Selon Le Figaro, la Direction générale des finances publiques ( DGFip) a expédié, le 12 janvier dernier, une note interne précisant « qu"une demande de restitution ne constitue ni un axe ni une cause de contrôle d"un dossier » et que « le traitement des demandes doit aboutir à une décision rapide et sécurisée ». Nouveauté dans la loi de finances pour 2009, les contribuables pourront, s"ils le souhaitent, imputer directement leur trop-versé sur leur ISF et leurs taxes foncières ou d"habitation, rappelle le Figaro en soulignant que le nombre de demandes de restitution envoyées à Bercy est beaucoup plus faible que celui qui avait été escompté.
Dans ses commentaires sur le point de vue de l"Efrag (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) concernant l"exposé sondage de l"IASB proposant des amendements au traitement des dérivés incorporés (IAS 39 et Ifric 9), le Comité européen des régulateurs de marchés (CESR) estime, comme l"Efrag, que les amendements envisagés devraient être adoptés, « pour des raisons de cohérence », par le biais d"une procédure accélérée. Comme en octobre 2008, pour les reclassements de titres.
La Securities and Exchange Commission accuse Arthur Nadel, un gérant de hedge fund qui a disparu, d"avoir gonflé d"environ 300 millions de dollars la valeur des investissements de six fonds qu"il conseillait, rapporte le Financial Times. La valeur réelle des actifs est de seulement 506.000 dollars.
Le Comité européen des régulateurs de marchés vient d"assigner deux missions au groupe de travail sur les ventes à découvert. D"une part, l"analyse de l"impact des mesures temporaires introduites par les membres du CESR. D"autre part, la mise au point d"une batterie d"options, en tenant compte des contributions du marché, pour promouvoir une plus grande convergence dans le domaine des ventes à découvert. Sur le premier point, les mesures temporaires, le groupe de travail devrait remettre ses conclusions dans le courant du mois de mars.
Selon Les Echos, le commissaire européen au Marché intérieur, Charlie McCreevy, s’est engagé mardi "à gommer les possibilités d’interprétation de la directive OPCVM». Il a par ailleurs annoncé la mise en chantier d’une proposition de directive sur les titres, qui devrait être publiée d’ici à la fin de l’année.
Selon Le Temps, le gouvernement suisse aurait la possibilité d’accélérer le règlement des poursuites contre UBS, en agissant pour voie d"ordonnance pour autoriser la divulgation d"une liste de 250 noms de clients de la banque que les autorités américaines réclament à la Suisse depuis l"été. Mais l’arme est à double tranchant, souligne le quotidien. Selon l’avocat genevois Carlo Lombardini, une telle mesure serait «certainement envisageable» sur le plan juridique mais ouvrirait du même coup une boîte de Pandore: «Cela reviendrait à expliquer à tout le monde qu’il est possible d’outrepasser les accords de coopération fiscale.»
La Commission pourrait publier prochainement de nouvelles lignes directrices afin d’encadrer les plans mis en oeuvre par les Etats membres pour aider leurs banques à résoudre leurs problèmes d’actifs toxiques. L"objectif est d"éviter de générer des distorsions de concurrence, rapporte Les Echos.
M&G Investments has announced the arrival of Violaine de Serrant, who is joining the team in Paris as head of distribution. The recruitment is strategic for the asset management affiliate of the Prudential group, which is planning to capitalise on its experience with independent financial advisers in Great Britain to strengthen its presence in the French IFA market.De Serrant worked previously at Rothschild & Cie Banque, where she was head of development at Sélection R, in charge of selection and leadership of a sales team serving 60 IFA agencies.
Frank DiPascali Jr was the closest lieutenant to Bernard Madoff for more than thirty years. He was the head of trading for equities options, and the point man for investment-advisory clients, who were told he executed their trades, the Wall Street Journal reports. He is now a potential point man for the fraud investigation into Bernard Madoff - but he himself is not named as a suspect, whereas Madoff is facing criminal charges for securities fraud, and claims that he acted alone.
The Swiss banking group Syz & Co is changing the manager of the Oyster World Opportunities fund. The fund, previously managed by Rajeev Bhaman at Oppenheimer Funds in New York, will now be entrusted to Roberto Magnatantini at Banque Syz & Co, based in Geneva. ?The transition, which was long prepared for by teams at SYZ & Co, proceeded smoothly and transparently for investors,? says a statement.
Frank Keller, senior finance office private banking for Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse, has joined Banque Julius Baer as head of finance. He has left Singapore for Zurich, and in his new position will report directly to Boris Callardi, COO.
Matthieu Maurier has been appointed deputy director of the fund custody department at Rosbank, in which Société Générale is the majority shareholder. Maurier will be based in Moscow, and will be in charge of international commercial development for the department, and its integration into Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS). Maurier comes from the Société Générale group.
Mathieu Maurier has been appointed deputy director of the fund custody department at Rosbank, in which Société Générale is the majority shareholder, and which is led locally by Mikhail Bratanov. Maurier will be based in Moscow, and will be in charge of international commercial development for the department, and its integration into Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS). Maurier comes from the Société Générale group.
According to information obtained by Ignites Europe, Wildgen, a law firm representing investors in Madoff funds, is going to leave the Luxembourg association of banks and bankers, in order to avoid any conflicts of interest and preserve its independence.
The Financial Times reports that a former fund manager at New Star Asset Management, Patrick Evershed, is suing the asset management firm. He accuses his former employer of provoking his resignation. He will argue that he was persecuted.
American International Group (AIG) on Tuesday announced the appointment of Monika M. Machon as senior vice president and chief investment officer (CIO) in charge of portfolio management at the insurance company for all asset classes. Machon, who joined AIG in 1998, was previously global head of fixed income at AIG Investments, and chairperson of the board at AIG Investments Europe Ltd. She will report directly to Edward J. Liddy, chairman and CEO of AIG.Machon replaces Win J. Neuger, who will remain as chairman and CEO of AIG Investments, and will continue to serve as director of asset management activities for external clients. AIG is planning to sell off these activities.Meanwhile, Jeffrey J. Hurd, who is currently senior managing director, chief administrative officer and general counsel at AIG Investments, has been appointed senior vice president and head of asset management and restructuring, in charge of the sale of activities in asset management for third parties and the restructuring of asset management in the AIG group. He will also retain his current functions.
UCITS IV will be a ?dead directive? in Italy if the tax regime for investment funds is not reformed, says Fabio Galli, CEO of Assogestioni (the Italian association of management professionals), in an interview with Ignites Europe. Many foreign asset management firms which have created funds in Dublin or Luxembourg may consider repatriating them to Italy if the tax regime makes it possible.
Of the seven strategies put to the test two years ago in the ?talent hotel? created by Lupus alpha, three failed, two are still in a testing phase, and two succeeded, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. One of the successes is a commodities strategy combining options and direct investment. The other is a quantitative model which makes short-term predictions about the evolution of share prices. Currently, Lupus alpha is seeking new candidates to replace the managers whose formulas did not succeed. There are about 100 candidates for the three places.
Many banks are selling off their asset management activities to get hold of money and concentrate on their core professions, Handelsblatt reports. Independent managers with a healthy balance sheet such as BlackRock and Schroders, Aberdeen, Henderson, F&C and Invesco are potential buyers for these divisions, Kevin Pakenham, a partner at Jefferies Putnam Lovell in London, tells Handelsblatt. Legg Mason may also be a buyer, and Franklin Templeton has already announced that it is seeking opportunities for external growth.Benjamin Phillips, a partner at Casey, Quirk & Associates in New York, also cites private equity funds as potential buyers, or healthy banks such as JP Morgan US Bancorp, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Deutsche Bank.
The private equity firm Investor AB, controlled by the Wallenberg family, announced on Tuesday that it is planning to reduce its dividends for 2008 to 4 Swedish kronor per share from 4.75 kronor, on consolidated net losses of SEK36.74bn, compared with SEK367m in 2007. As of 31 December, the net value of its assets added up to SEK115.34bn, compared with SEK155.2bn one year earlier. Net liquidity at the end of the year stood at SEK9.41bn, compared with a net debt of SEK3.58bn.
The private equity investor Cerberus, which employs 275 people worldwide, has announced job cuts representing 10% of its staff, Handelsblatt reports. Although many investment funds have already announced layoffs, Cerberus, which owns 80% of the troubled American car maker Chrysler, and a majority stake in its financing branch, GMAC, now on the brink of bankruptcy, is particularly hard-hit.
In fourth quarter, ?results in asset management continued to be penalised by outflows of invested assets and by depreciations affecting certain asset classes (alternative management and ?seed money,?) the Société Générale group announced in a statement published Wednesday morning, in which it announces estimated results for 2008. The French bank states that its final results will be published on 18 February, and says that it expects to post a net result for the part of the group totalling EUR2bn for last year as a whole. In fourth quarter 2008, estimated net results for the part of the group are expected to be near zero, the firm notes, and provides more detailed estimates for each profession. ?In finance and investment banking, the Group is expected to post net results near zero for the quarter,? SocGen estimates.
State Street has announced a 71% decline in its net profits to USD65m, or 15 cents per share, from USD223, or 57 cents per share, in the corresponding period of last year, the Financial Times reports. The results are worse than expected.
The German open-ended real estate fund Morgan Stanley P2 Value, which suspended redemptions on 30 October, initially for three months, will be extending the freeze on redemptions for up to 12 months more, Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investment GmbH announced on Tuesday. The suspension of redemptions for the CS Euroreal from Credit Suisse was also extended on Friday for only nine months. At the time that redemptions were suspended, the P2 Value had assets of about EUR1.7bn, but an increase in redemptions reduced liquidity reserves below the legal minimum of 5% of assets.
In its client portfolios, Merrill Lynch is taking overweight positions on high quality corporate bonds, to the detriment of high yield and equities, AGEFI Switzerland reports.
La Tribune reports that, buoyed by the inauguration of Barack Obama and a lack of long-term outlooks for European growth, the US dollar hit a six-week high against the Euro on Tuesday, 20 January, at USD1.2895 to the Euro, and ?there is no reason not to thing that the dollar could rise as far as its recent peak at the end of November, at USD1.2390 to the Euro,? the newspaper reports.
In December, hedge funds posted performance of 0.64%, according to the Lyxor Hedge Fund Index, calculated on the basis of performance and assets in funds on the Lyxor platform (Société Générale group). This did not prevent results from being negative for the year as a whole, at -10.10%.In 2008, the alternative strategies that performed best were ?L/S Equity Short Bias? (+32.32%), ?CTAs Long Term? (+31.39%), and ?CTAs Short Term? (+10.07%). The least good performance was for the Credit Arbitrage Index strategy, which lost 51.27% for the year.Edhec confirms that CTAs have performed well (+15.65%) for the year as a whole. Excepting short selling (+31.7%), all other strategies posted losses, which remain nonetheless less severe than for the S&P. The worst results are for emerging markets (-33.8%), which have nonetheless gained 9.6% since 2001. Since January 2001, average performances are positive, and range from 2.2% to 8.8%.Edhec also notes that after six months of losses, the convertible arbitrage strategy managed to post positive returns (+1.70%) in December. The CTA strategy also posted its fourth consecutive month of gains (+1.45%). The positive orientation of the markets favoured equities strategies, such as equity market neutral and long/short equity. Event driven managed to reduce its losses, but remains negative (-0.7%).
Handelsblatt reports that Kevin Parker, head of the asset management unit at the Deutsche Bank group, has estimated that assets managed by the group declined by about 6% in 2008, to EUR500bn. He says this is due to falling markets related to the financial crisis. The Börsen-Zeitung, for its part, states that DB Advisors, the institutional management branch of Deutsche Bank, had assets under management as of the end of November of EUR165bn, which represents an increase of 6% since the end of June, despite the market turbulence.
Helmut Linssen, ministre des Finances de Rhénanie du Nord-Westphalie a annoncé que les dirigeants et actionnaires de la WestLB ainsi que de la DekaBank (le gestionnaire d’actifs central des caisses d'épargne) n’ont pas pu s’entendre mardi, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Il espère maintenant pour fin avril de premiers résultats des pourparlers de fusion entre la WestLB, Deka et la Helaba pour créer une #Landesbank du centre de l’Allemagne# que le gouvernement de Düsseldorf appelle de ses voeux.
Compte tenu de l’attitude de blocage adoptée par le conseil de surveillance de Continental, les banques alliées de Schaeffler sont d’avis que le groupe franconien devrait acheter la totalité du manufacturier et en faire retirer le titre de la cote, croit savoir le Handelsblatt. C’est probablement une posture d’intimidation, parce que mettre un tel projet à exécution serait manquer à la parole donnée l'été dernier aux dirigeants et aux syndicats de Conti que Schaeffler ne prendra pas plus de 49,9 % avant 2012. En attendant, Schaeffler a pour la première fois officiellement réclamé la tête du président du conseil de surveillance de Conti, Hubertus von Grünberg et la convocation d’une AGE pour destituer tous les administrateurs représentant le capital qui seraient ensuite remplacés par des affidés de Schaeffler. Schaeffler a replacé environ 40 % des actions Conti auprès des banques privées Sal. Oppenheim et Metzler.