Le groupe Primonial a annoncé le 8 juillet le recrutement de Jean Orgonasi en qualité de directeur général délégué, en charge des opérations du groupe et des activités «grands comptes» et web, sous la direction de Patrick Petitjean. Il va présider le Comité opérationnel et aura également pour mission de définir les stratégies de croissance organique en lien avec le top management.Jean Orgonasi avait pris la tête depuis juillet 2009 de la distribution et des partenariats stratégiques au niveau mondial de BNP Paribas Cardif.

Barings a annoncé le 8 juillet qu'à compter du 1er août, l’indice de référence de son OEIC Baring Global Agriculture Fund (GB00B3B9VB40, 198,2 millions d’euros fin mai) sera le DAX Global Agribusiness Index, en remplacement du MSCI All Countries World Index. Le DAX Global Agribusiness est aussi l’indice de référencedu BGF World Agriculture Fund de BlackRock.Le nouveau «benchmark» est un indice pondéré par la capitalisation qui réplique la performance de 45 des plus grandes sociétés du secteur agricole avec des sous secteurs comme l’agrochimie, les équipements agricoles et les plantations d’huile de palme brute. Les sociétés intégrées dans cet indice doivent réaliser au minimum 50 % de leur chiffre d’affaires dans «l’agribusiness».Néanmoins, souligne Barings, l’univers d’investissement du fonds «de la fourche à la fourchette» demeure plus vaste que celui couvert par le nouvel indice ce qui permet à l'équipe de gestion de rechercher des entreprises plus loin sur la chaîne d’approvisionnement jusque dans des secteurs en aval comme la production et la distribution de produits alimentaires, plus défensifs et moins volatils.

Entre GLG Partners et Man Group, les offres des deux gestionnaires sont très complémentaires, note L’Agefi. A ce titre, GLG Partners a déployé une gestion active couvrant toutes les classes d’actifs, à travers des stratégies alternatives (20,2 milliards de dollars), mais aussi traditionnelles (long only) (13,7 milliards). Le gérant s’attache aussi à répliquer en format OPCVM la plupart de ses hedge funds de droit caïmanais. Il vient de lancer son treizième OPCVM alternatif, un long-short equity sur actions européennes multisectoriel.Cela dit, la société de gestion évite de chercher à dupliquer tous ses fonds offshore, ce qui nécessiterait parfois le recours à des swaps de performance, sur les marchés du crédit ou des convertibles en particulier, «et ce, afin de respecter l’esprit de la directive Ucits, de gérer des fonds les plus purs possible et en respectant à la lettre le processus de gestion du véhicule d’origine», précise le cofondateur de la maison Pierre Lagrange.

Avec le MS Cohen & Steers Global Real Estate L/S Fund, Morgan Stanley vient de lancer un nouveau compartiment de son fonds irlandais à compartiments FundLogic Alternatives Plc qui met en œuvre une stratégie long/short sur l’immobilier coté. Ce hedge fund coordonné sera géré par Todd Voigt, chez Cohen & Steers Capital Management Inc (40 milliards de dollars). D’après ce dernier, 95 % du portefeuille conforme à la directive OPCVM III reproduiront exactement le produit offshore correspondant. La différence mineure de 5 % résultera de l’adaptation à la norme européenne.

amLeague a tenu une réunion jeudi 7 juillet en présence d’investisseurs institutionnels, membres de son club, et des sociétés de gestion concourant dans le championnat dont le 30 juin a marqué le premier anniversaire. La manifestation qui s’est tenue rue Bergère dans les locaux de BNP Paribas à l’initiative de Cardif - un des compétiteurs - a été l’occasion pour Antoine Briant, CEO d’amLeague de féliciter les premiers des trois catégories en place dès le 30 juin 2010 (cf. Newsmanagers du 04/07/2011). Puis, le responsable a donné quelques détails supplémentaires sur les projets que sa société compte mener à bien cette année. Outre les travaux portant sur le mandat Epargne Salariale ISR qui suivent leur cours de façon à ce que ce dernier voit le jour au début ou à la fin du quatrième trimestre, il a été question du mandat Actions Internationales qui sera lancé d’ici fin 2011. Ce seront les Caisses de pension suisses membres du GIP - lui-même membre du club d’amLeague - qui participeront à son élaboration. Mais elles seront accompagnées pour la circonstance d’un ou deux investisseurs français, l’idée étant que le GIP gardera le leadership mais que des membres «correspondants français» ayant participé à l'établissement des mandats «actions Europe» ou «actions Euro» y seront associés. En outre, l’univers d’investissement de ce mandat sera représenté par l’indice Stoxx 1800 et les gérants disposeront de marges de manoeuvre importantes. «Par la suite», a précisé Antoine Briant, «les 50 caisses qui constituent le groupement suisse exigeront de leurs «asset managers» qu'íls participent obligatoirement à l’un ou à plusieurs mandats d’amLeague avant qu’ils leur confient la gestion de capitaux. " Afin de répondre aux souhaits exprimés par certains investisseurs, amLeague envisage également de franchir une nouvelle étape qui permettra de proposer aux investisseurs des fonds ou mandats investissables. «Ceux-ci pourraient prendre la forme de produits dédiés, présentant aux investisseurs la possibilité de construire eux-mêmes un assemblage de gérants dans des proportions qu’ils définiront, ou de fonds pilotés par des multigérants qui effectueront la meilleure sélection des participants au championnat amLeague, a rappelé Antoine Briant. Dans la pratique, le site internet d’amLeague va être enrichi de façon à permettre notamment de simuler des combinaisons de gérants. Par ailleurs, le responsable a confié qu’il entendait poursuivre son développement européen en ouvrant, dans les prochains mois, le Club des Investisseurs à des institutions notamment au Danemark et aux Pays-Bas. En attendant, depuis le 8 mars, date de la précédente réunion, le club amLeague compte six investisseurs institutionnels supplémentaires : la CDC, la CNP, le groupe Mornay, Pacifica, RSI et la Société mutuelle d’assurance des collectivités locales (SMACL). Enfin, 22 sociétés de gestion françaises et internationales participent au championnat amLeague, un nombre qu’Antoine Briant a aussi pour objectif de porter à une cinquantaine d’ici fin 2012.

Le 7 juillet, Pimco ETF Trust (groupe Allianz Global Investors) a notifié à la SEC que la future version ETF du mutual fund obligataire Pimco Total Return géré par Bill Gross (242,8 milliards de dollars) sera assortie d’une commission de gestion de 0,55 %.

Selon les dernières estimations, l’indice Dow Jones Credit Suisse s’est inscrit en recul de 1,95% au mois de juin, la plupart des secteurs enregistrant des performances négatives, rapporte Hedgeweek.Les stratégies global macro ont subi la plus forte baisse, avec un recul de 3,12% sur le mois alors que le fixed income arbitrage a réalisé un gain de 0,20% le mois dernier et affiche une progression de 2,38% sur les six premiers mois de l’année.

Avec une embellie sur la dette grecque et de meilleures nouvelles macroéconomiques en provenance des Etats-Unis et du Japon, les investisseurs sont sortis timidement de leur réserve début juillet. Selon les données d’EPFR Global, durant la semaine au 6 juillet, les fonds actions ont ainsi enregistré une collecte nette de 6,19 milliards de dollars, dont 1,36 milliard de dollars à mettre sur le compte des fonds dédiés aux actions émergentes.Les fonds obligataires ont drainé 3,19 milliards de dollars en net alors que les fonds monétaires accusaient une décollecte nette de 2,26 milliards de dollars. A noter par ailleurs que les relèvements de taux opérés par la Banque centrale européenne et la Banque de Chine ont remis les inquiétudes concernant l’inflation sur le devant de la scène, ce qui a suscité un mouvement jamais vu depuis plus d’un an en faveur des obligations indexées sur l’inflation.

Amidst some easing of troubles related to Greek debt and brighter-than-expected economic data from the United States and Japan, investors have made some timid returns to the markets in early July. In the week to 6 July, equities funds posted a net inflow of USD6.19bn, of which USD1.36bn went to funds dedicated to emerging markets equities.Bond funds attracted a net USD3.19bn, while money market funds saw outflows of USD2.26bn.Interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank and the Bank of China also brought concerns about inflation back to the foreground, leading to a movement not seen in more than a year in favour of inflation-linked bonds.

Barings on 8 July announced that from 1 August, the benchmark for the OEIC Baring Global Agriculture Fund (GB00B3B9VB40, EUR198.2m as of the end of May) will be the DAX Global Agribusiness Index, replacing the MSCI All Countries World Index. The DAX Global Agribusiness is also the benchmark for, among others, the BGF World Agriculture Fund from BlackRock.The new benchmark is a cap-weighted index, which replicates the performance of 45 of the largest companies in the agricultural sector, including subsectors such as agrochemicals, agricultural equipment, and palm oil plantations. Companies in the index are required to make at least 50% of their earnings from agribusiness.However, Barings states, the investment universe from the fund, “from farm to fork,” will remain larger than the one covered by the new index, which allows the management team to locate companies further long the supply chain, in downstream industries such as food manufacturers and foods retailers, which are more defensive and less volatile.

On Thursday, 7 July, Wells Fargo agreed to reimburse a total of USD125m to pension funds (Alameda County, the government of Guam, New Orleans, the Louisiana Sheriff’s Fund, and funds from Detroit, Chicago, Mississippi and Pennsylvania), the Wall Street Journal reports.The settlement will still need to be approved by a court. If it is approved, it will allow Wells Fargo to obtain settlement of cases filed against it for losses related to mortgage-based securities sold by the bank, which underwent losses in the crisis.

On 7 July, Pimco ETF Trust (Allianz Global Investors group) made a SEC filing according to which the future ETF version of the Pimco Total Return bond fund, managed by Bill Gross (USD242.8bn), will charge a management commission of 0.55%.

The AMF has issued a sales license for the UCITS-compliant fund GAIA CQS Credit ( LU0616010236), launched on 31 March (see Newsmanagers of 1 April), the fifth strategy on its GAIA (Global Alternative Investor Access) platform.The product applies an unconstrained long/short credit strategy, managed by CQS, a global multi-strategy manager with about USD10.3bn in assets under management. The fund, managed by Simon Finch, aims for annualised performance equivalent to the Libor + 4 to 8 percentage points, after fees.

Germany’s BaFin and the Austrian FMA have issued sales licenses for Germany and Austria for three Belgian-registered funds from KBC Asset Management, which will be at least 75% exposed to the segments indicated by their names.Two of the funds, which will have no benchmarkets, will be available for retail as well as institutional investors. The KBC Equity Fund Euro Non Cyclicals, EUR (BE6215122415 and BE6215123421) invests in defensive shares (utilities, health, food), while the KBC Equity Fund Industrials & Infrastructure, EUR (BE6216682490 and BE6216680478) specialises in businesses which contribute to the construction and development of infrastructure (engineering and transportation).The KBC Equity Fund SRI Equity Institutional Shares, EUR (BE6218517413), an SRI product, has a hybrid benchmark (50% MSCI Mord and 50% MSCI Emu), and will be available exclusively to institutional investors.

Ignis Asset Management has appointed Claude Chene, head of AllianceBernstein for the United Kingdom, as its head of sales and distribution.Chene, who will begin in his new position in October 2011, will succeed Jonathan Polin, who left the firm in early June (see Newsmanagers of 6 June 2011).Chene will also become a member of the board of directors at Ignis.

The Primonial group on 8 July announced the recruitment of Jean Orgonasi as deputy CEO, in charge of the group’s key accounts and web operations; he will report to Patrick Petitjean. Orgonasi will oversee the operational committee, and will also define organic growth strategy in cooperation with top management.Orgonasi in July 2009 became global head of distribution and strategic partnerships at BNP Paribas Cardif.

As Laffitte Capital had recently told Newsmanagers (see article on 01/07/2011), the asset management firm has this year recruited Matthieu Raimbault as a manager in charge of managing the special situations allocation for the Laffittee Equity Arbitrage fund.Before joining Laffitte Capital, the manager spent more than 10 years using his expertise in operations of this type, particularly in the mining sector. Raimbault was manager of the Long/Short Catalyst strategy at Copperneff AM, an affiliate of BNP Paribas, a statement says.

In the past three months, assets at Talence Gestion have increasd 14.3% (to EUR160m as of the end of June, up from EUR140m; see Newsmanagers of 28 March), of which EUR40m are in the Optimal fund, EUR12m in the Opportunités fund, and EUR25m in the Midcaps fund, Didier Demeestère, chairman of the management firm, says. Mandates represent about EUR65m.Since the firm’s launch in June 2010, funds have outperformed their benchmark indices by an average of 700 basis points, with lower volatility than the benchmarks, the president said at an event to celebrate the first birthday of Talence, founded by himself, Régis Lefort and Cathy Jeffrey.Staff now totals nine people, but the firm is planning to recruit two specialists for private management and mandates, Demeestère says.However, there are still no plans to have an internal sales force, as the directors of Talence would like to focus on targeted growth for the moment, based on a word-of-mouth reputation for very good service and strong performance.

Morgan Stanley has released a new sub-fund of its Irish Sicav FundLogic Alternatives Plc entitled MS Cohen & Steers Global Real Estate L/S Fund, which deploys a long/short strategy for listed real estate. The UCITS-compliant hedge fund will be managed by Todd Voigt at Cohen & Steers Capital Management Inc (USD40bn in assets). According to the manager, 95% of the portfolio, which complies with the UCITS III directive, exactly reproduces the corresponding offshore product. The minor difference of 5% is the result of adaptation to European standards.

According to the most recent estimates, the Dow Jones Credit Suisse index fell 1.95% in the month of June, with most sectors showing negative performance, Hedgeweek reports.Global macro strategies fell most steeply, with a decline of 3.12% for the month, while fixed income arbitrage gained 0.20% last month, and has risen 2.38% in the first six months of the year.

The CEO of the Toronto-based management firm Manulife Asset Management, Jean-François Courville, is hoping to double its assets under management to about USD80bn in the next five years, Asian Investor reports.With this in mind, Manulife AM has recruited a product manager to handle distribution and sales to institutionals, Mahesh Fonseka, who will be based in Hong Kong. He previously worked for Perpetual Investments.As of 31 March, the Asia-Pacific region represented about 20% of total assets under management, which came to USD217bn, of which about USD60bn were for multi-asset class funds.

Bill Maldonaldo, head of international investment strategy for equities, will move to Hong Kong next month to take up a position as CIO of HSBC for the Asia-Pacific region, Asian Investor reports.In his new role, Maldonaldo will replace Ayaz Ebrahim, who left HSBC in May of this year to join Amundi.Assets under management at the Chinese-British firm in Asia total about USD72bn.

Henderson has decided to ratchet up the total expense ratio (TER) for 14 Gartmore funds which have been meaintained in the product range following the acquisition of the group in March this year, Investment Week reports.The TER will be raised by 11 basis points for several of the 14 funds, including the European Selected Opportunities fund and the China Opportunities fund. These increases will bring fees for the funds of the range into line with Henderson funds, which range from 1 basis point to 13 basis points.

FundWeb reports that Martin Currie is planning to launch a fund dedicated to emerging markets, as an addition to its UCITS-compliant fund range.The Martin Currie GF Global Emerging Markets Fund will be managed by Kim Catechis, head of emerging markets, who leads a team of seven specialists in these markets.The fund will include 40 to 60 positions on these assets, without geographical or sectoral constraints.

The product ranges from the two asset management firms GLG Partners and Man Group are highly complementary, Agefi notes. GLG Partners uses active management, covering all asset classes, via alternative strategies (USD20.2bn) as well as long-only strategies (USD13.7bn).The manager is now planning to replicate most of its Cayman Islands-registered mutual funds in UCITS format. It has recently launched its thirteenth hedge fund, a long/short equity fund of Euorpean multi-sector shares. The management firm is not, however, planning to duplicate all of its offshore funds, which at times would require the use of performance swaps, on credit or convertible markets in particular, “in order to remain within the spirit of the UCITS directive, manage funds in the purest possible manner, and also respect the letter of the management process of the original vehicle,” the co-founder of the firm, Pierre Lagrange, says.

The Geneva-based bank Reyl & Cie has unveiled its external growth plans (see Newsmanagers of 26 May): it is acquiring the Zurich-based firm Solitaire Wealth Management (EUR400m in assets), a specialist in private management. The move brings assets under management by the Reyl group to about EUR4bn.In addition, with Solitaire, Reyl, which will open a branch in Zurich, inherits an investment advisor license from the US regulatory authority, the SEC. The license for Reyl Overseas Ltd will allow the Reyl group to develop a wider range of services for US onshore clients.The Reyl Zurich team will rely on the German-speaking Swiss resources of the Reyl bank, concentrated in three major professions: wealth management, investment funds managed by Reyl Asset Management, and family office activities led by Reyl Private Office. Reyl Zurich will also soon welcome a team from Reyl Asset Management into adjacent office space; they will work to accelerate diffusion of the Reyl Funds range in German-speaking Switzerland.Outside Switzerland, the Reyl group is already present in Paris, Luxembourg and Singapore.

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), an association of hedge fund managers, announced at the end of last week in a statement that no hedge funds were qualified to be labelled as financial institutions that are relevant to the financial system. That designation would of course imply increased surveillance by regulatory authorities. In the United States, the Financial Stability Oversight Council will soon announce a decision as to the criteria which will determine the systemic character of non-banking financial establishments.“We estimate that no hedge fund is currently important, leveraged, complex or interconnected enough that its bankruptcy or a situation of financial stress would lead to a disturbance in the market capable of destabilising the financial system,” the AIMA president, Todd Groome, says, adding that the British FSA has recently undertaken a study of hedge funds which found that the levels of leverage used were “relatively low,” suggesting “a limited level of risk.”The professional association comments that in 2008, more than 1,400 hedge funds were closed or liquidated without particular impact on the stability of the financial system as a whole.The AIMA reiterates its support for registration of hedge fund managers with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) or other national authorities.

According to a survey by Deloitte Luxembourg in first half, 80% of asset management firms are lagging behind in rolling out the Key Investor Information Document (KIID), and only 20% of them are prepared to publish their first KIID, as required by the OPCVM IV directive from 1 July next year.50% of asset management firms said that they are planning to get it done at the last minute, on 1 July 2012, to meet the requirements. 30% of firms are planning to have them ready by 2012.28% of respondents are planning to publish their KIID documents in several languages, while 27.3% are planning to publish them in more than 10 languages, in order to facilitate fund distribution.In terms of costs, 49.2% of managers are expecting the cost of production of the documents to come to under EUR50,000, while 28.6% estimate that costs will be in the EUR50,000-EUR250,000 range, and 28.6% say it will cost EUR250,000-EUR500,000.

Dans une enquête OFI-Agefi sur Solvabilité II, le directeur financier de la Mutuelle Eovi revient sur les changements d’allocation en vue de la préparation à la nouvelle directive en janvier 2013: « Nous n’avons pas modifié notre allocation, car la chute des marchés de 2008 a conduit à un repositionnement naturel des actifs et à une réduction importante des actifs risqués (actions, fonds alternatifs), témoigne Jérôme Thierrée, directeur financier d’EOVI mutuelle Drôme Arpica. Et surtout notre activité unique, la santé, représente un risque court, à six mois. Aussi, l’allocation d’actifs est plus souple que pour les risques longs et nous pouvons accepter dans une certaine mesure un coût en capital élevé pour les actions. Nous n’en serons pas pour autant moins solvables. » « Nous sommes nombreux à ne pas avoir la taille critique pour mobiliser les ressources pour produire et justifier des modèles internes », confirme Jérôme Thierrée, dont la mutuelle compte pourtant un million d’adhérents.

According to the operator of the electronic fund share buy and sell order processing and routing system Calastone, Lyxor Asset Management has signed up to the network in order to allow its clients to make trades for free on shares in hedge funds. Regardless of the format of the order message, the Calastone network converts it to the Calastone ISO 20022 standard, and enters it into the Calastone Execution Management System (EMS), which provides straight-through processing.