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30/01/2009

Royaume-Uni - Merrill Lynch taille dans sa recherche ISR

Un porte-parole de Merrill Lynch a confirmé à Responsible Investor que Zoe Knight, qui était senior director of SRI Research à Londres, ne sera pas remplacée après son licenciement. Toutefois, il est prévu de maintenir un biais développement durable dans la recherche #mainstream# sur les actions et les obligations. Ce départ s’ajoute à la suppression de l'équipe ISR de Citi, à l’arrêt de la couverture ESG par JPMorgan et à l’arrêt de la recherche sur le gouvernement d’entreprise chez Deutsche Bank.
30/01/2009

Royaume-Uni - Standard Life gèle les remboursements de six fonds immobiliers

L’assureur britannique Standard Life a annoncé le gel des rachats pour six de ses fonds spécialistes de l’immobilier commercial dont l’encours total se monte à 2,7 milliards de livres gérés pour le compte de 212.000 clients, dont des investisseurs institutionnels. Cette suspension des remboursements pour six mois est destinée à éviter des ventes forcées à bas prix, rapporte IPE Real Estate. Les fonds concernés sont le Pooled Property Fund (514 millions de livres, 867 clients institutionnels), le Property One Fund, le Pension Managed Property Fund, l’Individual Property One Fund, le Property Investment Life Fund et le Property Fund.
30/01/2009

Suisse - Optimal liquide sept de ses hedge funds

Le suisse Optimal Investment Services (OIS), filiale du Santander, a décidé de liquider sept de ses hedge funds confronté à de fortes demandes de remboursement dans le sillage de l’affaire Madoff. Il s’agit des fonds Optimal Arbitrage, Optimal Multi-Strategy, Optimal European Opportunities, Optimal US Opportunities, Optimal Asian Opportunities, Optimal Global Opportunities et Optimal Global Trading, rapporte Funds People.En revanche, OIS continuera de gérer les fonds Optimal Latin America, Optimal Elite et Optimal Structural Opportunities, ainsi que deux hedge funds «single manager» et ses mandats discrétionnaires ou de conseil.
30/01/2009

Luxembourg - Nordea reprend la gestion privée de Landsbanki

Nordea Bank S.A. (Luxembourg) a annoncé jeudi avoir signé un accord sur la reprise de l"activité de gestion privée de Landsbanki Luxembourg S.A. Cette opération, qui avait obtenu l’agrément de la Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) le 7 janvier, fait suite au rachat des activités de gestion privée de Glitnir Bank Luxembourg fin octobre. #Les clients en sont actuellement informés et le transfert de leurs actifs sous la garde de Nordea est en cours#, précise Nordea.
30/01/2009

Monde - Madoff : NBK donne l?exemple

La National Bank of Kuwait va rembourser 50 millions de dollars à ses clients lésés par des investissements dans Madoff, rapporte le Financial Times. D"autres banques et sociétés de gestion pourraient suivre l"exemple de NBK, estime le quotidien. Selon certaines sources, Union Bancaire Privée réfléchit également à une compensation financière pour ses clients, qui ont perdu 700 millions d"euros dans l"escroquerie.
30/01/2009

Royaume-Uni - Alan Rubenstein nommé directeur général du PPF

Le Pension Protection Fund (PPF) a annoncé jeudi la nomination d’Alan Rubenstein, qui était managing director chez Lehman Brothers et a mis sur pied dans cet établissement le pensions advisory group, comme nouveau CEO en remplacement de Partha Dasgupta, qui avait annoncé en août son intention de quitter le poste. Alan Rubenstein prendra ses nouvelles fonctions le 1er avril et Partha Dasgupta restera à disposition du PPF comme conseiller jusqu'à la fin de son mandat, au 30 juin.
30/01/2009

Royaume-Uni - Henderson sur le point d?acheter New Star

Henderson est sur le point de signer le rachat de la société de gestion New Star, pour 115 millions de livres, rapporte le Financial Times. Selon le quotidien, environ la moitié des 310 salariés de New Star sera reprise par Henderson, dont le gérant Richard Pease. Le fondateur de New Star, John Duffield, ainsi que Howard Covington, CEO de l"asset manager, quitteront la société en mars, une fois le rachat bouclé.
30/01/2009

Espagne - Le Santander veut une réponse rapide des clients sinistrés par Madoff

Le Santander a déjà fait signer à ses clients latino-américains qui ont accepté l’indemnisation l’acte de renonciation aux poursuites contre la banque et le fonds Optimal Strategic US Equity, rapporte Cinco Días. Il compte en faire de même pour ses clients espagnols entre lundi et jeudi de la semaine prochaine. Pour dédommager les investisseurs sinistrés par Madoff, la banque offre des obligations convertibles à 10 ans assorties d’un coupon de 2 %.Ana Patricia Botín, fille du président du Santander et présidente du Banesto, a précisé que le Santander a pris la décision d’indemniser pour des considérations de réputation.
30/01/2009

Etats-Unis - Baisse du bénéfice de T. Rowe Price

Pour 2008, le bénéfice net de T. Rowe Price est retombé à 490,8 millions de dollars contre 670,6 millions pour un chiffre d’affaires de 2,12 milliards contre 2,23 milliards. L’encours à fin décembre affichait une contraction de 31 % à 276,3 milliards de dollars. Au quatrième trimestre, le bénéfice net a chuté de 87 % à 24,3 millions de dollars. Le CEO James A.C. Kennedy a indiqué que le rythme des recrutements s’est considérablement ralenti et que les embauches se cantonnent aux postes vraiment stratégiques, ceux des professionnels de l’investissement.
30/01/2009

France - L'Ecureuil rachète 23,4% du Crédit Foncier à Nexity

Selon La Tribune, évoquée fin 2008, la cession par Nexity de sa participation de 23,4% dans le Crédit Foncier de France à la Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Epargne (CNCE) est effective depuis jeudi soir et elle permet au promoteur immobilier de récupérer 539,6 millions d’euros. Nexity se serait toujours candicat à la reprise du pôle administration de biens d’Icade mis en vente récemment, précise notamment le quotidien financier.
30/01/2009

France - Madoff : KBL Richelieu et La Mondiale assignent UBS Luxembourg

Selon La Tribune, la banque KBL Richelieu et l’assureur La Mondiale ont décidé d’assigner UBS Luxembourg et le fonds LuxAlpha afin de récupérer 4,1 millions de dollars. « L’avocat des deux parties, Pierre Reuter, attend de la cour « un ordre de paiement contre LuxAlpha », indique le quotidien financier.
30/01/2009

Belgique - BNP Paribas renonce à l?assurance de Fortis

Selon les termes d"un accord conclu dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi, le gouvernement belge a annoncé le 30 janvier au matin, que BNP Paribas renonce à racheter l’essentiel des activités d’assurance à la holding financière Fortis. Bruxelles précise que BNP Paribas se contentera de prendre une participation minoritaire de 10% dans les activités d’assurance, pour un montant de 550 millions d’euros.Le groupe français conserve sans évolution son projet de prise de contrôle à 75% de la filiale bancaire belge Fortis Banque qui a été nationalisée à 100% par l’Etat belge en 2008 et qui sera payée en actions BNP pour environ 11,7% du capital. L"accord renégocié réduit aussi la part que conservera la holding Fortis (cotée en Bourse) dans un portefeuille réunissant les actifs les plus risqués, et que la banque française avait refusé de reprendre intégralement.Les petits actionnaires de Fortis, contestent le démantèlement de Fortis, démantèlement sur lequel la justice doit se prononcer le 11 février. Ils ont obtenu, au terme d"une période de blocage de deux ans, un droit sur les plus-values éventuelles enregistrées par les actions BNP Paribas apportées en paiement de Fortis Banque.
30/01/2009

Espagne - F&C double le nombre de ses fonds commercialisés dans le pays

Le gestionnaire britannique F&C Investments a annoncé avoir obtenu l’agrément de commercialisation en Espagne de zone fonds supplémentaires, ce qui porte la gamme de produits disponibles sur ce marché à 22 unités, rapporte Funds People. La nouvelle offre comporte des fonds actions, obligataires, de rendement absolu et ISR.
30/01/2009

World - Madoff: NBK sets an example

The National Bank of Kuwait will reimburse USD50m to clients who lost money on investments in Madoff, the Financial Times reports. Other banks and management firms may follow NBK’s example, the newspaper estimates. Some sources report that Union Bancaire Privée is also considering financial compensation to its clients, who lost EUR700m in the fraud.
30/01/2009

United Kingdom - Merrill Lynch downsizes in SRI research

A spokesperson for Merrill Lynch has confirmed to Responsible Investor that Zoe Knight, who was senior director of SRI Research in London, will not be replaced following her departure. The firm nonetheless plans to maintain a sustainable development bias in its mainstream research in equities and bonds. The departure comes in addition to the closure of the SRI team at Citi, the discontinuation of ESG coverage at JPMorgan, and the end of corporate governance research at Deutsche Bank.
30/01/2009

United Kingdom - Henderson preparing to acquire New Star

Henderson is about to sign off on an acquisition of the management firm New Star for GBP115m, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper states that about half of the 310 employees at New Star will be taken over by Henderson, including the manager Richard Pease. The founder of New Star, John Duffield, and Howard Covington, CEO of the asset management firm, will be leaving the company in March, once the acquisition has been completed.
30/01/2009

Switzerland - SocGen: New chief in Geneva

Le Temps reports that Guillaume Lejoindre has been appointed as head of Swiss activities at SG Private Banking, the private banking affiliate of Société Générale. Lejoindre, 57, spent most of his career at Indosuez. He arrived in Geneva in 1999, to lead private client activities for Crédit Agricole (Switzerland). According to the newspaper, Lejoindre wants to develop high-end services to high net worth families, in collaboration with Rockefeller Financial Services. These plans go hand in hand with a desire to ?develop the middle eastern client base.? At the end of 2007, the private bank of Société Générale managed more than CHF30bn in Switzerland. Its 2008 figures have not yet been audited.
30/01/2009

Spain - Outflows continue

According to VDOS, Funds People reports, net redemptions from funds on sale in Spain in January totalled EUR1.34bn, in addition to which there have been negative market effects of EUR606m, bringing total assets down by EUR1.946bn to EUR173.791bn. Long-term bond funds and international bond funds nonetheless posted net subscriptions of EUR122m and EUR32m, respectively.
30/01/2009

Netherlands - All four major pension funds now in deficit

According to calculations by IPE.com, ABP, PFZW, PMT and PME, the four largest pension funds in the Netherlands, posted a decrease in their assets of EUR71.6bn in one year (to a total of EUR291.9bn), and all now have coverage ratios of about 90%, instead of the required 105%.
30/01/2009

Spain - Brutal redemptions continue

In the past few days, the number of notifications to the Spanish regulator, the CNMV, that funds have lost more than 20% of their assets in a single day have increased considerably, Funds People notes. The two most spectacular were outflows of 68.3% on 8 January from the hedge fund Accurate Global Assets from Proxima Alfa, and of 54.1% on 31 December from the Copérnico fund from Banco Madrid Gestión. In traditional funds, the heaviest net redemptions were of more than 46% each from the Fondmapfre Diversificación from Mapfre Inversión (13 January) and the Seleción España from Espirito Santo Gestión (23 January).
30/01/2009

Germany - Funds of hedge funds evaporate

After Allianz Global Investors, Cominvest, Pioneer and UBS, DWS (Deutsche Bank) and Union Investment (co-operative banks) have decided to liquidate their funds of hedge funds. The DWS fund, which will close on 1 May, has only EUR6m in assets, while the Union funds, liquidated on 1 January, lost 30% in 2008, twice as much as the sector average, Handelsblatt reports. The only remaining manager is Deka (savings banks), with a fund of hedge fund worth EUR93m. But db x-trackers, the specialised affiliate of Deutsche Bank, is planning to launch an ETF in February based on hedge fund indices.
30/01/2009

Luxembourg - HWB and Alceda launch a real estate fund of funds

The wealth manager HWB Capital Management, based in Trier, has teamed up with the Luxembourg-based firm Alceda to launch the real estate fund of funds HWB Immobilien Portfolio Plus, which will be managed by the CEO of HWB, Willi Brand, Das Investment reports. The portfolio will include 20 positions throughout the world, selected by the same mathematical system used for equities, diversified and bond funds from HWB. Brand will aim for total annual returns of 5% to 7%.
30/01/2009

United Kingdom - Royal Mail outsources its retirement savings plan to Zurich Corporate Pensions

The administrators of the defined-contribution pension scheme for the Royal Mail, which is expected to register 9,000 new members per year, have chosen Zurich Corporate Pensions as investment, administration and information services provider, Professional Pensions reports. Zurich will be responsible for providing white-label investment funds. The defined-contribution plan will accept its first contributions in April, while the defined-benefit plan was closed to new entrants on 31 March 2008.
30/01/2009

Austria - Bankhaus Lampe takes a majority stake in DALE Investment Advisors

The German private bank Lampe (Oetker group), which manages about EUR10bn, has announced that it has increased its stake in the Austrian firm DALE Investment Advisors, whose assets under management for 25 high net worth licents represent about EUR1bn. The amount of the transaction has not been disclosed. Lampe bought a minority stake in Lampe at the end of 2007 (see Newsmanagers of 14 December 2007). The objective with the new transaction is to strengthen the German bank’s presence in the management of large family fortunes, ethical investment, and alternative investment. In addition, Austria may serve as a base for an expansion into eastern Europe, says Stephan Schüller, chairman of the board of managing partners at Lampe.
30/01/2009

Germany - Franklin Templeton releases five new funds

Franklin Templeton on Thursday announced that it has received licenses to release five new funds in Germany and Austria. Two of them, the Templeton Frontier Markets Fund and the Templeton Asian Smaller Companies Fund, are managed by Mark Mobius. The first invests in ?frontier? countries of the Middle Easy, Africa, and central and eastern Europe, as well as in Latin America and Asia, such as Bahrain, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Vietnam. These countries have the same characteristics which have established the reputation of classic emerging nations, including strong economic growth. The second new fund concentrated on Asian companies with cap sizes of less than USD2bn.The third new product is the Franklin World Perspectives Fund, which combines portfolios managed by various teams at Franklin Templeton throughout the world, including emerging and frontier countries, in a single product. It is not a fund of funds, but is a sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav; its benchmark is the MSCI All Country World Plus Frontier Markets Index.Lastly, Franklin Templeton is offering the Franklin Euroland Core Fund, managed by Uwe Zöllner, on its new platform Franklin European Equity. The product is invested in equities of the Euro zone, like the Franklin Mutual Euroland Fund, managed by Philippe Brugère-Trelat, who since 2000 has also been manager of the Franklin Mutual European Fund, a product in the Mutual Series.
30/01/2009

United States - Madoff scandal impacts former heads of Merrill Lynch

Sources cited by the Wall Street Journal say that two former CEOs of Merrill Lynch, Daniel Tully and David Komansky, as well as the head of the Merrill Lynch investment bank, Barry Friedberg, had personally invested in hedge funds exposed to Madoff managed by John ?Launny? Steffens, former head of brokerage at Merrill Lynch. Steffens in 2001 founded the fund of fund management firm Spring Mountain Capital with J. Ezra Merkin, one of the largest investors in Madoff. Spring Mountain invested in three Merkin funds (Ascot Partners LP, Gabriel Capital Corp., and Ariel Fund Ltd.) The most ironic part of the story is that Merrill Lynch, like Morgan Stanley, advised its clients not to invest in Madoff, since due diligence teams could not understand his opaque investment strategy.
30/01/2009

Netherlands - Legal victory for British pension funds

The tax authorities of the Netherlands have officially admitted that they should not have withheld tax on dividends paid to tax-exempt organisations, such as pension funds based outside the Netherlands, but inside the European Union, Professional Pensions reports. The verdict, which came in a landmark case filed by the Strathclyde Pension Fund, which will be reimbursed the amounts withheld from it since 2003, will allow about 70 British pension fund clients of KPMG hope for reimbursement of about EUR100m in total. The Hague has admitted that its regulations in force before 2007 contravened EU law.
30/01/2009

United States - Profits down at T. Rowe Price

In 2008, net profits at T. Rowe Price fell to USD490.8bn, from USD670.6m on revenues of USD2.12bn, compared with USD2.23bn. Assets as of the end of December contracted by 31%, to USD276.3bn. In fourth quarter, net profits fell 87% to USD24.3m. CEO James A.C. Kennedy, states that the pace of recruitments has slowed considerably and that new hires will be limited to genuinely strategic positions for investment professionals.
30/01/2009

United Kingdom - Standard Life freezes redemptions from six real estate funds

The British insurer Standard Life has announced that redemptions have been frozen for six of its funds specialised in commercial real estate, with total assets of GBP2.7bn, managed on behalf of 212,000 clients, including institutional investors. The suspension of redemptions for six months is intended to avoid fire sales of properties, IPE Real Estate reports. The funds concerned are the Pooled Property Fund (GBP514m, 867 institutional clients), the Property One Fund, the Pension Managed Property Fund, the Individual Property One Fund, the Property Investment Life Fund, and the Property Fund.

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