Prudential annonce la nomination de David Hunt au poste de CEO de Prudential Investment Management à compter du 9 novembre. L’intéressé occupait auparavant le poste de senior partner et co-directeur pour la gestion d’actifs pour l’Amérique du Nord chez McKinsey & Company. David Hunt remplace dans ses nouvelles fonctions Charles Lowrey, promu en février au poste de head of US business.Prudential IM gère plus de 538 milliards de dollars d’actifs à fin juin 2011.

Lombard Odier vient de recruter trois personnes en Asie-Pacifique.Sheau-Yien Wang rejoint l’équipe commerciale institutionnelle où elle sera responsable des relations avec les grands clients institutionnels en Asie du Sud-Est. Elle vient de State Street Global Advisors Singapore Limited où elle était dernièrement managing director, responsable commerciale Asie (hors Japon). Joanna Wong intègre également cette équipe en tant que responsable de la distribution pour les tiers de Lombard Odier en Asie. Elle était précédemment chez AllianceBernstein où elle s’occupait de développement produits et stratégie. Enfin, Hyoung Nam Kim est nommé directeur du développement en Corée. Il provient de Goldman Sachs Asset Management à Séoul, où il était directeur exécutif, en charge des ventes institutionnelles. Sheau-Yien Wang et Joanna Wong seront basées à Singapour tandis que Hyoung Nam Kim travaillera depuis Hong Kong."Le renforcement du service commercial institutionnel et l’extension de l’offre institutionnelle sont des éléments clés de notre plan de croissance en Asie», a déclaré Vincent Duhamel, limited partner et responsable régional Asie de Lombard Odier.

Le suisse Julius Baer Group et l’australien Macquarie Group ont annoncé ce 13 octobre avoir conclu un accord de coopération stratégique dans les domaines de la banque privée et de la banque d’investissement pour le Nord et le Sud-Est de l’Asie. Dans le cadre de cet accord, Julius Baer confiera les transactions de banque d’investissement de ses clients à Macquarie tandis que ce dernier adressera ses clients pour les services de banque privée à Julius Baer. D’autre part, Macquarie ouvrira une gamme plus large de produits de banque d’investissement aux clients de Julius Baer en Asie.En outre, les activités du pôle «Private Wealth» de Macquarie en Asie seront transférées à Julius Baer. Ce pôle dispose de bureaux à Singapour et Hong-Kong et affiche environ 1 milliard de dollars américains d’encours.

Harald Steiner, head of institutional clients at Hauck & Aufhäuser Asset Management, has been recruited by Delta Lloyd Asset Management (DLAM), an affiliate of the Netherlands-based asset management firm Delta Lloyd, as head of distribution to German and Austrian institutional investors. DLAM had previously been present in this niche only in Austria. Steiner will report to Rik Verhoeven, CEO of Delta Lloyd Asset Management Vertriebs GmbH.

The New York-based Van Eck Global has announced the launch of the Market Vectors Renminbi Bond ETF (acronym on NYSE-Arca: CHLC), which offers investors exposure to bonds denominated in Chinese yuan (or renminbi). The ETF seeks to replicate the evolution and performance of the Market Vectors Renminbi Bond Index (acronym: MVCHLC), before fees. The index focuses on investment grade bonds from issuers in and outside of China denominated in yuan.The product is the 37th in the ETF Market Vectors range, and management commission is capped to 0.39% until 1 May 2013. It is the third Market Vectors ETF to offer exposure to assets denominated in yuan.

The Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG) of the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) on 11 October elected Guillaume Prache as president of the group for a two-year term, ESMA announced in a statement on 12 October. Prache will be assisted by two vice-presidents, who were also elected on 11 October: Judith Hardt, secretary general of the Federation of European Stock Exchanges (FESE) and Peter de Proft, CEO of the European Finance and Asset Management Association (EFAMA). The SMSG has been set up by ESMA to help facilitate consultation with stakeholders in areas relevant to the tasks of ESMA. The Group is made up of 30 representatives of financial market participants, their employees as well as consumers, users of financial services, small and medium enterprises and academics.

Jean-Claude Trichet on 11 October estimated that the UCITS label may be withdrawn from some complex products such as synthetic ETFs.“Due to the opactity and complexity of some UCITS structured products, for example synthetic ETFs, the European systematic rick committee has proposed considering withdrawing the UCITS label from such structures, which would make it possible to maintain the simplicity of UCITS products,” Trichet said, speaking as chairman of the European Systematic Risk Board (ESRB) in a speech to the European Parliament.

Lombard Odier has expanded its institutional sales team with the appointment of three new members in Asia-Pacific. Sheau-Yien Wang joins the institutional sales team where she is responsible for key institutional client relationships in South East Asia. Wang was previously with State Street Global Advisors Singapore Limited for over ten years where she was most recently managing director, head of sales Asia (ex Japan). Joanna Wong joins the institutional sales team responsible for developing Lombard Odier’s third-party distribution in Asia. She was previously at AllianceBernstein, where over more than 12 years at the firm she held various leadership roles covering sales and distribution. She worked most recently on strategy and product development. Hyoung Nam Kim joins as director of business development for Korea, where he will be focused on intensifying the firm’s presence in Korea and covering our client base there. Before joining Lombard Odier, he was the executive director, institutional sales for Goldman Sachs Asset Management group in Seoul, South Korea. Sheau-Yien Wang and Joanna Wong are based at Lombard Odier’s Singapore office and Hyoung Nam Kim works at its Hong Kong offices. “Enhancing our institutional sales service and expanding our institutional offering are key elements of our growth plan in Asia,” said Vincent Duhamel, limited partner and regional head of Asia.

Swiss-based Julius Baer Group and the Australia’s Macquarie Group on 13 October announced that they have signed a strategic cooperation agreement in the areas of private and investment banking for North and South-East Asia.Under the agreement, Julius Baer will process investment banking transactions for its clients through Macquarie, while Macquarie will offer its clients Julius Baer private banking services. Macquarie will also offer a wider range of investment banking products to Julius Baer clients in Asia.The activities of the private wealth unit of Macquarie in Asia will be transferred to Julius Baer. The unit has offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, and about USD1bn in assets.

The turbulent markets in September led to a fall in assets under management for four big-name US asset management firms, which simultaneously released reports about their asset levels.Franklin Resources as of the end of September had USd659.9bn in assets under management, compared with USD716.4bn one month earlier, following a contraction of USD32.6bn for its equity portfolio, to USD254.2bn.Legg Mason, for its part, has announced assets of USD611.8bn, compared with USD643.4bn at the end of August, while Invesco has fallen below USD600bn, with USD588.4bn, compared with USD629.4bn. This decline of USD31bn is due to a contraction of USD23.2bn for the equity portfolio.AllianceBernstein (Axa group) has posted assets of USD402bn as of the end of September, compared with USD433bn as of the end of August. The equity portfolio has fallen by USD25bn in one month, to USD131bn.

Bill Gross has taken a 90-degree turn with the strategy of his USD242bn fund, in the wake of underperformance, the Financial Times reports. Though Gross had pulled out of US bonds in February, due to inflationary concerns, the Pimco manager reinvested in the assets over the summer. More recently, he has made a big bet on long-term interest rates which represents a major change in the composition of his fund.

The Börsen-Zeitung reports that the Zurich-based firm Julius Baer neither confirms nor denies rumours that it has expressed interest in acquiring Basel-based Banque Sarasin from Netherlands-based Rabobank Group, which controls 46.6% of capital and 69% of voting rights.However, the potential buyer is reportedly offering to pay with shares in Julius Baer, which may not suit Rabobank, as Julius Baer is embroiled in a tax scandal in the United States.In addition, the board of directors at Sarasin claims that the share trade would be disadvantageous for minority shareholders.

UBS appears to be cleaning house in London, following the discovery in mid-September of fraud by one of its traders, Kweku Adoboli, which lost the bank USD2.3bn, Handelszeitung reports. Ten top executives have either left the bank, been suspended or fired. A spokesperson for UBS confirms the reports.Last week, UBS announced the departure of two co-heads of global equity trading, François Gouws and Yassine Bouhara. According to the HandelsZeitung, Bouhara’s deputy, Chief Operations Officer Niraj Gudka, has also since left the firm, as has Gouws’ second in command, Sethu Palaniappan.

Warren Buffett, chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has explained his campaign to raise taxes for the rich in a letter to Congressman Tim Huelskamp, a Republican from Kansas, the Wall Street Journal reports. Buffett says that he made USD62.85m in 2010, but paid less than USD7m in taxes, which represents an effective tax rate of only 17.4%. That is lower than the 18.2% paid by taxpayers with incomes of USD103,000 to USD163,000.

The Wall Street Journal has determined that New York federal judges have sentenced those found guilty of insider trading to an average of two and a half years behind bars, in 108 cases over the last two years. The average sentence was 18 months in the last decade, and 11 and a half months between 1993 and 1999.

The hedge fund manager Michael Kimelman, co-founder of Incremental Capital, was sentenced on Wednesday to two and a half years in prison, Kimelman was found guilty in June of complicity in an insider trading case involving Avi Goffer, a former trader at Galleon Group, and his brother, Emanuel Goffer.

On October 11, Pimco announced it has has expanded its emerging markets team with five hires in London, New York and Singapore. John Longhurst, previously at Capital International Research, joins Pimco as head of research for emerging markets equities. He will be based in London. Andrew Pyne, formerly of Goldman Sachs AM, will be based in New York as product manager for emerging markets equities. Richard Flax and Laura Schlockman also join from Goldman Sachs. Flax will be based in London as an emerging markets equities analyst, while Schlockman will be based in New York as equities product manager. Raymond Goh, previously of Capstone Investment Advisors, joins Pimco in Singapore as an equities trader.

Agefi reports that Fitch yesterday at a press conference announced a significant reduction in the exposure of European money market funds to Italy and Spain, accompanied by a shortening of the corresponding maturities. This summer, the average geographical allocation of money market funds rated AAA by Fitch privileged the United Kingdom (20%) and France (19%), followed by Germany (13%), the Netherlands and the United States (10% each). In the overall composition of portfolios, very short maturities with daily liquidity in September represented more than 30% “ of assets in the money market fund universe rated by the agency, up from 20% in May.

For the first time in three months, long-term mutual funds in September posted net subscriptions of USD3.8bn. However, redemptions were “tepid” in most asset classes, and US equity funds saw net outflows of USD6.9bn, according to Morningstar. In addition, outflows from money market funds appear not to have been redirected to long-term mutual funds.In the first nine months of the year, investors have withdrawn USD70bn from money market funds which were not reinvested in long-term funds. The difference in September came to USD14.1bn.US ETF funds, which have seen only one month of net outflows in the past 12 months, posted net subscriptions of USD4.1bn in September. Total assets under management in the ETF sector fell below USD1trn as of the end of September, for the first time since December 2010.

The situation has not been so tense since the crisis of 2008, according to a survey by GfK on behalf of JPMAM, which finds that 44.7% German investors who were predicting a fall on the stock markets between 2 and 16 September, compared with 23.3% in July. The investor confidence index comes out at 02.6% for September, compared with +1.0 in July. In September, the falling markets led 35.3% of respondents to consider an investment, compared with 30.3% in July.

Assets in hedge funds have risen 6.7% in first half, to a total of USD2.16trn, according to figures from HedgeFund Intelligence. The sector now manages a higher level of total assets than in 2006, but lower than its pre-crisis peak in 2007, at USD2.6trn. According to HedgeFund Intelligence, this growth has profited the largest managers in the sector most of all. Funds with more than USD1bn in assets under management have seen growth in their assets of USd150bn in first half, to USD1.85trn. The 345 largest firms now manage 82% of assets in the sector.

Only 11% of institutional hedge fund managers consider the performance of their investments to have been higher than expected in the past 12 months. The percentage of investors who estimate that the performance of their investments in hedge funds were higher or in line with expectations has fallen by 11 points since 2010, to 60%, says Preqin.However, 50% of hedge fund clients say that there is a need for more transparency on the part of funds; 48% think that improvements are needed in the area of performance commissions, and 43% would like to see some improvement in management commissions. 37% also think that asset managers should be less greedy with withdrawal fees.However, 44% also say that there has been some improvement in transparency in the past 12 months.Lastly, 35% of investors estimate that conditions have improved in the past twelve months. The study also finds that 29% of managers use the usual 2/20 fee structure, with 2% management commission and a 20% performance commission. On average, these commissions are 1.6% and 19.2%, respectively.

Russell Investments is extending its product range on the Italian market with the RIC Global Bond Fund, a multi-management fund with assets of EUR1.6bn. The product invests primarily in government bonds, investment grade corporate bonds, and bonds in well-rated non-government sectors.

As previously announced, La Française AM has opened a representative office in Italy, in Milan, at 14 Via Dante. For the moment, the office is manned by Marco Peri, country head, who will be joined in the next few days by one other person, Newsmanagers has learnt. The French asset management firm is also continuing to register funds in Italy. The retail shares of two French domiciled funds have just obtained approval from the Consob and the Bank of Italy for distribution in Italy: LFP Money Market (LFP Trésorerie in French) and LFP EM Impact Europe (LFP Europe Impact Emergent). The firm had already registered three other funds: LFP Convertible Dynamique, LFP Obligations Emergentes and LFP Protectaux.

Carlson Fund Management Company will be renamed DNB Asset Management. This step is part of a wider move across the entire organisation. At this date, Carlson’s parent DnB NOR Group will also change its name and combine all its previous brands under the DNB name. DNB is short for Den Norske Bank – The Norwegian Bank. Carlson - has been a 100 percent subsidiary of DnB NOR Group since 2002 and will remain just that going forward.

Responsable de la clientèle institutionnelle chez Hauck & Aufhäuser Asset Management, Harald Steiner a été recruté par Delta Lloyd Asset Management (DLAM), filiale de gestion du néerlandais Delta Lloyd, comme responsable de la distribution auprès des institutionnels allemands et autrichiens. Jusqu'à présent, DLAM n'était présente sur ce créneau qu’en Autriche. Le nouvel arrivant est subordonné à Rik Verhoeven, directeur général de Delta Lloyd Asset Management Vertriebs GmbH.

Selon la Börsen-Zeitung, le zurichois Julius Baer n’a ni confirmé ni démenti s'être porté candidat pour acquérir la Banque Sarasin de Bâle auprès du néerlandais Rabobank, qui en possède 46,6 % du capital et 69 % des droits de vote.Cependant, l’acquéreur potentiel envisagerait de payer en actions Julius Baer, ce qui risque de ne pas convenir à Rabobank, parce que Julius Baer est compromis dans une affaire fiscale aux Etats-Unis.De plus, le conseil d’administration de Sarasin estime que l'échange d’actions serait désavantageux pour les actionnaires minoritaires.

Annoncée mardi 12 octobre par la newsletter Multiratings, l’arrivée de Sylvie Terris, actuelle directrice des placements d’Aprionis (groupe Humanis), chez Agrica Epargne a été confirmée à Newsmanagers. Attendue dans le courant du mois de décembre au sein de la filiale de gestion du groupe Agrica, elle aura pour mission d'épauler Jean-Claude Guimiot, son directeur général délégué. Au sein de sa nouvelle entreprise, elle occupera la fonction de directeur financier.

Jacques Tebeka est responsable de la multigestion diversifiée chez Edrim. Il souligne dans L’Agefi Hebdo qu’il est certes attentif aux notations qualitatives des fonds, et surtout aux commentaires faits par les analystes sur le fonds, mais que ces notations n’entrent pas en tant que tel dans son processus de sélection. «Nous faisons en effet notre propre analyse. Et lorsque nous n’aimons pas un fonds, c’est notre vue qui prévaut, même si le fonds est bien noté», insiste-t-il. Le responsable préfère une approche plus globale sur les fonds. «Nous ne voulons pas uniquement savoir s’ils sont bons ou pas mais aussi s’ils s’insèrent dans notre allocation. Le risque principal dans la sélection de fonds est l’asymétrie d’information entre nous et le gérant. Dans le cadre de l’évaluation d’un fonds, on peut être séduit par un processus de gestion. Mais c’est dans la durée, grâce aux échanges répétés avec les gérants, qu’il sera possible de mieux comprendre sa philosophie, son approche d’investissement. Surtout, en termes de risque, nous ne pouvons pas nous appuyer sur une analyse externe», explique Jacques Tebeka.

Selon L’Agefi Hebdo, les notations qualitatives de leurs gammes de fonds ont un double intérêt pour les sociétés de gestion. D’un point de vue commercial, cela doit faciliter la promotion des produits et leur référencement sur des plates-formes de distribution. « La notation est un bon faire-valoir surtout quand le label fait référence », note Yves Maillot, responsable de la gestion actions chez Robeco. Avec une réserve toutefois : « Tout va dépendre du public auquel on s’adresse, indique Frédéric Cruzel, directeur de la clientèle française chez LODH Gestion. Ces notations sont très importantes dans le domaine de la distribution car le client final est sensible à un avis externe sur les fonds. En revanche, les clients institutionnels qui y ont recours les utilisent souvent pour conforter leurs choix mais ils se fieront avant tout à leur propre capacité d’analyse. » Ces notations sont surtout utilisées par les structures les plus légères. « On les regarde à chaque fois que nous étudions un fonds, fait savoir Jean-Louis Hostache, gérant chez Conseil Plus Gestion». En effet, plus la taille de la société de gestion sera importante, plus elle disposera de capacités pour réaliser ses propres analyses, et moins elle aura recours à ces outils.Par ailleurs, les investisseurs considèrent parfois les analyses des fonds comme formatées dans un cadre qui ne correspond pas toujours à leurs besoins et contraintes. «Les notes sont déterminées en fonction d’une grille de critères prédéfinis et figés », relève Frédéric Pétiniot, directeur général d’Amadeis, cabinet indépendant de conseil en investissement. Les différents critères (performance passée, processus d’investissement, frais de gestion…) vont être pondérés en fonction des exigences des investisseurs. Un véritable travail sur mesure. « Nous avons notre propre grille de lecture, dit Francis Jaisson, responsable de la multigestion chez Covea Finance. En tant que société de gestion d’une mutuelle d’assurance, nous avons une plus grande aversion au risque. »