Lancé le 22 juin 2006, le Lyxor ETF Russia* change ce 20 mars de sous-jacent et adopte le nouveau Dow Jones Russia GDR Index (GDR est l’abréviation de global depository receipts) à la place du Dow Jones RusIndex Titans 10. Cela permet de diversifier l’exposition aux actions russes, car le DJ Russia GDR couvre environ 77 % de l’indice large DJ Russia TSM.Les GDR sont des certificats bancaires négociés comme des actions domestiques d’une société locale mais proposées aux investisseurs dans le monde par les filiales étrangères d’une banque internationale.* FR0010326140

Le groupe danois Saxo Bank a annoncé le 19 mars le lancement au Royaume-Uni d’une plate-forme de gestion de fortune. La nouvelle offre pourrait être proposée dans d’autres pays à bref délai.La plate-forme comprend des outils Morningstar, des données sur des fonds et des ETF, ainsi qu’un générateur de profils de risque («Ideator»).

Le gestionnaire américain BlackRock a obtenu comme escompté l’agrément de commercialisation au Royaume-Uni du compartiment Americas Diversified Equity Absolute Return de sa sicav luxembourgeoise BlackRock Strategic Funds (BSF), un fonds actions de performance absolue qui est cogéré par Raffaele Savi et Travis Cooke (lire Newsmanagers du 23 janvier). Le portefeuille est investi de manière très diversifiée aux Etats-Unis, au Canada et en Amérique latine.Les modalités sont celles prévues en janvier, l’indice de référence étant le libor USD 3 mois.

Les sociétés de gestion alternative Absolute Invest AG et Alpine Select AG sont actuellement en pourparlers pour une éventuelle fusion des deux entreprises, a indiqué le 19 mars dans un communiqué Absolute Invest.Par ailleurs, Absolute Invest AG annonce que son président du conseil, Thomas Amstutz, se présentera à l’assemblée générale d’Alpine Select AG pour une élection au conseil d’administration, pour un mandat d’une année.

Le 16 mars, la CNMV a enregistré cinq ETF supplémentaires de Lyxor Asset Management, en plus du Axa Euro Valeurs Responsables.Depuis le début du mois, le gestionnaire d’ETF aura ainsi fait coter 12 produits en Espagne. Les cinq fonds, qui répliquent des indices sectoriels du S&P 500 en version «capped» et chargés à 0,20 % sont les suivants : Lyxor ETF S&P 500 Capped Consumer Discretionary Sector, Consumer Staples Sector, Energy Sector, Financials Sector et Health Care Sector.

HSBC Global Asset Management has hired Paola Pallotta, formerly of Swiss & Global Asset Management, as a relationship manager for its Italian team. She will be in charge of developing the whosesale client segment, with a focus on emerging markets. She will work with Roberto Citarella, deputy managing director, and Alessandra Primavera, relationship manager. HSBC GAM has been present in Italy for 11 years, and has an office of six people. Assets for the Italian activity totalled USD4.1bn as of the end of 2011.

The investment firm Pimco and the ETP provider Source on 19 March announced the launch of the Pimco Short-Term High Yield Corporate Bond Index Source ETF (STHY). The fund is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and aims to reproduce the performance of the BofA Merrill Lynch 0-5 Year US High Yield Constrained index. STHY is licensed for sale in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Italy (only to institutional investors), the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.STHY is the first ETF available in Europe to offer investors physical access to the short-term high yield bond sector. Exposure to the high yield sector is often used as an alternative to equity markets. Returns on the short-term segment of the high yield market historically are equivalent to those of the equity markets, but offer two timss lower volatility.The index selected for the ETF includes a wide range of issuers and bonds (821 securities as of 29 February 2012), which allows Pimco to rely on its experience and expertise in the optimisation of portfolios and high yield investment internationally. The Pimco optimisation process aims to minimise tracking error compared with the index, reduce trading costs, and avoid exposure to bonds considered illiquid, and issuers whose long-term viability is uncertain, while concentrating on the objective of replicating the index. These issuers generally represent a small proportion of the high yield universe.The Pimco Short-Term High Yield Corporate Bond Index Source ETF is the sixth fund launched in the physically invested Pimco Source ETF range, which includes the MINT strategies, which are the first actively-managed ETFs in Europe, and the first bond ETFs which weight the various countries according to the GNP so as to provide an optimised reproduction of local currency and European currency emerging market government bond indices.

Only 40% of equity funds in Europe out-perform their benchmarks on average over a year, three years and ten years over the past 20 years, a new Lipper study finds. This means that 60% of funds underperform, which is a new argument in favour of ETF funds. This proportion nonetheless varies in different periods and geographical regions. Looking at actively-managed equity funds’ performance relative to their benchmarks over 1, 3 and 10 years to the end of December 2011, the proportion of funds that out-performed varied from 26.7% in 2011, 40.0% over 3 years and 34.9% over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, funds which invest in equity funds in North America have fewer managers who have outperformed than other categories. In bonds, 45.4% of funds did better than the index over three years, but only 16.2% did so over 10 years. In 2011, 23.7% of funds beat their benchmarks.

In the second week of March, bond funds continued to be favoured by investors, as the US and Japanese central banks reaffirmed their intentions to maintain interest rates at a very low level.Bond funds finished the week to 14 March with record net inflows of USD7.57bn, according to statistics from EPFR Global.

The index provider S&P Indices on 19 March announced the launch of the S&P GIVI (S&P Global Intrinsic Value Index), which associates reduced volatility with a specific weighting which takes into account the intrinsic value of a share rather than its market capitalisation. S&P has issued a license to use the index and the complete family of sub-indices for developed and emerging markets to Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The Lyxor ETF Russia (FR0010326140), launched on 22 June 2006, will on 20 March change its underlying index, to adopt the new Dow Jones Russia GDR Index (GDR stands for global depository receipts), instead of the Dow Jones RusIndex Titans 10. This will allow for diversification of exposure to Russian equities, as the DJ Russia GDR includes about 77% of the larger DJ Russia TSM index.GDRs are bank certificates traded as domestic equities in local firms, but which are offered to investors worldwide via foreign affiliates of international banks.

A team of former electronic traders from RBC Capital is planning to launch an alternative trading platform which will aim to reduce the impact of high-frequency trading on large trades, HFT Review reports. The initiative comes at a time when a growing number of institutional investors are seeking to protect themselves against high-frequency trading. The new platform, supported by RBC and major buy-side institutions, may take the form of a dark pool.

In a deal announced on Monday, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, the owners of the New York Mets baseball team, have agreed to pay USD162m to Irving Picard, the trustee for the interests of Bernard Madoff, to settle a lawsuit against them, the Wall Street Journal reports. Picard had accused the men of having been willfully blind to signs that Bernard Madoff was a fraudster.

Crédit Mutuel ARKEA on 19 March announced that it is investing in the majority-owning fund “France Transmission I,” created by the asset management firm TCR Capital. The subscription to the fund, dedicated to small caps and aiming for assets of EUR50m to EUR60m, will allow Crédit Mutuel Arkéa to enrich its resources in private equity, so as to offer a complete range of owners’ equity assistance solutions. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, which has hitherto been positioned solely as a minority shareholder in SMEs and mid-sized businesses, now has a resource for the acquisition of SMEs by a majority investor. The “France Transmission I” fund, managed by TCR Cpaital, in which Crédit Mutuel Arkéa is a major investor, aims to acquire majority stakes of up to EUR6m, in regional businesses in the home territories of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and also nationwide.

The Irish-registered iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials and iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials 1-5 Etf funds, launched on 25 September 2009 on the London Stock Exchange, with assets of about EUR1.26bn and EUR322.3m, respectively, are now available on the French market.Both products are ex-financials corporate bond funds, which use physical replication of indices, covering about 700 and 400 shares, respectively.In 2011, the two ETF funds had net inflows of over EUR700m in Europe, in addition to which EUR400m have come in since the beginning of the year (as of 21 February 2012), says David Benmussa, director of iShares in France.

About one year after selling off the Marriott hotel on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, the German firm Union Investment Real Estate has acquired the four-star Meliá Hotels International hotel under construction at La Défense (369 rooms, 24,000 square metres) near Paris. The property is slated for completion in third quarter 2014. The sale price has not been disclosed. The vendor is Vinci Immobilier.The property will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Deutschland, which currently owns 10 hotels of seven different chains, with a total value of EUR900m.

Despite toughening regulations, including the compartmentalisation of retail banking by the Vickers commission, increased taxation and an economy in crisis, the British capital has once again won the top place in the rankings of international financial centres (GFCI) by Z/Yen Group, Les Echos reports. The City will soon benefit from a tax break, and its status as a designated offshore market for the Chinese yuan. New York and Hong Kong continue to trail close behind the City, while Paris has risen 2 places to 22nd place.

In an interview with the Börsen-Zeitung, Frank-Peter Martin, CIO of Metzler Asset Management, says that the asset management affiliate of the German private bank Metzler as of the end of 2011 had assets of EUR47bn, compared with EUR45.5bn twelve months earlier, due to market effects and net inflows from institutional investors. These investors have been the priority target of Metzler AM since 2009.

Thomas Richter, CEO of the German BVI association of asset management firms, announced on 19 March that he does not understand why investment funds are named in the European Commission’s green paper proposing regulations of the shadow banking system. These instruments are adequately regulated, he claims, which is not the case for other financial instruments and institutions for which clear rules are overdue for a long time.The BVI manager reminds that the European Commission is seeking to regulate the activities of vehicles which operate to transform maturities, which use leverage, or which run the risk of compromising the stability of the financial system if there are massive withdrawals. This is not the case for money market funds or ETFs, which are mentioned in the green paper.ETF funds are subject to the same strict regulatory conditions as actively-managed funds, and most of these products are subject to the UCITS directive.In conclusion, Richter points out that investment funds did not provoke or aggravate the financial crisis.

SPGP has recruited Cedric Chaboud and Jeremy Boublil, who had previously been in charge of IPO strategy at Lazard Frères Gestion. The two managers, who had been in charge of an international Sicav dedicated to investment in companies undertaking IPOs, will retain their fund at their new employer. The internationally-investing OPCVM fund, launched in February 2010, entitled Skylar Origin, had been reserved for qualified investors. Now that it has received a UCITS IV license from the regulator, it will be made available to institutional and retail investors (in private management or via IFA platforms). The first net asset value figures for the Sicav under management by SPGP will be calculated on Friday, 23 March.

The increasing success of funds trading on the volatility of US equities are the subject of concern on the part of investment advisers, the Financial Times reports. ETFs which track the Vix index from CBOE have had record subscriptions this year. But these products have regularly lost money, not only because the volatility of equities has fallen, but also because fund promoters periodically need to buy new Vix futures contracts, which are costly.

Dominique Ceolin, chairman of the board of directors, has announced at a presentation of 2011 results for ABC Arbitrage (see Newsmanagers of 19 March) that two new products are under study for this year, one investing in futures, and the other in fixed income.As of 1 March, assets under management for third parties totalled EUR259m (5 funds available to qualified investors and one mandate), out of a total of EUR401m, compared with EUR194m out of EUR336m as of the end of 2011.ABC Arbitrage has posted net inflows of EUR165m in 2011, largely in second half. Management for third parties has generated revenues of EUR3.6m in 2011, triple the total in 2010, and the firm has achieved its objective of creating EUR1m in gross revenue on each inflow of EUR25m.For 2012, the objective is to reach EUR400m in external assets.

According to a press release on 16 March, Lehman Brothers Holdings has sold its preferential stake in Neuberger Berman for USD850m, Mutual fund Wire reports. This sum will be distributed to unsecured creditors when Lehman makes its first payments on 17 April.

Mitch Hackles, founder and CEO of the PR agency Hedge Fund PR, has been elected president of the Hedge Fund Association (HFA), while the lawyer Ron S. Geffner, a partner at Sadis & Goldberg, has been reelected as its vice president.David Friedland, former president of the HFA, has been appointed as its chairman.The HFA is a non-profit association which aims to promote the reputation and development of the alternative management sector. It has hedge funds and funds of hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, foundations, high net worth private investors, asset allocators, and service providers among its members.

Equinox Consulting in 2011 undertook a study in conjunction with the economic research department of the French financial management association (AFG) on the evolution of asset management in France (see attached). Overall, the document points to an intensification in competition, and projects that this trend will continue in the next few years, as increases in assets are not now expected to lead to the creation of significant new jobs.Respondents also predict a more rapid growth in institutional and private management than for mutual funds, and increased rationalisation of product ranges, although asset levels will continue to increase.In the section on the development of organisational models at asset management firms, the study finds that institutional clients, who are one of the major growth areas, appear to be increasingly difficult to win over, while management of institutional mandates and dedicated funds are becoming less profitable. Meanwhile, increased recruitment in sales, which allows for the creation of personalised product ranges (which may potentially consume human resources, in a time when headcounts on the other hand are not supposed to increase), would be one of the elements that would make firms stand out in the asset management market.

Qatar has increased its stake in the capital of Lagardère to 12.83%, and now holds over 10% of voting rights in the media group, a statement released by the French financial regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), reveals. Qatar Holding, one of the investment arms of the sovereign fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), has also reaffirmed that it is planning to request a seat on the supervisory board, and to “discuss with any interested actors, if there are such, potential strategic partnerships to create long-term value for shareholders, as there are currently no specific projects of this kind.” The Qatari fund has announced that it holds 12.83% of capital in Lagardère and 10.05% of voting rights. It adds that it reserves the right to increase its stake in the firm further, but says that it doesn’t want to acquire a controlling stake.

On 16 March, the CNMV issued registrations for five more ETF funds from Lyxor Asset Management, in addition to the Axa Euro Valeurs Responsables.Since the beginning of the month, the ETF management firm will have listed 12 products in Spain. The five funds, which replicate sector indices of the S&P 500 in capped versions, and charge fees of 0.20%, are as follows: Lyxor ETF S&P 500 Capped Consumer Discretionary Sector, Consumer Staples Sector, Energy Sector, Financials Sector and Health Care Sector.

Rationalisation of the fund catalogues by Spanish asset management firms is intensifying, judging by the number of CNMV notifications, Funds People reports. Last week, the firm which undertook the most fund mergers was Bankia Fondos, while Ahorro Corporación has undertaken a super-merger of 11 products into a single fund, the Ahorro Corporación Renta Fija Euro. Amundi Iberia has merged two ING Direct funds (Naranja Mixto Europeo et Naranja Moderado). Bankinter Gestión de Activo has also merges two funds, while Gescooperativo has merged one fund and one Sicav. Currently, there are 2,473 funds from 98 asset management firms belonging to the Inverco association.

A study by Equinox Consulting of asset management in France (see article in today’s Newsmanagers) is accompanied by a comparison of the German and French markets. The survey finds that German asset managers are more optimistic than their French counterparts about expected growth in assets.The survey also finds that German professionals, more than French ones, prefer “custom” distribution of funds, due to the large market for “Spezialfonds” in Germany.The study also finds that German asset managers are ahead of their French counterparts in outsourcing some functions.

The Danish Saxo Bank group on 19 March announced the launch in the United Kingdom of a wealth management platform. The new range may be offered in other countries in the near future. The platform includes tools from Morningstar, data on funds and ETF products, and a risk profile generator (“Ideator”).