Le fonds de pension californien CalPERS a annoncé le 17 octobre la nomination de Mary Ann Burford en qualité de premier conseiller du président du conseil d’administration, Rob Feckner.Mary Ann Burford, qui a pris ses fonctions le 17 octobre, travaille chez CalPERS depuis 1992. Elle sera notamment chargée de faire des évaluations et de présenter des recommandations sur toutes les problématiques d’investissement.

A peine plus de 5 % des fonds de hedge funds apportent de la valeur. Aussi les investisseurs auraient-ils tout autant intérêt à choisir un panier de hedge funds au hasard, indique le Financial Times Fund Management, citant une étude universitaire qui n’a pas encore été publiée (Assessing the performance of funds of hedge funds, B. Dewaele, H.Pirotte, N. Tuchschmid and E. Wallerstein).

EFG International on 18 October announced a major restructuring which will result in a net loss by IFRS accounting standards. “Private banking activities remain unprofitable and not fundamental,” the group says in a statement. Assets under management by the group as of the end of June totalled about CHF80bn.The number of offices and operational centres will be significantly reduced, in order to allow for “a reduction to costs, and increased focus and agility for the structure.” In the next 18 months, an exit from some activities will result in a reduction in assets under management of about 10%, and will lead to total staff reductions of about 10-15%.The redefinition of activities will result in a net financial gain of about CHF35m per year, to be realised partially in 2012, and fully in 2013. One-time restructuring charges, and a lost in goodwill value and associated amortizations will be written down this year, resulting in a loss by IFRS accounting standards.However, underlying activities are generating overall results in keeping with the projections made at the time that EFG International’s results for first half 2011 were announced, and a positive contribution to owners’ equity levels will be posted for 2011.In the next few years, EFG International, which is aiming for a 5% to 10% per year net inflow and a reduction of the cost/income ratio to less than 75%, is planning to post “solid double-digit growth in profits.” The firm says it is “well-positioned” to continue to be one of the top private banks, and estimates that profitable and controlled growth should generate annual IFRS net profits of CHF200m in three years’ time.

The Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has granted Ping An trust a quota as a Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) of USD300m, Z-Ben Advisors reports.The firm, which becomes the third trust company to receive a QDI quota in China, after Shanghai International Trust (USD200m) and Citic Trust, has announced that it will select foreign investment advisers on the basis of their past performance, their familiarity with the objectives of Chinese investors, and their ability to put adequate risk management measures in place.Ping An Trust has also announced that it already has working relationships with several foreign asset management firms and investment banks, but no names have been given.

BSI has appointed Jean-Louis Platteau as head of private banking for French-speaking Switzerland and the Geneva branch of the bank, Agefi Switzerland reports. Platteau had served as CEO of Dexia Switzerland, before joining the Cantonal Bank of Geneva (BCGE) as head of the Private Banking division.

The Swiss affiliate of the British asset management firm Henderson Global Investors has announced that in early September it recruited Fidan Shtanaj as senior sales manager to assist institutional clients in German-speaking Switzerland.Shtanaj, who will report to Ariane Dehn, head of sales for Switzerland, had been at Credit Suisse since 2002. He had most recently been relationship manager/sales, since 2008.

Following proposals by BlackRock to reform and improve the ETF market, iShares on 17 October launched a Europe-wide initiative to help professional investors to identify risks and carry out due diligence on exchange-traded products (ETP), of which 80% to 90% are ETFs.The due diligence campaign will offer an evaluation grid that includes six fundamental criteria to take into account before investing in any ETP: structure, taxation, performance, trading, valuation, total cost of holding shares, and securities lending.As a part of the initiative, iShares has called for a new classification system for ETPs, to separate them into exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded notes (ETNs)/exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) and ETIs. It insists on the need to make a clear distinction between physical replication ETFs and synthetic ETFs, and to reserve the term ETC only in reference to physically backed commodity products

The Geneva-based banking group Syz has announced the arrival of Alessia Toricelli Dolfi as a member of its Business Development team in the institutional management division of SYZ Asset Management, Agefi Switzerland reports. Dolfi had previously been head of institutional clients at Dexia Asset Management for French-speaking Switzerland and the Ticino region.

Ignis Asset Management is planning to develop its pension fund and other institutional investor client base, Financial News reports, citing a presentation by the firm to analysts. The new strategy follows the arrival of a new head of sales, Claude Chene.

Iain Galloway left Standard Life Investments in July. He is replaced by Stan Pearson, head of European equities, as manager of the European Equities Unconstrained fund.

Eaton Vance Management has announced the reopening of its Eaton Vance Global Macro Absolute Return fund, as of Wednesday, 19 October 2011. The product had been closed to new subscribers on 1 October 2010, as growth in assets was too steep. The global income teams have since been strengthened, and the asset management firm estimates that the fund can now handle larger asset volumes.

Guido Hansmeyer, senior sales manager at Invesco Asset Management in Frankfurt, has been recruited by the British management firm F&C Thames River for the newly-created position of head of wholesale distribution for Germany.Matthew Sethard-Wright, international sales director, says that Germany is a key market for F&C Thames River. The sales team is planning to extend its client base among German IFAs, family offices and wealth managers.

The Zurich-based bank zweiplus (an affiliate of Banque Sarasin, Rabobank group) on 18 October announced the launch of the Investment Depot ++ Fundstars Plus platform in Germany. The platform allows German independent financial advisers and wealth managers to offer their clients services from an institution with a full banking license in Switzerland.Alfred W. Moeckli, CEO of bank zweiplus, says that the platform offers clients with a fund account in Switzerland a wide range of investment funds with sales licenses for Germany, from renowned asset management firms.Investment Depot ++ Fundstars Plus also provides access to investment funds which may all be concentrated in a single account at bank zweiplus. At any time, with the help of the adviser, the client may create a fund portfolio corresponding to his or her needs. The formula offers unit-linked savings plans from EUR50 per month, or an initial investment of EUR5,000. There is also a regular withdrawal plan for accounts with EUR30,000 or more.bankzweiplus has also recruited two specialists from Fondsdepot Bank, head of sales Roland Donder and his deputy, Oliver Honigman, who had been head of partner management, and thus also head of external distribution.

Azim Meghji has been appointed as head of credit at Santander Asset Management UK, and will manage the Santander Sterling Corporate Bond Fund (GBP977m), which is currently managed by Patrick Smith. He will now report to John Bearman, CIO of Santander AM UK.Meghji had previously been head of fund management of all London-based credit funds for retail and institutional clients at HSBC Global Asset Management.

The centre for money market expertise for the entire Robeco Group, the Paris team at Robeco Gestions, currently has total assets of about EUR1.5bn, which remains largely unchanged compared with the end of 2010. In France, the team, led by Sabine Lodin de Lépinay, manages about EUR1bn in assets, including EUR853.6m in the Robeco Euro Cash fund as of the end of September.Half of all assets in the fund, which invests in very short maturity securities rated by S&P, come from France; the product has also done very well on the Spanish and German markets. The fund has seen net inflows of about EUR150m.However, the highest-risk fund, Robeco Euro Money Market, has seen some outflows, which have moved to the more stable Euro Cash fund.According to de Lépinay and Geoffroy Lenoir, senior fund manager, Robeco Gestions has now considerably reduced the maturities on its portfolio of money market products, and is at near-zero sensitivity to interest rates. The team is primarily positioned on French banks, and retains a restrictive attitude to Spanish and Italian institutions. It has no exposure to Greece, Portugal or Ireland. The trick is to locate liquid paper, and to work with repurchase agreements whenever possible.

Russell Investments has announced an extension to the geographical coverage of its defensive and dynamic indices.The indices, which were launched early in 2011, and which had previously covered only the US equities universe, will now be extended to the 10,000 equities monitored by Russell indices worldwide.According to research undertaken largely by Russell, a defensive investment strategy may outperform other investment styles on the market over high-volatility periods as a whole.

In the first nine months of this year, the Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM) business unit at Bank of America Corporation (BofA) has posted net profits of nearly USD1.39bn, compared with USD1.02bn in January-September 2010.GWIM, which recruited 475 financial advisers in third quarter, has posted USD347m in net profit in third quarter, compared with USD506m in second quarter, and USD269m in the corresponding period of last year.Assets as of the end of September totalled USD616.9bn, compared with USD661bn as of the end of June, and USd611.5bn one year earlier.BofA states that commission revenues for asset management set a record at USD1.56bn in third quarter, 17% more than in July-September 2010, due to positive market performance and an increase in net subscriptions to long-term products.

Romain Ohayon, who since 2007 had been investment officer at Qualium, has joined Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners as director of participations in the Capital Development Small Caps team, led by Alexandre Foulon, managing partner.The team, in which the other director of participations is André Renaison, now includes six people. It manages a range of FCPI/FIP with EUR120m in assets, and an FCPR, Cabestan Capital, “which is completing its fundraising stage,” and already has EUR100m in assets.

Tommi Saukkoriipi has joined the Swedish bank SEB, where he will manage the SEB Nordic fund, which invests in Scandinavian equities, and is licensed for sale in France.The portfolio manager joins the firm from the Scandinavian firm Nordea, where he had also been manager of a Nordic fund, Nordea Nordic Equity. He will be replaced there by Martin Nilsson.SEB has also hired Per Colléen, who had previously worked at DnB Nor AM, as its new head of Swedish and Nordic equities, a newly-created unit which includes several former SEB teams for this asset class.

Eleanor Seeet has replaced Deborah Ho as head of Nikko Asset Management Asia (Nikko AM Asia), Asian Investor reports. The movement follows the acquisition of the Singaporean asset management firm DBS AM by Nikko AM; the target firm is now known as Nikko AM Asia.Seet, who had previously worked at iShares, will be in charge of managing the activities of Nikko AM in Singapore and South-East Asia.Ho, who had been director of BDS AM for four and a half years, and who was appointed as head of Nikko AM Asia following the acquisition, had no comment about the reasons for her departure.In parallel with the arrival of Seet, Nikko AM Asia has also made two senior hires, including a COO and a head of deontology.

Noel Archard, an executive of iShares, and Harold Bradley, chief investment officer at the Kauffman foundation, will testify on Wednesday before a US Senate subcommittee about the role that ETFs play in the market, according to IndexUniverse, which is covering the event.

Traders with ultra-high-speed software were not to blame, when the Deutsche Börse fell victim to a flash crash in late August, in which stock-index futures fell by 4% and then rebounded a few minutes later, but financial institutions were. The effect was caused by a barrage of orders from banks, the Wall Street Journal reports.An internal report by Deutsche Börse, which was not widely distributed, shows that high-frequency traders actually helped to absorb part of the shock to the market.

Barely 5% of funds of hedge funds add value. Investors would even do as well as simply select a basket of hedge funds at random, Financial Times Fund Management reports, citing an academic study which has not yet been published (“Assessing the Performance of Funds of Hedge Funds,” B. Dewaele, H. Pirotte, N. Tuchschmid and E. Wallerstein).

F&C has announced the appointment of Stephan van IJzendoorn as senior portfolio manager for its Amsterdam‐based Euro government bonds team.He joins F&C from Allianz Global Investors where he was senior portfolio manager. At F&C, he will report to Michiel de Bruin, head of Euro government bonds, whose team has over EUR23 billion assets under management in European government bonds.In total, the London‐listed asset management firm has over EUR119bn under management,

The sales team at ING Investment Management in Spain has been asked with opening up the Latin American market for the Dutch asset management firm, Funds People reports. The effort will focus on institutional clients.Jaime Rodriguez Pato, director for Spain and Portugal, will also be head for Latin America, while Iván Mascaró Guzmán will focus on Chile, Mexico and Peru. Pedro Coelho will be in charge of Brazil.

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the asset management firm for State Street Corporation, has hired Hein Kuijpers as vice president and head of sales for financial intermediary clients in Benelux, a newly-created position.Kuijpers will be based in Amsterdam, and will work to develop SSgA client relationships in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg markets. He will report to Eleanor Hope-Bell, head of the financial intermediaries group for Northern Europe.The appointment of Kuijpers is a part of SSgA’s strategy to develop the ETF activities of SPDR in the region, a statement says.Kuijpers had previously been director of sales at Fidelity Investments International, where he had been head of retail and institutional clients.

Sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to Expansión that the US private equity investor Carlyle has acquired an 85% stake in the Spanish firm Telecable, based in the region of Asturias, for EUR340m.Of this total, EUR308m goes to Liberbank, which is selling a 77% stake and retaining 15% of capital, while EUR32m go to the newspaper publisher La Nueva España, for its 8% stake in Telecable.

In first half, earnings for the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) increased by 17%, to about EUR6bn, and profits nearly tripled, to EUR814m, Handelsbaltt reports.The Abu Dhabi sovereign fund holds stakes in Austria’s ÖMV and Spain’s Cepsa, in the oil sector, and in the German firm Ferrostaal in engineering.

Hedge funds based in Asia have lowered their commissions in order to attract institutional clients, according to the research agency Preqin. Management commissions for Asian hedge funds average 1.56%, while outperformance commissions total 18.79%, below the international averages of 1.6%, and 19.2%, respectively. According to Preqin, the traditional commission structure, the famous “2/20”, is no longer used by 29% of single hedge funds. In Asia, some hedge funds are lowering their commissions in exchange for longer lock-up periods, ranging from one to three years, or in exchange for a larger allocation. Mid-sized hedge funds, with total assets under management of USD250m to USD750m, are said to be the most flexible with commissions.

Dans un entretien accordé à l’Agefi Hebdo, Henri Chaffiotte, directeur général de la Caisse autonome de retraite des médecins de France (CARMF) expose son avis sur la gestion flexible: Nous sommes investis dans des fonds flexibles depuis 2010 et nous étudions aujourd’hui la possibilité d’augmenter notre exposition, qui pourrait atteindre à terme 10 % de la poche actions européennes de notre portefeuille. La part des fonds flexibles doit être assez élevée pour porter ses fruits sur l’ensemble du portefeuille. L’objectif est de rester positionné sur les actions, mais en réduisant la volatilité, et surtout le draw-down. Il nous semble plus efficace de passer par des fonds flexibles, plus réactifs, plutôt que de faire évoluer nous-mêmes notre allocation d’actifs pour protéger le portefeuille en cas de fortes turbulences sur les marchés. Nous allons aussi étudier le comportement des différents fonds flexibles du marché en août pour vérifier s’ils ont bien rempli leur fonction. Notre recherche porte sur la vraie gestion flexible, à savoir la possibilité pour le gérant de modifier son exposition de 0 à 100%, ce qui nécessite aussi une grande réactivité. C’est pourquoi, notre regard se tourne davantage vers la multigestion déléguée. La CARMF considère que les méthodes traditionnelles de couverture du risque (budget risque) ne sont pas adaptées à toutes les situations (risques extrêmes, crises systémiques). La CARMF n’utilise pas en direct des instruments de couverture, mais uniquement à l’intérieur de fonds de fonds par grandes classes d’actifs (ex. obligations à taux fixes, actions européennes, actions émergentes, ...). Pour rappel, l’allocation d’actifs de la CARMF est en adéquation avec un passif à long terme (2020-2025): 35% d’obligations, 50% d’actions et 15% d’immobilier. Des résultats positifs sur longue période: - en 2010: +8.6% - sur 5 ans: +1.81% - sur 10 ans: +2.65% - sur 19 ans: +4.32%