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24/08/2009

Sicavs and funds may invest in foreign private equity

The Spanish government is planning to allow Spanish fund and Sicav managers to invest in foreign private equity funds, Expansión reports. The rule could come into effect as soon as fourth quarter of this year. Currently, funds and Sicavs are allowed to invest only in Spanish private equity funds, from their discretionary investment allocation limited to 10% of assets.
24/08/2009

DEGI acquires P&G headquarters

Germany’s DEGI, an affiliate of Aberdeen Property Investors, has announced the acquisition for EUR110m of the Italian headquarters of Procter & Gamble (P&G). The 20,000 square metre property, whose sale was agreed in principle in July 2007, will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund DEGI International. Real estate assets under management by DEGI in Italy total about EUR860m.
24/08/2009

iShares lists five German ETFs

Continuing its cross-listing strategy, iShares (Barclays Global Investors, BlackRock group) has added five German-registered ETF funds to trading on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (Mexico City). The funds now available on the Mexican stock exchange are the iShares DAX (DE), iShares DJ Stoxx 600 (DE), and three bond products: iShares eb.rexx Government Germany (DE), eb.rexx Government Germany 1.5-2.5 (DE) and iShares eb.rexx Government Germany 2.5-5.5 (DE).In May, iShares took over the NAFTRAC ETF from the Mexican bank National Financiera.
24/08/2009

Publicly-traded hedge funds under pressure

After a disastrous year in 2008, the publicly-traded hedge fund sector (in which most funds are listed on the London Stock Exchange) has continued to underperform, deapite a recovery in hedge funds and private equity in the past 7 months, the Financial Times reports. Publicly-traded funds of funds are doing worst of all. On average, funds of hedge funds are trading 18.2% below the value of their assets, according to an RBS study cited by the FT.
24/08/2009

KKR pulls together subscriptions for annex fund

After more than three months of negotiations, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) has signed up subscribers to its European 2 fund, who will contribute slightly over EUR400m to an “annex fund,” according to reports in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. KKR had initially hoped to obtain EUR730m in capital. The money will allow the private equity investor to address the financial situations of ProSieben Sat1, Kion and Pages Jaunes. This is the first time that KKR has made use of this approach involving annex funds.
24/08/2009

Four new strategy ETFs listed in Frankfurt

The Deutsche Börse has announced that it has admitted four new “strategy” ETFs from ETF Securities to trading on the XTF segment of its Xetra electronic platform. All four are German-registered products. The products are the ETFS Dax 2x Long Fund, which replicates the evolution of the LavDAX x2 Index, the ETFS Dax 2x Short Fund, which is based on the ShortDAX® x2 Index, and the ETFS Dow Jones EURO STOXX Double Short (2x) Fund, whose benchmark is the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 Double Short Index. Management commission for the three ETFs is 0.60%. The fourth new product is the ETFS Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Leveraged (2x) Fund, which reproduces the evolution of the Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Leveraged Index, for which management commission is set at 0.40%. With the addition of these new products, the XTF segment now lists 481 ETFs.
24/08/2009

Hedge fund directive: A long road ahead

Hedge funds may be facing a month of conflict over the European directive intended to impose constraints on them, the Guardian reports on its website. “The United Kingdom … has obtained the support of Sweden, which currently holds the European Union presidency, to rewrite the document. But that process will likely still be ongoing next year, when Spain takes over the presidency. And Spain, with 4 million unemployed and a minuscule hedge fund industry, will not be likely to make rewriting the directive a priority,” the British newspaper predicts.
24/08/2009

RBC CM recruits a head of hedge funds

RBC Capital Markets, the finance and investment banking unit of the Royal Bank of Canada, has recruited Marc Fleischman as managing director and head of sales for hedge funds in Europe. He previously worked at Citigroup.
24/08/2009

Morgan Stanley to sell Van Kampen

Morgan Stanley’s management is planning to sell the mutual fund activities operating from Van Kampen, Pensions & Investments reports. According to sources in financial circles, Invesco Ltd is the best-positioned of the potential buyers who have been invited to study the potential acquisition.
24/08/2009

BNP Paribas partly pulls out of Argentina

BNP Paribas will sell its retail banking divisionin Argentina to Banco Santander Río. The network consists of 17 locations in central and suburban Buenos Aires, serving over 30,000 retail and 900 business clients. The French bank will continue to have a presence in Argentina via its range of products and services available to businesses and investment companies.
24/08/2009

BBVA Compass takes control of Guaranty Bank

On Saturday, the Spanish firm BBVA confirmed that its US affiliate BBVA Compass has acquired the Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Compass takes on Guaranty’s entire balance sheet, totalling USD12bn, and USD11.5bn in deposits, 300,000 clients, 106 branch locations in Texas and 58 others in California. This will allow Compass (which now has a total of 750 branches) to strengthen its presence in retail banking, business banking, and wealth management.
24/08/2009

Delays to come for Lehman clients awaiting reimbursement

L’Agefi reports that the British high court which must approve a plan to accelerate the reimbursement of clients whose money was ensnared in the collapse of the US bank Lehman Brothers, proposed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrator of the European assets of Lehman Brothers International (LBIE), has claimed it is not competent to give permission for reimbursements of USD9bn to begin in first quarter 2010.
24/08/2009

Goldman Sachs gives tips to key clients

Goldman Sachs distributes trading ideas to key clients, hurting other customers, says the Wall Street Journal. For exemple, «Goldman Sachs Group Inc. research analyst Marc Irizarry’s published rating on mutual-fund manager Janus Capital Group Inc. was «neutral» in early April 2008. But at an internal meeting that month, the analyst told dozens of Goldman’s traders the stock was likely to head higher, company documents show». «The next day, research-department employees at Goldman called about 50 favored clients of the big securities firm with the same tip, including hedge-fund companies Citadel Investment Group and SAC Capital Advisors, the documents indicate. Readers of Mr. Irizarry’s research didn’t find out he was bullish until his written report was issued six days later, after Janus shares had jumped 5.8%», says the WSJ.
24/08/2009

Dollar General plans return to public trading

The private equity investor KKR, Goldman Sachs, and the other investors in the consortium that bought Dollar General for USD7.3bn in 2007 are getting ready to pocket an special dividend of USD200m on the occasion of the retail group’s partial return to public trading on the stock market, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The IPO will raise up to USD750m.
24/08/2009

UN PRI delists five signatories

The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) has removed five signatories from its membership lists, as they did not fulfil their annual “reporting & assessment” obligations, which are required, though the signatories receive a one year grace period to comply. In total, 284 signatories participated in the PRI Report on Progress, 2009, which represents a 98% response rate.The institutions ejected from the initiative are DESBAN (Brazil), Christopher Reynolds Foundation (United States), Foresters Community Finance (Australia), Oasis Group Holdings and Trinity Holdings (South Africa). In addition, three institutions voluntarily left the UN PRI: Mennonite Mutual Aid (MMA), New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS), and Rapaki Property Group. 93 new members have meanwhile signed up for the charter. Currently, the PRI has 573 members, of whom 182 are “asset owners,” 282 are asset managers, and 109 are professional service partners.
24/08/2009

Things are improving, says Bernanke, but there is still a lot left to do

In his address on Friday, 21 August, to the annual meeting of economists at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, organized by the United States Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, its chairman, claimed that the US economy has “avoided the worst,” and that it appeared to be stabilizing, with “good” prospects of a return to positve growth in the short term, La Tribune reports. The rebound will likely be “relatively slow at the beginning,” in light of considerable difficulty in gaining access to credit for many households and businesses. Bernanke insisted that “a new financial regulatory framework” needs to be created in the United States and in the world, which would draw “lessons from the crisis, and which would prevent a repetition of the events of the past two years.” Jean-Claude Trichet, chairman of the European Central Bank, has also stated that there is a mountain of work to be done, and that regulatory changes are needed to restore the stability of the financial system.
21/08/2009

Jupiter AM improves tax transparency of its products

Jupiter Asset Management announces that it has improved the tax transparency of several unit trust products in Austria and Germany to meet client demand. In Germany, Jupiter will be making three unit trusts – Jupiter European, Jupiter European Special Situations and Jupiter UK Special Situations – fully tax transparent from 1 September 2009. This will include the daily calculation of equity gains and interim profits by Jupiter’s administrator, HSBC Edinburgh, together with annual year end tax reporting for each unit trust. In Austria, Jupiter has made seven unit trusts – Jupiter Emerging European Opportunities, Jupiter European, Jupiter European Special Situations, Jupiter Financial Opportunities, Jupiter Japan Income, Jupiter North American Income and Jupiter UK Special Situations - semi tax transparent (‘weiss’) with immediate effect.
21/08/2009

Volatility set to persist in emerging markets, says Mobius

“Even though we are optimistic about the potential for growth on emerging markets, it must be borne in mind that volatility is likely to stay and will persist for a while longer,” says Mark Mobius, a specialist in the sector at Franklin Templeton Investments, in the most recent monthly review of emerging markets from the asset management firm. “We should thus expect both rising and falling movements. Due to the significant increases we have already observed, we should remain attentive to valuations and to long-term growth outlooks for results in order to avoid buying or holding overvalued shares. Current valuations are not above five-year peak levels, and are therefore not excessive,” he adds.
21/08/2009

Ratings downgrade for debt from several banks

Citing a risk of increased delays in payments of coupons, the ratings agency Fitch has lowered its ratings of hybrid securities from European banks including BPCE, Natixis, Dexia, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, ING and ABN AMRO, Les Echos reports.
21/08/2009

John Wood leaves Artemis for Aviva Investors

Aviva Investors has hired John Wood, who will join the firm on October 1, to manage the Aviva Investors UK Growth Fund and to contribute to the development of institutional activities in UK equities. Wood joins from Artemis Asset Management, where he was senior fund manager covering the United Kingdom and Europe. He was previously head of UK equities at Deutsche Asset Management.
21/08/2009

Carlyle to launch a fund in Chinese yuan

Carlyle is in advanced talks to set up a fund in China denominated in local currency, with assets of several billion yuan, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. This would be Carlyle’s second Chinese fund. KKR is also actively planning to create a fund denominated in Chinese yuan.
21/08/2009

Hedge funds earn 2.54% in July

Hedge funds posted returns of 2.54% in July, Credit Suisse indicates in the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Funds Index. Since the beginning of the year, the index has gained 9.9% in annualised terms. Convertible arbitrage continues to be the top performer, with 5.8% in July and +31.14% since the beginning of the year.
21/08/2009

Former UBS manager willing to sing for Swiss authorities also

Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS manager whose statements to the United States tax authorities brought to light the tax evasion methods used by UBS in the United States since 2001, would like to inform to the Zurich federal prosecutors also, the Swiss newspaper Le Temps reports. The move comes as part of an investigation into the responsibilities of high-ranking executives at the bank. The former manager claims high-ranking directors at the bank, “driven by blind arrogance and an ultimately suicidal sense of impunity, planned and put into execution a large-scale fraud which allowed the cream of US taxpayers to escape the tax authorities in their country.” In his opinion, these directors are responsible for killing off banking secrecy, and in particular, Peter Kurer, general counsel, Raoul Weil, former head of wealth management, and Martin Liechti, head of the Americas region. Birkenfeld, who has been under house arrest for fifteen months in Boston, will be tried today, Friday, 21 August, before a Florida court. He faces a prison sentence of up to 30 months without parole.
21/08/2009

US indicts ex-UBS banker

The US on Thursday indicted a former senior UBS banker,Hansruedi Schumacher, and a Swiss lawyer, Matthias Rickenbach, for allegedly helping wealthy Americans hide assets in secret accounts, says the FT.
21/08/2009

AIG pourra rembourser l'Etat, selon Robert Benmoshe

Au cours d’un entretien à Bloomberg, Robert Benmoshe, le patron d’AIG, a déclaré qu’il pense AIG capable de rembourser l'État et de pouvoir faire quelque chose pour ses actionnaires, indique la Tribune.
21/08/2009

Regulators to coordinate frameworks

The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) will hold joint hearings on 2 and 3 September to harmonise their regulations, La Tribune reports. There are still some grey areas in markets for commodities futures and other financial products.
21/08/2009

John Wood quitte Artemis pour Aviva Investors

Aviva Investors a recruté John Wood, qui rejoindra la société le 1er octobre, pour gérer le fonds Aviva Investors UK Growth Fund et contribuer au développement de l’activité institutionnelle en actions britanniques. L’intéressé vient d’Artemis Asset Management, où il était gérant de fonds senior couvrant le Royaume-Uni et l’Europe. Avant, il était directeur des actions UK chez Deutsche Asset Management.
21/08/2009
Fonds

Jupiter AM améliore la transparence fiscale de ses produits

Jupiter Asset Management annonce avoir amélioré la transparence fiscale de plusieurs «unit trusts» en Autriche et en Allemagne, afin de répondre à la demande de ses clients.En Allemagne, la société de gestion britannique va ainsi rendre totalement transparents d’un point de vue fiscal trois unit trusts - Jupiter European, Jupiter European Special Situations et Jupiter UK Special Situations – à partir du 1er septembre. Cela inclut par exemple le calcul quotidien des plus-values. En Autriche, sept unit trusts vont passer en statut «semi-transparent», avec effet immédiat : Jupiter Emerging European Opportunities, Jupiter European, Jupiter European Special Situations, Jupiter Financial Opportunities, Jupiter Japan Income, Jupiter North American Income et Jupiter UK Special Situations.
Fonds

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