make available to investors,” says LaCrosse.
16/02/2010

ProShares launches eight leveraged ETFs

The US-based management firm ProShares has announced the launch of four pairs of UltraPro ETFs, with triple leverage, in long (3x) and short (-3x) varieties, based on the broadest market indices of the United States, the Nasdaq 100 (acronym TQQQ), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (UDOW), the S&P MidCap400 (UMDD), and the Russell 2000 (URTY). All of these funds carry management fees of 0.95%.
16/02/2010

Steep decline in the number of vulnerable debt issuers worldwide

According to a recently-published study by Standard & Poor’s, the number of vulnerable debt issuers worldwide has fallen significantly from its peak in April 2009 (300 businesses). As of 8 February, Standard & Poor’s found a total of 213 firms (including 141 in the United States) in this category, which includes issuers rated B- or lower, with a negative orientation to ratings, either because the firm is affected by a negative outlook, or because it is subject to a negative ratings watch. One year previously, the number of vulnerable businesses totaled 265. The cumulative debt of these 213 firms as of the beginning of February totaled USD197.53bn. The ratings agency also points out that from the beginning of the year to 8 February, it has counted 13 defaults by issuers, representing USD5.9bn in debt. For the year 2009 as a whole, it counted 264 issuers in default, with total debt of USD627.7bn. Most of the defaults observed since the beginning of this year have been in the United States (12). Meanwhile, after 19 consecutive months of increase, the default rate on speculative category corporate debt has fallen for the second consecutive month, to 9.22% worldwide in January, compared with 9.23% in December 2009. In the United States, this rate has fallen to 10.89%, from 10.92% in December. However, the default rate increased in Europe,. From 7.5% in December to 8.27% in January of this year. The same trend may be seen in emerging markets, where the default rate is up to 5.94% from 5.91%.
16/02/2010

IASB: Trustees overhaul governance

The trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation, the organisation which oversees the work of the IASB, which establishes international accounting standards, on 15 February announced a series of improvements to its governance principles. The modifications, which are intended to increase responsibility at the IASB, the engagement of participants and operational effectiveness, is part of a revision of the IASC’s Constitution undertaken every five years. The changes approved by the trustees include the introduction of public consultations every three years on the IASB’s technical program, the adoption fo IFRS accounting standards through a convergence process which is not an objective in itself, and an engagement to establish an approach based on principles. The trustees also approved the introduction of a clause allowing urgent procedures, “only in the most exceptional circumstances and only with the approval of at least 79% of the trustees.” This procedure was already used by the IASB in October 2008, when it made rapid and unprecedented revisions to the IAS39 and IFRS 7 standards. The organisation, which represents all entities involved in theoretical and practical work to normalize international accounting standards, will also be revised to provide increased transparency. The IASC Foundation has been renamed as the IFRS Foundation, while the committee in charge of interpretations (IFRIC), and the consulting council, have been renamed, respectively, as IFRS Interpretations Committee and IFRS Advisory Council. The new Constitution will take effect on 1 March 2010. The trustees will soon publish a full and exhaustive report explaining their conclusions.
16/02/2010

Bellevue acquires 10% of Auerbach Grayson

Bellevue Group announced on 12 February that it has acquired a 10% stake in the US brokerage firm Auerbach Grayson & Co. The transaction is estimated at USD2.5m. Bellevue has already been involved in a collaboration with the New York-based firm for three years, which allowed it to breach the American market without needing to set up its own infrastructure, Bellevue points out in a statement. The Auerbach Grayson company, founded in 1993 and led by its two co-founders, Jonathan Auerbach and David Grayson, has a network of nearly 480 analysts throughout the world, covering 127 markets.
16/02/2010

HSBC adds to prime brokerage services

Chris Barrow, previously of Nomura, where he was head of international sales of prime brokerage services, has joined HSBC as global head of sales for the group’s prime services team. Barrow will report directly to Clan Burke, head of HSBC Prime Services; Brian Heyworth, head of sales for the international market division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and to Paul Stillibower, international head of development for activities of HSBC Securities Services.
16/02/2010

T. Rowe Price launches an infrastructure fund

T. Rowe Price has announced the launch of an infrastructure fund, the Global Infrastructure Fund, which offers a long-term strategy based on investment in equities related to the infrastructure sector worldwide, including the United States. The fund will also be available to retail investors. The fund will seek to invest in 60 to 90 businesses of all cap sizes in numerous regions of the world, and expects to be able to offer some protection against inflation by taking positions on firms whose cash flows are inflation-linked. Exposure to emerging markets will be significant, in light of infrastructure needs in these regions. Minimal investment for the fund is USD2,500 for institutionals, and USD1,000 for retail investors. The net expense ratio has been set at 1.10% for institutionals, and 1.20% for retail investors.
16/02/2010

AMF warns investors against Global International Trading

The French regulator AMF issued a statement on February 15 drawing the attention of the public to the activities of Global International Trading, a firm headquartered in Japan. The firm operates by telephone, contacting investors largely resident in France, to offer them shares issued by mining companies which it claims have a high potential for growth. The AMF states that the firm is not licensed “either to operate, or to conduct activities as a provider of investment services, or to receive funds, in France.” However, it has already been the subject of a warning from the Dutch counterpart of the AMF, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). The AMF consequently recommends that investors ignore solicitations from this firm. The AMF has handed over information in its possession about this firm to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
16/02/2010

Single hedge funds have double the asset volumes of funds of hedge funds

According to statistics compiled by Lipper for Funds People, Spanish single hedge funds (FIL) as of the end of December had assets of EUR588m, nearly the same volume as in July 2008, compared with EUR400m in March 2009. However, assets in funds of hedge funds have fallen from EUR1bn in July 2008 to EUR400m as of March 2009, and finished last year with only EUR310m.
16/02/2010

Good results for hedge fund ETF from db x-trackers

For the year since its launch on 31 January 2009, the db x-trackers db Hedge Fund Index ETF (ISIN: LU 032 847 633 7) has generated returns of 7.5%, with volatility of 3.56%. The product with daily liquidity has attracted assets of nearly EUR900m. It is invested in over 40 hedge funds, following a distribution between equity hedge, event driven, systematic macro, credit & convertible and equity market neutral strategies corresponding to that of the HFRX index.
16/02/2010

Warren Buffett becomes largest shareholder in Munich Re

In a statement to the market on Friday, Munich Re announced that Warren E. Buffett had notified it that his stake in the firm’s capital on 4 February passed the 5% threshold. On that date he held 5.073% of capital, via Berkshire Hathaway and its affiliate OBH Inc. On 11 March, the investor known as the “Oracle of Omaha” may also exercise options on nearly 2% of the firm’s capital, which would bring the value of his exposure to the German reinsurer to about EUR1.5bn. The second-largest shareholder in Munich Re is BlackRock, with about 4.6% of capital. Das Investment reports, citing Bloomberg, that Carla Goldenberg, a hedge fund manager at Highbridge (an affiliate of JPMorgan AM), has been invited to lunch with Buffett, apparently without having to pay the USD2m price tag ordinarily associated with such an appointment.
16/02/2010

M&G releases details of “Club Med” portfolio

Concerns about countries on the periphery of the Euro Zone have led M&G Investments to release details of its pan-European funds’ exposure to markets such as Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain. The M&G Pan European fund has 15.9% of its assets invested in these countries, of which 5.9% are in Ireland, 4.4% in Greece, and 5% in Spain, Expansión reports. In Spain, the fund is 1.9% invested in Telefónica and Grifols, and 1.2% invested in Santander. For the M&G European Strategic Value Fund, total exposure to peripheral markets is only 8.5%, of which 4.4% is invested in Italy, and 2.3% in Spain, via Repsol.
16/02/2010

East Capital on the comeback trail

The Swedish asset management firm East Capital, a specialist in Eastern European markets, was not spared when the markets crashed. Its assets fell from a peak of EUR5.7bn at the end of 2007, to EUR1.8bn as of the end of 2008. “This decline was primarily related to a fall in valuations,” says Karine Hirn, CEO and co-founder of East Capital, adding that net redemptions accounted for about 15% of the fall in assets. This situation led to fears at the independent management firm of an operating loss for 2009, and led it to close its Milan office, as well as 45 job cuts worldwide. But in 2009, assets began to climb again, as the markets turned around and net subscriptions of about EUR180m came in, largely from Scandinavian markets. As of the end of 2009, assets totalled EUR3.3bn, and with the combined effect of this and the austerity measures taken, the firm was able to remain profitable in 2009.
16/02/2010

Goldman Sachs recruits for sales teams

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) has recruited four people as additions to its deams dedicated to sales in Europe. Europe. Martijn Hoogendijk and Brittne-Aspen Whitelaw, formerly of BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, respectively, will be in charge of the Benelux region. In Italy, Loredana La Pace, who joins the firm from Allianz Global Investors, and Giancarlo Fonseca, from Alico Wealth Management, have been recruited, Citywire reports.
16/02/2010

Julius Baer plans to create an advisory board

In an interview with Agefi Switzerland, Boris F. J. Collardi, CEO of the Julius Baer group, says the group’s ambition is to be a top performer from an absolute return point of view. With this in mind, “we would like to control the entire value chain: to have the idea, to reflect on the subject, decide now to play it, and to have the research available for the client. This service should be part of the Julius Baer range of offerings, both offshore and onshore throughout the world, while we can also remain focused on what we can do best ourselves, buying in added help from outside this circle when we need it from third parties who do good research, when we consider it a good choice to do so. We are planning to set up an advisory board which will allow us to better apprehend mega-trends, related to cultural, political, environmental, and geographical developments.”
16/02/2010

Man Investments teams up with apano for distribution

The German financial services provider apano and the UK alternative asset manager Man Investments have agreed to extend their strategic partnership in Austria. They will be opening a branch office together in Vienna, with Thomas Steiner as head of distribution. Steiner was previously head of sales at C-Quadrat, before setting up the fund information website foonds.com for Styria Börse. As a part of this partnership, apano will be in charge of monitoring the IFA market and brokerage pools. Retail client assistance will be added to this by the end of the year. The consultant Dirk Herrmann, former head of Fidelity for Austria, will also be involved in setting up the project.
16/02/2010

Former Citigroup trader launches a hedge fund

Andrew Hall, a former energy trader from Citigroup, and now head of Phibro, is raising money for a new hedge fund firm which he has founded, entitled Astenbeck Capital Management, the Financial Times reports. The new entity already has USD1.4bn in assets under management.
16/02/2010

Inflows rebounded in 2009

In 2009, funds on sale in Europe posted total net inflows of EUR190bn, whereas they underwent net redemptions of EUR298bn the previous year, according to the most recent statistics from Lipper FMI. Inflows were driven by equities funds, which attracted EUR112bn, exactly the same amount that flowed out of funds in 2008, Lipper FMI notes. Bond funds were also successful in attracting inflows, with EUR86bn in net inflows, nearly half of which were invested in investment grade corporate bond funds (EUR36bn). This sector was the most dynamic of the year, Lipper FMI observes.
16/02/2010

Crisis eliminates chaff from fund market

According to statistics from Morningstar and Lipper, reported in Handelsblatt, 2009 was the first year when the number of funds launched in Germany and Europe was smaller than the number of funds closed or merged. In Europe, there were 2,262 new funds launched last year, while 2,973 funds were closed, and 1,389 were merged, while these respective totals were 3,787, 2,154 and 1,079 in 2008. In Germany, 591 newly-created funds did not make up for 410 closures and 329 mergers.
16/02/2010

LV=AM appoints a CIO

Piers Hillier has been appointed chief investment officer (CIO) of LV=Asset Management. He was previously head of investment at West LB Mellon Asset Management, Money Marketing reports.
16/02/2010

Certificate market shows recovery in 2009

According to statistics from the Deutscher Derivative Verband, assets in the German certificate market as of the end of December totalled EUR103.2bn, compared with EUR80.5bn at the end of January 2009. This strong rebound thus offset a steep drop from the peak of EUR139bn in September 2007, in the wake of the Lehman Brothers disaster. As of the end of September 2008, the total volume of assets was EUR110bn, while as of the end of December 2008, they totalled EUR80.2bn. The largest category on the certificate market is guaranteed certificates, which represented about EUR70bn as of the end of the year, compared with EUR42bn in January.
15/02/2010
Fonds

iShares, Lyxor et db x-trackers occupent les trois quarts du marché des ETF

A fin janvier, les actifs gérés dans des ETF en Europe avaient diminué de 5,6 milliards de dollars ou de 4 % en un mois pour revenir à 217,9 milliards de dollars, selon BlackRock. On comptait à cette date 896 produits cotés 2.468 fois sur 18 Bourses, 67 nouveaux ETF ayant été lancés durant le premier mois de 2010.Parmi les 34 promoteurs d’ETF, trois se détachent toujours, avec une part de marché totale de 74,4 %. Il s’agit d’iShares (BlackRock), avec 172 produits et 82,5 milliards de dollars d’encours, ce qui équivaut à une part de marché de 37,9 %. Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale) arrive en deuxième position avec 20,1 % de part de marché représentant 127 ETF et 43,8 milliards de dollars. De son côté, db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) affiche 35,8 milliards de dollars d’encours pour 118 ETF et une part de marché de 16,4 %.
Fonds
15/02/2010
Fonds

Partenariat Deutsche Bank-Rakuten sur les ETF

Selon Asian Investor, la Deutsche Bank a conclu un accord de coopération avec Rakuten Securities pour que ce dernier distribue au Japon six ETF db x-trackers cotés à Hong-Kong. Il s’agit des ETF sur le Vietnam, la Chine, l’Inde, la Corée, Taiwan et les Etats-Unis. Au Japon, les ETF négociés aux Etats-Unis sont soumis à un prélèvement à la source sur les dividendes, ce qui n’est pas le cas pour ceux traités à Hong-Kong.
Fonds
15/02/2010

Custody : HSBC marque des points à Singapour

Selon Asian Investor, Schroders Singapore a sélectionné HSBC Securities Services comme le seul fournisseur de services de conservation et d’administration de fonds. Ce mandat était jusqu’ici partagé entre HSBC et OCBC Trustee. Schroders continuera d’utiliser les services de RBC Dexia pour les services d’agent de transfert.
15/02/2010

Deux anciens d'ADI à la direction générale d'OFI AM

OFI Asset Management a annoncé, vendredi 12 février, les nominations de Nicolas Gomart et Christophe Lepitre au sein de la direction générale de la société de gestion. Agé de 45 ans, Nicolas Gomart y occupera les fonctions de directeur général adjoint en charge des activités de gestion alternative et de multigestion alternative, et de la coordination et l’organisation des projets de développement Groupe. L’intéressé avait rejoint en 2003 la société ADI Alternative Investments, depuis dans le giron d’OFI AM, pour y développer l’activité d’incubation. De 2007 à 2008, il y dirigeait notamment la société Géa, filiale de multigestion alternative d’ADI.De son côté, âgé de 46 ans, Christophe Lepitre est nommé directeur général adjoint d’OFI Asset Management, en charge au sein du comité exécutif de la supervision du contrôle des risques, des opérations et des systèmes d’information pour le Groupe. Il avait rejoint ADI Alternative Investments en 2001 pour y exercer des responsabilités de gérant avant d'être nommé, en 2004, chief operating officer et directeur général délégué.
15/02/2010
Fonds

Edram vise le milliard de dollars pour le SH Emerging Convertibles

«Il est clair qu’au moins dans un premier temps, le gisement du Saint-Honoré Emerging Convertibles lancé le 31 décembre sera surtout asiatique», explique Bruno Vanier, head of Asia and emerging markets chez Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (Edram). Toutefois, on peut s’attendre à une multiplication des nouvelles émissions dans d’autres régions, comme l’Europe centrale et orientale ou l’Amérique latine.Le nouveau fonds de droit français (lire nos articles du 20 janvier et du 9 février) sera piloté par l'équipe obligations convertibles (OC) (trois personnes) dirigée par Kris Deblander, qui a rejoint Edram il y a un peu plus de quinze mois en provenance de chez Fortis IM (lire notre dépêche du 25 novembre 2008). Bien évidemment, l'équipe 0C s’appuiera sur les ressources des équipes actions, dont celle dirigée par Bruno Vanier.A priori, l’objectif d’encours serait d’un milliard de dollars et Bruno Vanier a récemment indiqué à Asian investor que même s’il n’y a pas d’objectif précis en termes de performance et de volatilité, il verrait bien des taux respectifs de 15 % et 10 %. Contrairement aux autres fonds Saint-Honoré, l’Emerging Convertibles aura une liquidité hebdomadaire et non quotidienne, ce qui laisse un peu plus de confort à l'équipe de gestion.
Fonds

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