Recherche
S'abonner
Connexion
Asset Management
Accueil Asset Management Actualités
03/07/2009

BNY Mellon AS obtient de nouveaux mandats

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing indique avoir obtenu le contrat de conservation, de comptabilité et d’administration de mutual funds de Cullen Funds Trust et d’administration de hedge funds pour Schafer Cullen. Les actifs gérés par ces fonds représentent environ 500 millions de dollars.
03/07/2009

Arrow Hedge awards a mandate to RBC Dexia

RBC Dexia Investor Services has announced that it has been selected as a provider of shareholder relations services by the alternative management firm Arrow Hedge Partners, for a range of single hedge funds and funds of hedge funds in Canada.
03/07/2009

Credit Suisse rebuilds transition management team

In May 2008, Credit Suisse closed its transition management operations in Europe, and concentrated these activities in New York. Now, the firm has recruited Steve Webster, who was previously head of transition management at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), to head a transition management team, with several recruitments to come, Professional Pensions reports. Webster has also confirmed that Charlie Schaffer from Merrill Lynch has been appointed managing director and co-head of transition management for the United States.
03/07/2009

Inverco launches a platform to promote funds

Ángel Martínez Aldama, CEO of the Spanish Inverco association of management firm, is in charge of the Obervatorio Inverco project, a platform which will aim to serve retail investors in the collective investment, investment funds, and pension fund sectors. The program will include information days and training courses for small investors as well as added-value information (conjuncture and market notes), along with an active participation in the investment forums. There is a website for the initiative at http://www.observatorioinverco.es/.
03/07/2009

Nikko Asset Management bien convoité

Selon le quotidien japonais Asahi cité par l’Agefi, Sumitomo Mitsui FinancialGroup (SMFG) «souhaiterait acquérir une part du capital de Nikko Asset Management après que Sumitomo Trust and Banking a racheté le gestionnaire d’actifs auprès de Citigroup, pour plus de 100 milliards de de yens (près de 750 millions d’euros)».
03/07/2009

Nikko Asset Management finds interested potential buyers

According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi, cited by L’Agefi, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) “is seeking to acquire a stake in the capital of Nikko Asset Management, after Sumitomo Trust and Banking bought the asset management business from Citigroup for more than JPY100bn (nearly EUR750m).”
03/07/2009

Sweden will prioritise HF directive

According to les Echos, Sweden, which chairs the EU since July 1st, has decided that the draft directive on hedge funds will be one of its priorities for the coming six months.Stockholm aims to find an agreement among all 27 member states by the end of this year, in order to bring about the definitive adoption of the text by mid-2010, after successful negotiations with the EP.
03/07/2009

Hewitt purchases BodeHewitt

Hewitt Associates has purchased from HypoVereinsbank the remaining 73 % of pensions consultant BodeHewitt it didn’t own for an undisclosed sum. The company will be merged with Hewitt Germany.
03/07/2009

Fitch lowers rating for Sal. Oppenheim

Fitch Ratings has lowered its long-term rating of the Sal. Oppenheim bank from A to A-, and has placed the rating under negative watch, in case the firm does not succeed in reducing its risks and increasing its capital, Handelsblatt reports. The ratings agency predicts that the firm will increase its capital in second half, which the firm declined to confirm on Thursday. According to reports in Handelsblatt, the rating was originally slated to be reduced even further, which would have provoked the intervention of BaFin representatives and government actors. Fitch says the lowered rating is the result of the deteriorating financial and profit situation at the business. Market turbulence has revealed the weakness of risk management; in addition, transparency about outsourcing of some participations and divisions is less than ideal.
03/07/2009

GAM applies for single hedge fund distributor status

Nora O’Mahony, head of product development at GAM, has told Citywire that the manager has obtained clarification from HMRC (the British tax authorities) about the tax status of leveraged derivatives in offshore funds. As a result, GAM will seek to benefit from the preferential tax status of a “fund distributor,” which will apply to the Global Macro Hedge and GAM Delphic funds, as well as to some of its externally-managed hedge funds.
03/07/2009

Threadneedle recruits an IMF economist

Agnès Belaisch, who for the past ten years has been a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she was responsible for monitoring emerging economies and advising several governments in Latin America and Asia, is joining the emerging markets debt team at Threadneedle as an emerging market strategist.
03/07/2009

Ignis takes over funds outsourced to Maia

In a statement entitled «Important news about Maia Capital Partners», Ignis Asset Management has announced that it has agreed with Maia Capital Partners to end their joint activities. Multi-managed funds with growth, balanced and cautious profiles will now be managed internally by Ignis. Simon Mungall, partner at Maia Capital, will join Ignis. Ignis, for its part, is considering the recruitment of Vincent Ropers, another partner at Maia Capital, while Chris Ralph and Jason Collins, the other two partners at Maia, are leaving the firm effective immediately.
03/07/2009

UBS WM closes Brighton office

MoneyMarketing reoprts that UBS Wealth Management has closed its Brighton office, following the departure of two investment managers, and transferred its clients to the London branch.
03/07/2009

Alan Porter promoted at Martin Currie

Martin Currie has promoted Alan Porter to co-manager of its retail fund Martin Currie Global (GBP35m) and Martin Currie Global Alpha (GBP23m), effective from 1 July. Porter joined Martin Currie in September 2008, as a senior member of the global equities team. Martin Currie is a management firm specialised in the active management of equities, based in Edinburgh (GBP9.2bn).
03/07/2009

BNY Mellon AS wins two mandates

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing has announced that it has been awarded mandates for custody, accounting and administration of mutual funds from Cullen Funds Trust, and the administrion of hedge funds from Schafer Cullen. Assets managed by these funds represent about USD500m.
03/07/2009

FRR withdraws a mandate from Robeco Institutional AM

The French national pension fund, the Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), on Thursday announced that it has withdrawn a mandate from Robeco Institutional Asset Management, awarded in November 2005 for a duration of four years, which covered a portfolio of government bonds and credit denominated in Euros (EUR1.475bn as of 29 May). The withdrawal of the mandate is said to be the result of “continued unsatisfactory financial performance” compared with objectives and the benchmark.
03/07/2009

Parisian market actors sign SRI charter

The French association of asset managers (AFG), the French association of institutional investors (AF2I), the French federation of insurance companies (FFSA), the French bankign federation (FBF) and Paris Europlace on Thursday evening signed a responsible investment (SRI) charter at the Paris Europlace financial sector conference. Representatives of institutional investors, asset management firms and banking and financial businesses pledged to follow three major principles: develop SRI; develop extra-financial information about businesses, and to favour dialogue between issuers and investors; and to favour long-term financing.
02/07/2009

Deka Immobilien rationalises product range

On 1 October, DekaBank will reduce the number of open-ended real funds it offers from six to four, with the merger of the Deka-Immobilien Fonds (about EUR2.5bn in assets) into the Deka ImmobilienEuropa (EUR7.3bn), and of the WestInvest 1 (EUR1.7bn) into the WestInvest InterSelect (EUR3bn). The Deka-ImmobilienEuropa and WestInvest InterSelect funds will retain their names and ISIN codes, respectively (DE0009809566 and DE0009801423). The merger has been approved by BaFin. Matthias Danne, board member, has emphasized that the creation of two large European funds, one of which will be even larger than the hausInvest fund from Commerz Real (EUR9bn), will make it possible to diversify the portfolios. The funds will “at least temporarily” have a large portion of their assets invested in Germany. Deka Immobilien Investment and WestInvest had EUR12.34bn and EUR5.49bn in assets under management, respectively, at the end of May, in three open-ended real estate funds each. Total assets are over EUR19bn.
02/07/2009

Avana launches its first two products based on ETFs

In six months, Götz Kirchhoff has founded a new asset management firm, Avana Invest, built up a partnershipwith Lyxor Asset Management and Société Générale Securities Services KAG (see Newsmanagers of 2 February and 5 March), and, since Wednesday, launched two new asset management products based on ETFs.The former co-head of Indexchange introduced the Avana IndexTrend Europa Dynamic and Avana Indextrend Europa Control funds. The former invests in European equities ETFs which replicate the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 and its sub-indices, while the second focuses on ETFs which track German and European bond indexes.The two products use a trend-follower model to strongly reduce maximal draw-down (MDD). They may be invested anywhere between 0% and 100%. If there is a sell signal, the management team may invest in money market ETFs and other appropriate instruments; they are also permitted to invest in short ETFs. Backtesting reveals that the investment process would have generated net outperformance of the Dow Jones Stoxx 600, Kirchhoff says. Characteristics Name Avana IndexTrend Europa Dynamic Avana IndexTrend Europa Control ISIN Code DE000A0RHDB9 DE000A0RHDC7 Front-end fee 5% maximum 3% maximum Management fees 1.20% 0.60% Performance commission 15.00% 5.00% Minimal subscription None/ EUR10m for institutional share class None/ EUR10m for institutional share class
02/07/2009

Morgan Stanley P2 Value fund misses its deadline

German asset management firm Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investment has announced that it will not be technically capable of meeting a deadline set on 1 July for a complete special audit by independent experts of the portfolio of its open-ended retail real estate fund Morgan Stanley P2 Value. However, the audit will be completed very shortly, and the manager will announce the results soon thereafter.As of 31 March, assets in the fund totalled EUR1.91bn, and the value of 40 properties in the portfolio had a market value of about EUR2.28bn, of which EUR657.3m correspond to properties owned directly.
02/07/2009

KanAm US-grundinvest posts performance of 4.4%

After returns of 6.3% in the fiscal year ending in March 2008, the German open-ended real estate fund KanAm US-grundinvest has posted gains of 4.4% in US dollars and of 23.9% in Euros for the year to the end of March 2009. It is the only German real estate fund to be denominated in US dollars. Its assets totalled USD626m as of 2 June. KanAm is proposing to distribute an unchanged dividend of USD2.20 per share for the fund, whose redemptions were frozen in late October. The occupancy rate for properties in its portfolio rose in the past year to 98.2% from 91.1%. Due to the difficult situation prevailing on the markets, the KanAm US-grundinvest made only two investments in the past year. The fund, focused on US real estate, bought Denbury Park II in Plano, near Dallas, and increased its stake in the Evening Star Building in Washington, D.C. from 80% to 95%.
02/07/2009

La Caixa founds fund for high net worth clients

The private banking division of La Caixa has raised EUR350m from high net worth clients for the Albus fund, for which minimal subscription is EUR1m, Expansión reports. Initally, 90% of assets will be invested in corporate bonds, and 10% in “very carefully selected” equities.
02/07/2009

Fund assets decline in June

As of 30 June, assets in securities funds on sale in Spain totalled EUR160.65bn, a decline once again after two months of slight increases, which themselves followed a series of 23 months of larger or smaller contractions. According to the Inverco association, the decline in June measures EUR1.27bn, or 0.8%. Net outflows totalled EUR1.74bn in June, compared with EUR1.19bn in May. They have totalled EUR8.92bn since the beginning of the year. Among the top ten management firms by asset volumes, only three have posted net subscriptions in June: Invercaixa Gestión, with EUR17.77m, Popular Gestión with EUR1.91m, and Ibercaja Gestión with EUR67.14m. The two heavyweights in the sector have seen very heavy net outflows: BBVA Asset Management (EUR32.92bnin assets) has seen net redemptions of EUR290.92bn, while Santander Gestión de Activos (EUR29.79bn) has seen outflows of EUR805.16m. Ahorro Corporación and Barclays Wealth Management have seen redemptions of EUR214.05m and EUR164.61m, respectively.
02/07/2009

Inverco appoints two new chiefs

The AGM of Inverco, the Spanish association of management firms, has elected Eugenio Yurrita, of BBVA Asset Management, as the new president of the group of collective investment institutions, replacing Asunción Ortega of Invercaixa Gestión.Meanwhile, Santiago Arans, from Bansabadell Pensiones, has been elected president of the group of pension funds, replacing Dolores Ybarra, of Santander Pensiones.
02/07/2009

SEC may reward fraud whistleblowers

David Kotz, chief inspector at the SEC, who is now conducting an enquiry into the US regulator’s failure to prevent the Madoff fraud, says that individuals who blow the whistle on illegal activities should receive a reward. This approach, he says, had a positive effect in cases at the Justice Department.
02/07/2009

Banks: risk of distortion of competition

The daily edition of L’Agefi reports that plans on the part of European governments to support their banks are meeting with skepticism on the part of the French banking federation (FBF) due to risks that they may distort competition in France. In the firing line is the ING group, via its affiliate ING Direct, which has recently launched a free current account.
02/07/2009

Pay scales for some bank chiefs under observation

La Tribune reports that the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) yesterday voted in favour of a proposal to give shareholders an opportunity to vote on pay scales for chiefs of banks which received TARP assistance and have not yet paid it off.

Sujets d'actualité

Tous les sujets