The Hong Kong management firm Kong Quam Asset Management has recruited Simon Potter as director, to serve in the newly-created position of head of portfolio development for alternative products, Asian Investor reports. Potter previously worked at Triple A Partners in Hong Kong. Assets under management at Quam AM as of the end of March totalled about USD80m.

Agefi reports, citing a spokesperson for the financial services firm Investec, that the firm, which is active in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom, is seeking to sell its private banking affiliate in Switzerland. The affiliate, which has offices in Zurich and Geneva, has GBP1.95bn in assets under management.

Lesley-Ann Morgan, who spent 18 years at the consultancy firm Towers Watson, most recently as senior investment consultant and head of the client delivery group, has been hired by Schroders for the newly created role of senior strategist within the global strategic solutions team.

According to a Forsa survey commissioned by comdirect bank, the Börsen-Zeitung reports, more than half of retail investors in Germany have never heard of “sustainable” investment products, and only one tenth of them know about “green” investments, though they do not use them. Only 2% have already subscribed to a sustainable investment product, while 15% have considered investing in such products, but have not yet made the choice to do so.

Irving Picard, trustee for the business activities of Bernard Madoff, has decided to increase the amount he is seeking from J.P. Morgan Chase to USD19bn, from USD5.4bn previously. He is basing the increased claims on new evidence that the bank ignored or dismissed warning signs that fraud was taking place, while its relationship with the fraudster allowed it to make hundreds of millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports.Separately, Picard is seeking to recover USD400m from allegedly fraudulent transfers, and “at least” USD500m in revenues made by J.P. Morgan off the back of Madoff’s victims.The arguments have been rejected by the bank as baseless.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) on 22 June announced that the broker Morgan Keegan has agreed to pay USD200m to settle charges related to the sale of securities based on subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Two employees of Morgan Keegan, one of whom has been barred from the profession, have also agreed to pay fines due to their responsibility for inexact valuations of five funds managed by Morgan Asset Management between January and July 2007.

In light of references in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms and the Consumer Protection Act, the SEC announced on 22 June that it has arrived at a legal definition of family offices, which will continue to be exempt from the requirement to register with the regulator, as they were already under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, if they had under 15 clients. This interpretation will come into force 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.Family offices which will continue to be exempt from the registration requirement under the Investment Advisers Act will be those which:-provide investment advice exclusively to family clients-are wholly controlled either by family members or by family entities-do not serve the public as investment advisers.

In order to avoid another “flash crash” like the one which took place on 6 May 2010, the SEC has approved an extension of the emergency cutoff system (circuit-breakers) to all equities and ETFs listed for trading in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reports. The US stock markets are planning to put the extension into effect by 8 August, but are continuing to negotiate with the regulator over the adoption of a substitute system which would perform better.Meanwhile, trading in equities and ETF worth USD1 or more will be suspended if there is a variation of 30% or more in any five-minute period. For shares which cost less than USD1 each, the suspension will be put in place if there is a rise or fall of more than 50% in five minutes.Currently, the suspension takes place after five minutes if there is a variation of over 10%, but this system applies only to shares of the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000, as well as the 344 most heavily-traded ETFs.

Les Echos reports that the French government has announced that laws which will transpose the European UCITS IV directive into French law “have been transmitted to the Council of State». They will be passed and published before the holidays. France will be one of the leaders in transposing the regulations. The plans are ambitious, and all actors have preferred to take the necessary time to ensure a successful transposition. Participants at the beginning of the year had estimated that the bill would be passed by the end of first quarter.

Lee Robinson, manager of the hedge fund firm Trafalgar, is raising money for a planned hedge fund in Monaco, where he resides. He has already received approval form the FSA in the UK for the new firm, Altana. The fund will use a global macro strategy, according to reports in the Financial Times. The launch is reported to have angered Goldman Sachs, which via its Petershill fund owns a minority stake in Trafalgar, which it bought at a high price in 2008.

Stoxx Limited has announced the launch of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index. The new strategy index uses Harry M. Markowitz’ Modern Portfolio Theory to create a hypothetical, long-only risk-optimized portfolio that selects and weights constituents of the Stoxx Europe 600 Index in such a way that the portfolio’s expected variance is minimized.The iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index has been initiated by and licensed to Ossiam, an asset manager dedicated to ETFs partly owned by Natixis Global Asset Management, to underlie an exchange-traded fund. «The methodology of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index, initiated by Ossiam’s quantitative Research and Investment team, combines the best attributes of passive and quantitative management,» said Fabien Dornier, chief investment officer of Ossiam. " «The launch of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index provides investors with an efficient portfolio management tool.»

Legg Mason vient de recruter Eric Simonnet en tant que responsable de la distribution Benelux. Basé à Paris, il s’occupera des activités de vente et de distribution de fonds auprès des distributeurs tiers, notamment des intermédiaires financiers, gestionnaires d’actifs, gérants de fonds de fonds, banques et plateformes de distribution haut de gamme, en Belgique, aux Pays-Bas et à Luxembourg. Dans ces trois pays, Legg Mason distribue ses fonds depuis 2004.Eric Simonnet vient d’Oddo Asset Management où il était dernièrement responsable de la distribution Benelux (depuis juin 2008), après y avoir été commercial auprès des conseillers en gestion de patrimoine indépendants. «L’arrivée d’Eric reflète nos fortes ambitions et nous continuerons à renforcer nos équipes en Europe Continentale», commente Vincent Passa, directeur de la distribution France, Monaco et Benelux.

Legg Mason has recruited Eric Simonnet as head of distribution for Benelux. He will be based in Paris, and will handle fund sales and distribution activities via third-party distributors, including financial intermediaries, asset managers, fund of fund managers, banks, and high-end distribution platforms, in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In these three countries, Legg Mason has been offering funds since 2004. Simonnet joins the firm from Oddo Asset Management, where he was most recently head of distribution for Benelux (since June 2008), after serving as a salesperson addressing independent financial advisers (IFAs). “Eric’s arrival reflects our strong ambitions, and we will continue to add to our teams in continental Europe,” says Vincent Passa, director of distribution for France, Monaco and Benelux.

The regulatory authorities have granted approval for the birth of a new banking group: Quilvest Wealth Management, announced on 9 December 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 05/05/2010), built out of the meger of the wealth management activities of the Compagnie de Banque Privée and the Quilvest group. On paper, the new group has EUR10bn in assets under management and custody, and a total of 270 employees.The new group is made up of three entities in three different countries: Quilvest Switzerland Ltd, in Zurich, Quilvest Banque Privée in Paris, and Compagnie de Banque Privée S.A. in Luxembourg. Although an operation of this nature will naturally lead to some changes in the organisation, the time has not yet come to overhaul all areas of expertise within the group. Concretely, Paris, which manages EUR3.2bn, including EUR2bn from institutional investors, while the remainder is from private clients, will scale up its “leadership” in the institutional investor market. This activity, initiated ten years ago, is based on Quilvest’s strengths in fixed income, via money market and treasury products of its Saint-Germain range.“The strategic objective,” says Stéphane Chrétien, chairman of the board of directors at Quilvest Banque Privée, “is to add to our product range aimed at these investors, to offer them equities funds, in addition, we are planning to move beyond the borders of France, to extend our client base.” In terms of equity funds, the firm already has an equity fund with Europe as its investment universe. “The fund, which is based on conviction-based risk management, is still young, and therefore does not have a sufficient track record to win over many investors.” In another area, the firm is currently considering creating a bond fund investing in high yield bonds, and a fund investing in convertible bonds.The international ambitions of Quilvest Banque Privée are based on its range of fixed-income based products. Those will be presented to institutional investors such as Luxembourg reinsurers and Swiss businesses for their cash management. Simultaneously, actors in the Belgian and German markets are also on the firm’s radar.Clearly, these ambitions will require increased means. Thus, the sales force at the firm, currently composed of four people in France, will be doubled in the next few years. “At the same time,” says Chrétien, “the construction of local sales teams, currently underway, will allow us to more easily cover the Belgian and Luxembourg markets.”As to Quilvest’s second “core” market in Paris, private clients, the firm is not planning to change something which is its strength: values close to those of a family office, as well as the alignment of clients’ interests with those of the bank’s shareholders.In terms of asset management, the creation of the new group will lead to some changes concerning the open architecture put in place by the company. “Concretely,” the head of the bank in Paris explains, “the selection of international funds will be undertaken in Luxembourg, which has a high level of expertise. But due to the specificity of the French market, with a high degree of presence of independent management firms, we are going to retain selection of French-registered funds in Paris.” Lastly, in terms of the exchange of expertise, Paris will be able to “take inspiration from the experience of Luxembourg via closed funds, offered by depository banks, aimed at high net worth families via a more effective wealth management organisation.”

The FundVest platform from Pershing (BNY Mellon group) for fund trading without fees (NTF) has extended its product range to funds from Altegris, Invesco and TIAA-CREF. It has been announced that the range of funds from Invesco available on the platform has been enlarged to include funds which it inherited from Van Kampen, which will triple the number of Invesco products available on FundVest.All of the funds are now available for broker-dealer clients and for IRAs (independent registered investment advisors) and their clients, via Pershing Advisor Solutions.The platform will offer access to 4,300 mutual funds, from 230 fund families. Since the beginning of the 2010-2011 fiscal year, FundVest has already added over 50 asset management firms to its list of providers whose funds may be traded, including Lord Abbette, Janus Funds and ING Fund Services.

According to information received by Newsmanagers, Philippe Sabbah, who left Threadneedle in early June, will be joining Robeco Gestions in Paris. He is expected to be appointed as CEO in charge of sales development. At Threadneedle, Sabbah was head of the Paris office, from 2007, and previously served as head of institutional clients at JPMorgan Asset Management in Paris. Robeco Gestions lost its CEO, Arnaud Perrier, in February 2010. Perrier joined Jean-Louis Laurens, the firm’s former chairman, at Rothschild & Cie Gestion, to serve as head of sales and marketing. He was followed one year later by Lionel Deny, who was an institutional salesperson at Robeco Gestions.

Shareholders in Wesco Financial on Friday, 24 June approved a public takover bid from Berkshire Hathaway for 19.9% of its capital, a prelude to withdrawing the firm from public trading, at its AGM on 24 June, Agefi reports. The acquisition price totals about USD545m (EUR380m), The investment holding company for Warren Buffett already controlled 80.1% of Weco Financial before the operation.Buffett, 80, is planning to simplify the structure of Berkshire Hathaway in order to prepare to hand the firm on to his successor. The group’s management announced his plans in August 2010, after they were declared at an AGM in May of the same year.

Bruno Julien, CEO of Tocqueville Finance, had told Newsmangers that a new head of business development would soon be joining the French boutique, in a newly-created position. Newsmanagers has learnt that the new recruit is Eric Tajchman, who will be joining the asset management firm on Monday. Tajchman spent several years at ING Investment Managers, some of it in France, as deputy CEO in charge of Paris sales teams. In 2007, he moved to The Hague, where he was senior strategic partners director for Europe, and served major clients of the firm. At Tocqueville, Tajchmann will oversee French and European sales and marketing, with a team of 12 people. One of his missions will be to develop fund sales abroad. Julien would like to make international sales a major growth area, with the objective of doubling the firm’s assets, from EUR2bn currently, to EUR4bn by 2015.

The director of the securities professions at Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS), Alain Closier, describes the major strategic areas of the firm's activities to Newsmanagers. As Europe's number two provider, SGSS is relying on its domestic European client base to develop internationally.

The Financial Policy Committee, created by the British government to identify and avoid systemic risks in the United Kingdom, has asked the Financial Services Authority to “closely monitor risks” posed by opaque financing structures used by ETFs, Financial News reports, citing the minutes of the first meeting of the committee. The committee estimates, however, that it is unlikely that the ETF market as a whole represents an immediate threat to financial stability.

The central asset management firm for the Swiss cantonal banks, Swisscanto (CHF57.6bn in assets as of 31 March), announced at the end of last week that on 1 July it will open an affiliate, Swisscanto Asset Management S.A., in Luxembourg, and that it will open offices in Frankfurt am Main and Milan.In addition to the affiliate already established in London (which handles securities and fund trading, and more recently, institutional clients), the further presence in Luxembourg (the result of the merger of existing local affiliates) and in Germany and Italy will allow the firm to seek or to more intensively monitor distribution partners and institutional clients in the markets concerned. The structure in Luxembourg and the two new branch offices will initially employ six people in total, in administration and prospecting on local markets. Sales efforts will concentrate on equities, bonds, and sustainable development products.

Now that comparative recovery of the markets is moving along satisfactorily, the composition of European institutional portfolios appears more clear. According to the 11th edition of the European Institutional Asset Management Survey (EIAMS) conducted by Invesco, bonds “represent the future.” The survey, which largely covers European pension funds and insurers, finds that there has been a sustained increase in the proportion of bonds in European institutional portfolios, while the proportion of equities has been slightly reduced, and real estate has been merely maintained at constant levels in portfolios between 2009 and 2010. The overall proportion of bonds has increased from 51% in 2009 to 58% in 2010, its highest level since 2006. Equities have fallen to 27% of assets in 2010, compared with 29% in 2009, but this level remains higher than its 2008 level, at the onset of the crisis (25%). Alternative investments have held out well (about 12% of portfolios), while real estate has maintained its average proportion of 7%. Money market products, which represented 5% of portfolios in 2009 and 10% in 2008, have fallen to 2%, as investors returned to the market. It’s green lights for bond markets all the way. In Europe, the average duration for investor engagements has risen from 15.69 years in 2009 to 16.37 years presently, inverting a downward trend observed in previous editions of the survey. In addition, 22% of respondents said that they are planning to increase their allocation to bonds, while 16% are planning to reduce it. Michael Gartmann, managing director and director of institutional activity in Germany at Invesco, says that this marked refocusing on bonds may reflect caution on the part of investors about the global economic recovery, and the pressures that the Solvency II directive has placed on the insurance sector. Corporate bonds appear to be the big winners out of investors’ increased interest in bonds, to the detriment of government bonds. Although over one fifth of investors are planning to increase their allocation to bonds, 31% have decided to reduce their allocation to government bonds, and 30% prefer corporate bonds. The survey also finds that there is a growing interest in emerging market debt, which may be due to inflationary concerns, low returns on government bonds, and the increasingly widespread notion that government debt from developed countries can no longer be considered a risk-free category. However, despite the increasing dominance of bonds, “the game is not yet up for other asset classes,” explains Michael Gartmann: 19% of investors are planning to increase their allocation to equities, and 26% are planning to increase their exposure to real estate, while 15% and 7%, respectively, are planning to reduce their exposure to these asset classes. Only large investors (those with over EUR5bn in assets, largely represented in the sample by insurance companies) have reduced their exposure to equities, while strongly increasing their exposure to bonds. The survey also confirms a trend for investors to turn to external managers, with 67% of respondents doing so, compared with 64% in 2009. Investors are, however, not hesitating to change providers, and a growing number of them are ending relationships with external managers (53%, compared with 40% in 2009).

HSBC is planning to launch ETFs covering Russia, India, European emerging markets and the CIVETS countries (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), Money Marketing reports. The emerging markets range from the asset management firm will be complete by the end of the year, says Farley Thomas, global head of ETFs and wealth management solutions.

Money Marketing reports that F&C Management is considering an overhaul of its product ranges, which would involve jettisoning the Thames River brand.F&C, when asked about the reports, stated that it would like to recruit a new head of marketing, but that no decision has been taken at this time concerning the future of the Thames River brand.

Rothschild Private Banking & Trust has made two appointments to its investment team, both in newly created roles. The business has appointed Marco Schaller as head of service management & offering development and Andreas A. Bickel as head of strategic asset allocation and advisory, Switzerland. Andreas Bickel will head up both research operations and wealth management mandates for ultra high net worth (UHNW) clients. He will also be responsible for the management of the Rothschild Bank AG pension fund. Andreas Bickel joins Rothschild from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Portfolio Management Group, a member of the extended management committee and employee representative on the Foundation Board of the pension fund. Marco Schaller’s role was created to better address the complex and very individual needs of clients in Rothschild’s core markets. He holds an MBA from Cranfield University and is an expert on structured products. He joins Rothschild from UBS where he has held various positions in the investment and product areas.

Le groupe de services financiers, qui opère notamment en Afrique du Sud, en Australie et au Royaume-Uni, songe à céder sa filiale de banque privée en Suisse, a indiqué un porte-parole de l’établissement. Investec a mandaté Fenchurch Advisory Partners afin d’être conseillé sur cette opération, selon Mail on Sunday. La filiale, qui possède des bureaux à Zurich et Genève, affiche 1,95 milliard de livres d’actifs sous gestion.

A l’occasion de la transposition de la Directive OPCVM IV, l’AMF a simplifié les programmes d’activité des sociétés de gestion de portefeuille et les a recentrés sur les éléments essentiels pour l’analyse réalisée par le régulateur : organisation, moyens, commercialisation et dispositif de contrôle.

Le support à 3.415 points devrait contenir toute baisse supplémentaire et forcer l’indice à remonter vers les 4.170 points

Les fonds monétaires américains, qui financent en partie les prêteurs de la zone euro, pourraient être un canal de transmission du risque

La participation des créanciers privés à un «rollover» n'est volontairement pas chiffrée à ce stade, alors que la Grèce doit avaliser les réformes