Co-fondateur du hedge fund Ikos (3 milliards de dollars), Martin Coward se prépare à lancer un hedge fund concurrent, ce qui risque d’aggraver encore les tensions avec le CEO Elena Ambrosiadou, l'épouse dont il est en train de se séparer, rapporte le Financial Times. Le nouveau fonds utilisera comme Ikos des programmes informatiques extrêmement complexes pour opérer sur les marchés du monde entier, programmes qui ont été conçus par Martin Coward.

Entretien avec Jean Ben-Illouz, Directeur d’EQUICOOP, société de conseil en gestion responsable, spécialisée dans un partage EQUIlibré et COOPératif d’expertises.

Pierre André Shaffter est administrateur de la Caisse de pensions de la Collectivité ecclésiastique cantonale de Jura pastorale (26 millions de francs suisses). Il a répondu aux questions d’Instit Invest au sujet de la politique d’investissement de Jura pastoral. Comment se structure votre allocation stratégique et tactique d’actifs financiers ? De la Suisse, je ne ressens pas la même perception que les personnes domiciliées dans les pays en euros. Nous construisons donc notre stratégie d’allocation avec une grande part d’obligations en francs suisses (40%) et en monnaies étrangères (15%). Nous souhaitons aussi investir 15% en actions étrangères tout en gardant la majorité de notre portefeuille en Suisse, en actions pour 15%, dans l’immobilier pour 12%. Enfin, nous ciblons 3% de placements alternatifs en matières premières et pas du tout de liquidité. En ce qui concerne l’allocation tactique, nous avons 53% d’obligations, dont 18% à l'étranger, 13% d’actions suisses et 13 % d’actions étrangères, 14% d’immobilier, 5% de liquidités et 2% de placements alternatifs. Nous faisons entre autre appel à Swisscanto pour l’allocation obligataire, mais également pour une partie de notre portefeuille d’actions. Pour l’immobilier, nos actifs sont répartis entre USB Sima, La Foncière, le fonds immobiliers romand FIR, Immofonds et Swisscanto pour l’immobilier international. Quelles sont vos attentes en termes de rendement du portefeuille d’actifs ? Aucune attente particulière. Les rendements ne proviennent plus, comme auparavant, des résultats des sociétés mais sont influencés par des facteurs extérieurs qui n’ont rien à voir avec l'économie. Le taux de couverture de la caisse de pensions est très proche de 100% et cela me convient tout à fait. Quelle politique adoptez-vous pour limiter l’impact de la crise qui touche actuellement l’Europe ? Nous avons changé très peu de choses, je me contente d’une très grande prudence et l’accumulation de cashflow ces dernières semaines. Je gère directement notre portefeuille en me basant sur les décisions prises par le comité de placement, mais la situation change tellement vite qu’une politique adoptée il y a 10 jours n’est déjà plus valable aujourd’hui. La gestion d’une caisse de pensions n’est pas axée sur du court terme, donc nous n’avons pas modifié nos politiques au regard des événements récents. J’ai toutefois réduit notre exposition aux actifs japonais début juillet, en raison de la catastrophe de Fukushima.

Universal-Investment has recently launched a German-registered bond fund on behalf of the Cologne-based wealth management firm Schneider, Walter & Kollegen (SwuK), entitled SwuK Renten Flexibel UI. The product is managed by Peter Schneider, while Winfried Walter selects the credit allocation.The fund, whose portfolio will contain at least 80% investment-grade securities, will be based on a proprietary system developed by Schneider, which allows for the relative attractiveness of a segment and then of each individual share to be determined. The system also takes into consideration the quality of the issue, the volume of the issue, maturity, currency and attractive rate spreads.Currently, the portfolio includes virtually no government bonds, but it does contain bonds from para-government issuers such as KfW and the German Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank and corporate bonds from several sectors. It also includes Pfandbriefe, inflation-linked bonds and convertible bonds.SwuK was founded in August 2011, and manages about EUR100m in assets.CharacteristicsName: SwuK Renten Flexibel UIISIN codes: DE000A1H72L9 (retail share class)DE000A1H772M7 (institutional share class; minimal subscription EUR0.1m)Front-end fee: maximum 3%Administration, advising and depository commissions: maximum 1.6%

The European fund and asset management association (EFAMA) on 28 October published an update to its European Fund Classification (EFC) system.The primary objective for the classification is to offer all participants a transparent classification structure. In the short term, the objective is to classify all investment funds availabe for sale in the various European jurisdictions. In the longer term, the effort will aim to offer complete coverage of UCITS-compliant products.The EFC working group has announced that it has now set the guiding categorical principles which will be sub-divided into sectoral categories. By the methodology chosen, the equities, bonds, diversified and money market fund universes are divided according to eight criteria: country/region, sector, market capitalisation size, currency, quality of credit, interest rate, exposure to emerging markets, and asset allocation.EFAMA is planning to release a report presenting the principles and categories in first quarter 2012.

The Coutts private bank announced a relaunch this Tuesday. In order to revitalise its image, the bank is dropping the name Royal Bank of Scotland, which it had used outside the United Kingdom (Switzerland, Middle East, Singapore, Hong Kong and India) since 2008, the Financial Times says. It will now operate as a single brand throughout the world: Coutts. The goal is to modernise the institution, founded in 1692, and to give a more dynamic image of its investment management.

GLG is interested in a type of market floor activity known as market maker, its CEO, Pierre Lagrange, who is also a member of the executive board at Man Group, has said in an interview with Les Echos. “In general, it doesn’t lose money, it is highly disciplined, methodical, and it works on low margins. It’s the expertise in short-term flow management that interests us,” explains Lagrange.

Henderson Global Investors has teamed up with José Mourinho, the Real Madrid trainer, in a new advertising campaign which will run in the UK and countries across Continental Europe and Asia from 31 October 2011. The campaign will feature the “special one” in outdoor, online, national and trade press and below-the-line promotions.

Bonuses handed out to City golden boys in London in 2011 will be down 38%, to GBP4.2bn, according to the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), Les Echos reports. They are thus returning to their levels of 10 years ago, far off their peak of GBP11.6bn in 2007. The CEBR predicts that the total level of bonuses will rise gradually to GBP4.6bn by 2015.

The French financial regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), and the Overseas Issuing Institute (Institut d'émission d’outre-mer, or IEOM) on 28 October issued a statement drawing the attention of the public to the activities of the company SECURCORP LIMITED, headquartered in Australia.The firm offers investors in New Caledonia financial products, often via advertisements in the local press, which promise returns of as much as 9.25% per year. The product is claimed to be exposed to risk related to the Australian real estate market.Although it would seem that the firm is registered with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission in the “Securities Dealers” category, the AMF and IEOM state that Securcorp is not authorised to provide investment services, and is not licensed to provide banking or financial activities in the domestic territories of France, or in its overseas territories. In addition, none of the products which the firm offers has any form of license for sale in French territory.As a result, the AMF and IEOM recommend that investors not respond to investment solicitations from this firm, and not to relay its communications to third parties in any form.

Pierre Bollon, executive officer of the French management association (AFG), claims the association needs to provide French management with the position it deserves in Europe, and to this end, the AFG has recently been active in London, and is not planning to stop there. A recent recruitment in Paris of someone dedicated to international markets, a forthcoming website, and other development in France and other countries provide illustrations of the association's strategy to promote French management.

The French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), has accused the asset management firm Tocqueville Finance, and its deputy CEO, Marc Tournier, of manipulating the price of the auto rental firm ADA in 2009, Les Echos reports. The trades in question took place on 26 June 2009, when Tocqueville Finance, at the instruction of Tournier, massively bought up ADA shares, provoking a 41.25% increase in its share price, according to the findings of a study by the market regulator’s sanctions committee.Tocqueville Finance and Tournier reject the accusations and claim that the publicly-traded capital in the firm at the time of the transactions was stable. A representative of the AMF college has called for a fine of EUR150,000, and a reprimand, against Tournier, and is seeking a fine of EUR100,000 against Tocqueville Finance.

The US ETF specialist WisdomTree as of the end of September posted assets of USd11.18bn, compared with USD12.93bn three months earlier, due to a negative market effect of USd1.93bn, though it still had positive net subscriptions of USD178.5m. Since the beginning of this year, WisdomTree has earned net inflows of USD3.14bn. Assets under management stack up to USD9.89bn as of the end of December, and USd8.26bn as of the end of September 2010. Net profits in third quarter totalled USd1.36m, compared with USD0.69m in April-June, and a loss of USD1.52m in the corresponding period of last year. In January-September, WisdomTree earned net profits of USD2.2m, compared with a loss of USd6.97m in the first nine months of 2010. At a presentation of its retuls, the CEO of the fund, Jonathan Steinberg, insisted that the market share of net subscriptions to US ETFs represented by WisdomTree totalled 4.1% in third quarter, compared with 2.7% in July-September 2010, Mutual Fund Wire reports.

The medical doctor Dr. Bruce C. Turner has been recruited by Lombard Odier Investment Management (LOIM) in New York to manage the health segment of the multi-strategy fund 1798 Fundamental Strategies Fund and Global Equity Long/Short Fund. Turner has 15 years of experience in the management of health sector funds at First Manhattan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. At LOIM, he will report to Aziz Nahas, a partner and CIO for equities. He replaces Jim Patricelli as portfolio manager. As of the end of September, LOIM had total assets of USD37bn.

The co-founder of the hedge fund Ikos (USD3bn), Martin Coward, is preparing to launch a rival hedge fund, which may further increase tensions with the CEO of the fund, Elena Ambrosiadou, his current wife whom he is in the process of divorcing, the Financial Times reports. Like Ikos, the new fund will use extremely complex software, devised by Coward, to trade on markets worldwide.

The US-based alternative management firm SAC Capital Advisors is planning to open an office in Tokyo in first quarter 2011, the Bloomberg news agency reports, in order to seize opportunities on the Japanese market. In 2011, SEC recruited four portfolio managers in Asia, bringing the total number of Asian experts to 13. In Asia, the firm already has offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing. Assets under management at SAC total about USD13bn. The firm has earned returns of about 7% in the first nine months of the year, compared with losses of 10% for the S&P 500. The SAC portfolio has highly limited net exposure, with total leverage of 3 to 3.5.

The British asset management firm Henderson has announced the closure of its quantitative currency strategies, including the Henderson Horizon Global Currency fund, whose assets under management totalled GBP36.7m, and the UCITS III fund Henderson Global Currency (GBP10m), Fund Web reports. The consequence of this decision is that the five members of the team which had managed these strategies will all be leaving the firm. The two funds will be liquidated and their capital refunded to shareholders.

The Mexican firm BBVA Bancomer on 27 October admitted the ETF CHINTRAC to trading on the Mexican stock market (BMV). The sixth ETF from Bancomer replicates the BMV China SX20 index of the largest Chinese caps in all sectors, available on the Mexican market, and is listed in the form of an ADR on the NYSE or Nasdaq exchanges. It is a physical replication product. Characteristics Name: CHNTRAC ISIN code: MX1BCH080000 Management commission: 0.50%

HSBC Global Asset Management has launched a bond fund denominated in Chinese renbimbi (yen), Citywire reports. The HSBC GIF RMB Fixed Income fund will be co-managed by Cecilia Chan, a manager based in Hong Kong.

Brice Perin is manager of the new absolute return, long/short, UCITS IV-compliant FCP fund Acropole Vol Opportunités, which on 26 October received a sales license from the AMF.The asset management firm is confident enough that there will be enough interest in the new product, which offers daily liquidity and decorrelated performance, to have provided EUR20m in seed capital, out of total assets of EUR750m. The volatily objective is comparable to the LFP Long Vol fund, which is also managed by Perin. This will be achieved by exploiting the volatility of indices and equities with a wide variety of liquid instruments such as plain vanilla options, variance swaps, forward start variance swaps, volatility swaps, and options and futures on the VIX.The minimal recommended investment duration for the product is three years.CharacteristicsName: Acropole Vol OpportunitésISIN codes: FR 0011134550 (institutional I share class)FR 0011120922 (A share class for “all subscribers”)Minimal initial subscription: EUR500,000 (I share class)EUR10,000 (A share class)Front-end fee: maximum 4%Management commission: I share class: 0.70%A share class: 1.40%Performance commission: 20% of performance exceeding the capitalised Eonia, with high watermark

In August this year, Ignis Asset Management, an affiliate of the British insurer Phoenix, announced that it is reducing its stake in its joint venture with the management firm Argonaut from 50% to 40%. In 2010, La Tribune reports, Ignis AM is reported to have reduced its stake in Hexam to 35%, and to have launched a 49%/51% joint venture with Castle Hill Asset Management. Now, La Tribune reports, Ignis would like to make the launch of new products a priority. And the asset management firm is hoping to strengthen its presence in Luxembourg and Italy, where an office has recently been opened. There are currently no plans to open a Paris office.

The pension fund managed by the Norwegian government in third quarter earned returns of -8.8%, or -NOK284bn. The sovereign debt crisis in Europe has strongly weighed down equities in the past few months. Assets in equities have earned returns of 016.9%, while bonds have gained 3.7%. The market value of the fund has lost NOK56bn, to EUR2.055trn. In the first nine months of the year, the fund has earned 06.6%, or -NOK222bn, with returns of -15.1% for assets in equities, and +6.3% for bonds.

The Wealth Management division of the Scandinavian bank SEB which inludes the private bank and institutional clients, has earned an operating profit up 8% to SEK1.053trn in the first nine months of the year, compared with the corresponding period of last year. The unit has earned net subscriptions of SEK22bn since the beginning of the year in private banking, and of SEK10bn for institutionals. Assets have fallen due to negative market effects, to SEK1.174trn, from SEK1.321trn as of the end of 2010.

In October, USD796bn were invested worldwide in ETFs focused on China, the highest level since 2008, Fondsprofessionell reports, citing Bloomberg Businessweek. Fondsprofesionell explains that the popularity of the products is due to the fact that the markets consider China underpriced, and due to expectations on the part of operators that the Beijing government will liberalise its monetary policy. TrimTabs reports that net inflows to ETFs specialised in emerging markets have totalled USD1.5bn in October, the highest level in the past six months. Since March 2009, the lowest point in the downturn, an average of USD1.4bn has been invested in emerging markets ETFs each month.

The Danish pension fund ATP has reported profits for the first months of the year of DKK5.3bn, compared with DKK18.9bn in the corresponding period of 2010. In a highly difficult environment, the pension fund has earned returns of 4.2%. Equities in the portfolio finished the period with negative teturns of 4.6%. However, interest rate strategies earned returns of 7.5%, credit 3.8%, inflation 4.6%, and commodities 0.9%. Assets under management as of the end of September totalled DKK554bn, compared with DKK516bn one year earlier.

Swiss banks with a presence in Singapore are constantly seeking talent in the area of private management. This quest has been increasing the volatility of pay scales on the Singapore job market, Agefi Switzerland reports. The type of manager sought is generally local, with five years of experience, and a portfolio of clients in high-growth economies totalling about CHF200m. According to some recruitment professionals present in both Europe and Asia, the fidelity of these relatively junior client relationship managers is often worth about CHF100,000. The costs generated by this situation come in addition to those resulting from tax regularisation measures which remain strict in Singapore.

Christine Barbier, responsable crédit corporate cash chez Natixis AM

Philippe Troesch, directeur général d’Aberdeen AM France

Patrick Moonen, stratégiste senior chez ING IM

Les prix de l'ancien baisseraient de 5 à 6 % l'an prochain. Croissance en berne, resserrement du crédit et fiscalité alourdie pèseront sur le marché