From 24 October, shares in the Vanguard 500 Index Fund ETF (code: VOO) will be grouped together, with one new share for every two old ones, in a process which will affect only conventional share classes in the products, Vanguard has announced. This “reverse split” will allow for transaction fees for the purchase and sale of shares to be reduced.The VOO has assets of over USD10bn, and a total expense ratio of 0.55%. Vanguard states that the average TER for its 67 equity and bond ETFs (USD290bn in assets) is 0.15%, while the average for the industry, according to Lipper, is 0.58%.

Creations of hedge funds in North America fell slightly in second quarter 2013 compared with the previous quarter, but they have increased noticeably year on year. In second quarter, 288 new hedge funds were launched in second quarter, compared with 297 vehicles launched in first quarter, but compared with 245 hedge funds launched one year ear, according to the most recent HFR Market Microstructure Industry Report. Creations of hedge funds over a sliding four-quarter period a of the end of June 2013 totalled 1,144, a level not seen since about 1,200 funds were created in the four quarters to the end of March 2008. Liquidations in second quarter totalled 190 funds, in line with those recorded in first quarter 2013 (196) and second quarter 2012 (192). The number of active hedge funds, including funds of hedge funds, totalled 10,009, a figure not seen for five years, and near a record of 10,233 recorded in second quarter 2008. The number of single-manager hedge funds totalled a record 8,167, while the number of funds of funds has fallen to 1,842, its lowest level since 2005. Assets in hedge funds totalled a record USD2.414bn as of the end of June 2013. The report also finds that management commisions declined in fourth quarter to 1.54%, while macro funds charge the highest commissions and arbitrage funds the lowest. Performance commissions totalled 18.31%.

According to the Berlin-based ratings agency Scope, newly-launched funds only rarely provide added value compared with older products. A comparison of German funds launched in the period from February to July 2012 with older supports finds, for example, that the 29 new funds in the global equity category showed average returns of 9.5% for one year, while products which were previously on sale earned 11.2% on average. The same applies to Europe funds, with 14.6% compared with 16.9% for older products. Only new US equity funds outperformed older producs, with 17.5% compared with 14.1%.The same observation applied to multi-asset class funds. Among the other categories (defensive, balanced, offensive and flexible), only balanced products did better than their older counterparts, with an average return of 6.4% compared with 3.7% for older funds.Scope has identified three reasons for this lack of performance of new funds. On the one hand, they are often not new concepts, but older ideas “repackaged.” On the other, the investment and selection process need to be consoldated and installed, even if the managers are experienced. Lastly, newly-launched funds often have lower asset levels, which means that fixed costs absorb a higher proportion of performance. In addition, new funds need to be promoted, which is also costly.

Millionaires of generations X and Y, meaning those aged 48 or under (with an average age of 37) are very actively engaged in the constitution of their wealth, according to the sixth annual barometer of US millionaires published by Fidelity (Fidelity Millionaire Outlook). They say that finance does not repel them, that they have knowledge of the principles of investment activity, and 72% call this activity pleasant, two times more than their baby boom counterparts. As a sign of their interest in increasing their wealth, they make 30 trades a month on the markets, use a wide range of asset classes, and do not hesitate to modify their investment strategy. 92% use financial advisers to make their wealth prosper, and are more engaged in long-term planning of their investments. The annual study by Fidelity also finds that they are more generous than their counterparts. 82%, compared with 49% for baby boomers, sit on the boards of charities. Their donations total an average of USD54,000.

Invesco PowerShares has announced the appointment of Dan Draper as global head of ETFs, IndexUniverse reports. Draper succeeds Ben Fulton, who left his position in April this year (see Newsmanagers of 4 April 2013). Draper, who began as managing director on 16 September, previously worked at Credit Suisse, where he was head of European ETF activities, before their sale to BlackRock.

Alex Ricchebuono has joined La Française to head-up Southeastern business development, NewsManagers has learnt. He has worked with Brevan Howard (UK) where he was in charge of the distribution of alternative products in Southern Europe and with Credit Suisse Investment Banking (IT) as managing director.Alex Ricchebuono is operating out of the Italian branch of La Française AM (Via Dante, 14 – Milan) and managing the local team. As head of Southeast Europe, he will continue to pursue development opportunities. His goal will be to expand business in Italy, Switzerland and Austria through third party networks, both institutional and retail. Marco Peri will maintain his role as head of Italian Sales with the goal to consolidate La Francaise AM’s presence in this key market, considered strategic by the firm. Additionally, Maria Grazia Bevilacqua, in charge of marketing support and client service, has joined the Italian team.

BNP Paribas Real Estate on 17 September announced the acquisition of the iii-investments company, an affiliate of HypoVereinsBank (UniCredit Bank AG), of the UniCredit group, the second-largest fund management firm in Germany dedicated to institutional investors.With the new acquisition, the Investment Management profession at BNP Paribas Real Estate joins the Top 10 European real estate management firms, with a new total of EUR18bn in assets under management. The acquisition is subject to the agreement of the competent authorities, and may be effective by fourth quarter 2013 at the latest. The sale price is confidential. The acquisition of iii-investments comes as part of the development of BNP Paribas Real Estate, whose objectives include developing Investment Management activities throughout Europe and strengthening its positions in the three countries where more than 80% of its real estate investments in Europe are concentrated (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). More generally, the acquisition also comes as part of the BNP Paribas group’s plan to develop in Germany, reinforcing its position as a leader in real estate.iii-investments, founded in 1958, manages EUR4.2bn in assets (real estate funds and real estate debt funds) for German institutional investors (pension funds, retirement schemes and insurers), mostly located in Germany, but also in France, the United Kingdom, 10 other European countries, and Japan.

The global head of investment management at UBS Global Asset Management until December 2012, and then personal adviser to the directors of von Fischer and director of SVA Argovie, Christoph Schenk, will on 1 January 2014 join the Cantonal Bank of Zurich (ZKB) as CIO, replacing Marco Curti. From March 2003 to June 2006, Curti was CIO for Switzerland & global head institutional multi-asset class solutions at Credit Suisse in Zurich.

Morgan Stanley has hired Paul Price as head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management international sales. He most recently served as global head of the institutional business at Pioneer Global Asset ManagementHe will oversee the institutional and intermediary sales, consultant relations and business development teams in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this new role, Paul Price will be based in London.“Paul brings more than two decades of asset management experience and has a proven track record of building institutional distribution organizations across asset classes,” said Lisa Jones, global head of MSIM sales.Navtej S. Nandra, head of MSIM international, added, “Paul will play a key role in strengthening MSIM’s international footprint, working closely with Lisa, Jack O’Connor, our new head of North America sales, and me.”

Neptune Investment Management has seen a decline in its pre-tax profits of nearly 40%, to GBP12.8m last year, Financial News reports. The firm’s portfolios were too highly exposed to cyclical securities, and not enough to the global financial sector, the newspaper explains.

John Wyn-Evans, a consultant for Troy Asset Management, responsible for developing thematic research into the economy, strategy and asset allocation, after working at Lehman Brothers and then at Nomura as executive director, UK & European equity sales, is joining Investec Wealth & Investment as head of investment strategy.Wyn-Evans joins a research team of 19 people, and replaces John Haynes, head of research, who became adviser for investment strategy for IFA clients following the departure of Jim Wood-Smith.

Quoniam Asset Management, a German quantitative management specialist and an affiliate of Union Investment, has announced that it is planning to open an office in London in Summer 2014, to better serve British clients, international consultants and sovereign wealth funds.Helmut Paulus, CEO and co-CIO, says that assets at Quoniam now total about EUR19bn, managed for 100 institutional investors. Of this total, equities represent EUR7bn, and bonds the remaining EUR12bn.

Corruption has proven to be one of the most important factors in the euro zone debt crisis, the Sovereign Fixed Income working group at the United Nations Principles For Responsible Investment (PRI) has noted.“Any attempt to outline the origins of the euro crisis almost invariably touches on the issue of corruption and the role it played in Greece’s insolvency.lesson from the European Debt Crisis,” the report says, based on a study of environmental, social and governance factors to reduce risks and increase performance in sovereign debt.The authors of the study show that corruption and the performance of sovereign debt are clearly correlated.In social terms, it would appear that a highly educated, IT-literate society paired with a repressive political system can increase the risk of political regime change, according to the study, citing Maplecroft, a provider of ESG research.However, research carried out to date has found only a limited correlation between environmental issues and the performance of bonds. One of the major problems, the study notes, is knowing what indicators should be used to measure environmental risks in a government bond context. Despite this lack of evidence on the environmental side, there is clearly a strong corellation between ESG factors and credit and performance risk.But these are still under-used, the study regrets. To move forward, the authors suggest encouraging major ratings firms to integrate these criteria more.

Investor bullishness towards European equities has reached pre-crisis highs as markets digest the emerging market sell-off, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for September. An overall total of 236 panelists with USD689 billion of assets under management participated in the survey from 6 September to 12 September 2013.As a consequence, the great rotation from bonds to equities has progressed. The gulf between allocations towards equities and bonds is at its widest since February 2011, and the second-widest in the history of the survey. A net 68 percent of asset allocators are underweight bonds, the greatest underweight position recorded since April 2006 – to give a bond to equity allocation spread of 128 net percentage points.Allocations to eurozone equities have reached their highest level since May 2007. A net 36 percent of global asset allocators are overweight the region, more than twice the net 17 percent recorded in August. A net 12 percent of asset allocators are overweight U.K. equities, which represents an all-time high. Allocations to emerging market equities remain low with a net 18 percent of the panel underweight. Investors have signaled their intent to maintain flows into Europe. A net 27 of investors say that the eurozone is the region they would most like to overweight in the coming 12 months – also the highest reading since May 2007. The switch in sentiment towards Europe has been swift. Only a net 2 percent expressed a desire to overweight the region in July.While optimism is returning to Europe, cash levels have risen to an average of 4.6 percent of portfolios. The proportion of asset allocators overweight cash has risen. Eight out of 10 investors believe the global economy will continue to grow at below trend rate in the coming 12 months.Negative sentiment towards global emerging markets has stabilized. The number of investors saying that emerging markets is the region they most want to underweight has fallen to a net 21 percent in September from a net 29 percent a month ago. Investors are indicating that they see the best value in emerging markets in almost a decade. A net 36 percent of the panel says that global emerging market equities are the most undervalued – or cheapest – of all the regions. This is the strongest undervalued reading since January 2004.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) is recruiting for its trading team. Three people have joined the firm. Juan Landazabal has been appointed as global head of fixed income Trading. He joins DeAWM From Fidelity International. Matt Montana has been appointed as head of equity trading Americas. He joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Lastly, Vincenzo, Vedda has been appointed as deputy global head of equity trading. He joins from Morgan Stanley.

Two international asset management firms are seeking to unload their Italian real estate portfolios, valued at EUR200m each, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. Axa is preparing to put its entire portfolio of Italian real estate assets belonging to the open-ended German fund Axa Immoselect, which is now in liquidation, The portfolio has 250,000 square metres in total. Aberdeen, for its part, is in the process of selling the portfolio of Italian properties from its German open-ended fund Degi International, which total 500,000 square metres. Among the potential buyers, the names of Blackstone, Orien and Morgan Stanley are circulating.

IMQubator, a Netherlands-based incubation specialist supported by the pension fund APG, has invested USD33m in the volatility arbitrage fund True Partner Fund in Hong Kong, led by Ralph van Put, FondsNieuws reports. This brings assets at True Partner to USD107m, and gives the fund critical size.APG itself provided EUR225m to IMQubator.

Earlier this year, the Financial Conduct Authority notified asset management firms that it would not tolerate any use of commissions paid by client to pay brokers to have them hold meetings with their client businesses, Financial Times fund management reports. The result is that UK firms are afraid that this will penalise them compared with foreign asset management firms, which can still pay for meetings with directors of companies, particularly in emerging countries, where access to businesses is difficult.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages Norway’s sovereign fund, has published a discussion note on high frequency trading (HFT) which aims to shed light on this wide-ranging topic from an asset manager’s perspective.According to NBIM, issues of concern to large, long-term investors more deserving of attention include : anticipation of large orders by some HFTs leading to potential adverse market impact ; transient liquidity due to high propensity for HFTs to rapidly cancel quotes real-time ; un-level playing field amongst market makers from low latency ultra HFT strategies

Les grands investisseurs institutionnels européens continuent d'être plutôt domiciliés dans les pays scandinaves et aux Pays-Bas, selon l’enquête réalisée par IPE sur le Top 1000 Institutional Investors, un supplément paru dans la livraison de septembre du magazine publié par le spécialiste des fonds de pension européens.Les principaux fonds de pension restent basés en Suède, au Danemark, en Norvège et aux Pays-Bas, le fonds de réserve de la sécurité sociale espagnole se maintenant toutefois les dix premiers du classement alors qu’il est le seul établissement dont les actifs sous gestion s’inscrivent en baisse d’une année sur l’autre. Le premier du classement reste le fonds de pension norvégien (NPFG), dont les actifs sous gestion s'élèvent à quelque 546 milliards d’euros et qui fait partie des trois plus grands investisseurs de la planète, derrière le fonds de pension du gouvernement japonais et le le fonds chinois SAFE.Le fonds norvégien représente cette année 10,9% des actifs du Top 1000, contre 9% l’an dernier. Les autres investisseurs des pays du nord de l’Europe maintiennent leurs positions, les fonds néerlandais ABP et PFZW, avec des actifs sous gestion de respectivement 281 milliards d’euros et 129 milliards d’euros, étant largement devant le danois ATP, en quatrième position, et en cinquième position le suédois ATP, dont les actifs sous gestion sont passés de 55 milliards d’euros à 64 milliards d’euros en douze mois et qui gagne ainsi une place au détriment du fonds de réserve espagnol.Le nombre de fonds de pension gérant plus de 10 milliards d’euros a augmenté à 102 contre 75 en 2010, alors que 675 fonds affichent des actifs sous gestion supérieurs au milliard d’euros.

AEW Europe, société de conseil en investissements immobiliers en Europe, a annoncé mardi 17 septembre l’arrivée de Jérémy Convert en tant que directeur d’investissements au sein de son équipe investissement. Basé à Paris, il aura pour responsable Laurent Babelon, co-head of investments.Ce recrutement vient renforcer l’équipe d’investisseurs seniors de AEW Europe tandis que l’entreprise enregistre une activité croissante de structuration d’importantes transactions et de clubs deals en Europe, indique un communiqué.Avant de rejoindre AEW Europe, Jérémy Convert travaillait au Credit Suisse en tant que responsable des activités de banque d’investissements pour le secteur immobilier en France et au Benelux.

Funds People rapporte qu’Amundi rend désormais accessible aux investisseurs espagnols le fonds Silver Age de CPR. Ce produit, qui mise sur les sociétés susceptibles de profiter du vieillissement de la population, affiche un encours de 184,24 millions d’euros. Lancé en 2009, il a enregistré des performances à deux chiffres depuis lors, sauf en 2011.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) renforce son équipe de trading. Trois personnes ont rejoint la société. Juan Landazabal a été nommé global head of fixed income Trading. Il rejoint DeAWM de chez Fidelity International. Matt Montana a été nommé head of equity trading Americas. Il arrive de Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Enfin, Vincenzo Vedda a été nommé deputy global head of equity trading. Il vient de chez Morgan Stanley.

Le néerlandais IMQubator, spécialiste néerlandais de l’incubation soutenu par le fonds de pension APG, a investi 33 millions de dollars dans le fonds d’arbitrage de volatilité True Partner Fund de Hong Kong que dirige Ralph van Put, rapporte FondsNieuws. Cela porte l’encours de True Partner à 107 millions de dollars et confère donc une taille critique à ce fonds.APG a lui-même fourni 225 millions d’euros à IMQubator.

Spécialiste allemand de la gestion quantitative, Quoniam Asset Management, filiale d’Union Investment, a annoncé qu’il compte ouvrir un bureau à Londres à l'été 2014 pour mieux servir les clients anglo-saxons, les consultants internationaux et les fonds souverains.Helmut Paulus, CEO et co-CIO, a precisé que l’encours de Quoniam se situe actuellement à quelque 19 milliards d’euros, gérés pour une centaine d’investisseurs institutionnels. Sur ce total, les actions représentent 7 milliards d’euros et les obligations les 12 milliards restants.

John Wyn-Evans, consultant pour Troy Asset Management chargé du développement de la recherche thématique sur l'économie, la stratégie et l’allocation d’actifs après avoir travaillé chez Lehman Brothers puis chez Nomura comme executive director, UK & European equity sales, rejoint Investec Wealth & Investment comme head of investment strategy.Le nouvel arrivant intègre une équipe de recherche de 19 personnes et remplaces John Haynes, head of research, qui a pris en charge le conseil sur la stratégie d’investissement pour la clientèle d’IFA après le départ de Jim Wood-Smith.

Neptune Investment Management a vu son bénéfice avant impôts chuter de près de 40 % à 12,8 millions de livres l’année dernière, rapporte Financial News. Les portefeuilles de la société étaient trop exposés aux valeurs cycliques et pas assez aux financières mondiales, explique le journal.

Paul Price a rejoint Morgan Stanley Investment Management en tant que responsable commercial pour l’international. Il vient de Pioneer Global Asset Management où il était responsable mondial de l’activité institutionnelle.Chez MSIM, Paul Price supervisera les ventes à la clientèle institutionnels et d’intermédiaires, les relations avec les consultants et les équipes de développement en Europe, au Moyen-Orient, en Afrique, en Asie et en Amérique latine. Il sera basé à Londres."Paul jouera un rôle clé dans le renforcement de l’empreinte internationale de MSIM, et il travaillera étroitement avec Lisa Jones, responsable mondiale des ventes de MSIM, Jack O’Connor, notre nouveau responsable des ventes Amérique du Nord, et moi-même», a déclaré Navtek S. Nandra, responsable de MSIM International.

La boutique basée à Londres Prusik Investment Management a décidé de fermer aux nouveaux investisseurs l’accès de son fonds dédié aux petites capitalisations asiatiques, rapporte Citywire.Le fonds Asian Smaller Companies domicilié au Luxembourg sera «soft-closé» à compter du 30 septembre prochain.Les actifs du fonds s'élèvent à environ 160 millions de dollars, un niveau qui nécessitait, selon le gérant du fonds, Heather Manners, une telle mesure pour préserver les intérêts des investisseurs Sur les trois ans à fin août 2013, le fonds affiche une performance de 20,45%, à comparer à un gain de 5,5% pour l’indice de référence, le MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Small Cap NR USD.

Hugh Mullan, managing director UK de Fidelity Worldwide Investment, annonce dans un entretien au Financial Times fund management que la rentabilité de sa société va chuter, tout comme celle de l’ensemble des acteurs du secteur. C’est la conséquence de la Retail Distribution Review, de la transformation du marché des retraites et du vieillissement de la clientèle traditionnelle des fonds de Fidelity. Hugh Mullan pense que les changements en cours au Royaume-Uni sont le prélude à ce qui va se produire ailleurs. Les Pays-Bas, le Danemark, l’Australie et la Suisse sont aussi sur cette voie. Fidelity Worldwide reste une activité rentable, note le FT fm. Le bénéfice avant impôts pour FIL Holdings, la holding britannique, a bondi de 69 % à 30,6 millions de livres sur l’année à juin 2012, alors que le chiffre d’affaires a baissé de 6,4 % à 677 millions de livres.