Rob Lake has been hired as the new director of strategic development at the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), effective from 16 May. He has more than ten years’ responsible investment experience, having worked previously at investors APG Asset Management and Henderson Global Investors as head of sustainability and governance, and head of corporate engagement respectively. In his role, Rob Lake will be responsible for PRI’s country networks, signatory outreach and recruitment, the academic network and the public policy network. He will also be working closely with the implementation support team to develop and deliver tools and strategies to enable investors to push forward the integration of ESG factors into their day-to-day investments.

Sam Tabar, who recently joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch as head of fundraising for the Asia-Pacific region, estimates that hedge funds dedicated to Asia will need to deploy a wider range of strategies in the next 12 months, Asian Investor reports. Tabar previously worked for the hedge fund management firm PMA Investment Advisors, based in Hong Kong.

The global institutional investor confidence index published by State Street Global Markets for the month of March came to 98.3 points, up 6.5 points from a corrected level of 91.8 in February 2011. The rise was most marked in North America, where the index rose by 10.5 points, from 92.5 (corrected level) to 103. In Asia, the confidence index has risen from 91.5 (corrected level) to 100.2. However, in Europe, investor confidence was down from 79.3 in February to 64.3, a fall of 15 points. “It is likely that continuing uncertainty about the form and scale of the Euro Pact, one of a variety of measures to resolve the sovereign debt crisis, and uncertainty about elections in Germany, have contributed to European institutional investors’ reserve compared with their counterparts in the rest of the world,” says Ken Froot (Harvard), who developed the index with State Street Associates.

At a joint presentation in Munich with Edouard Carmignac, Klaus Kaldemorgen, who has quit his administrative functions as head of DWS (Deutsche Bank group) in order to focus on fund management, has told Newsmanagers that he is preparing an absolute return fund, a solution demanded by many investors “disappointed in outperformance which, despite everything, in reality worked out to overall losses, when funds had less negative results than their benchmark indices.” The risk manager recruited by DWS set out to base his models on three elements: single-digit returns, single-digit losses, and/or lesses which correspond to one third of those of the equities markets. The new product may be ready for launch in the next few months, and will certainly be launched by the end of this year.

Hakan Strängh, head of private banking operations at JP Morgan for Germany and Austria, says propensity to risk-taking by investors has increased in the past few months: they are choosing to convert their liquid assets into equities or high yield bonds. In addition, he says, clients’ confidence in their wealth manager is on the rise, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.JP Morgan accepts only clients with wealth of at least EUR25-30m, of which EUR10m must be in liquid assets.The two major trends among clients at present are a rediscovery of domestic markets, Dax and Mdax equities, and investments in emerging markets. The latter are not limited to China, and also include Latin America.

ETF Securities (ETFS), which in December launched ETCs backed by physical industrial metals on the London Stock Exchange, has received passports for the products for France and the Netherlands from the market authorities, Agefi reports. The firm will be able to offer ETCs backed by physical metals in France. According to the product prospectus, the new range from ETFS includes three funds which are now available in London, of physical copper, nickel and pewter. It will also include funds of phyiscal aluminium, lead and zinc, and one basket of metals, which will become available and tradeable in the next few months, the newspaper reports.

The founder of Galleon Group, Raj Rajaratnam, had an inside line to the board of directors at Goldman Sachs Group, which allowed the hedge fund to buy and sell shares in the bank in times of uncertainty, the Wall Street Journal reports. In two recorded telephone conversations in autumn 2008, Rajaratnam can be heard discussing confidential information concerning Goldman’s results and a USD5bn investment from Warren Buffett, which was said to have been brought in by a board member at the bank. Prosecutors say the information would have given the Galleon founder a picture of the reality in the boardroom, which was far different from what the markets believed at the time, the newspaper writes.

2010 was not a good year for many funds from the Swedish hedge fund management firm Brummer & Partners, E 24 reports. But the number of clients has increased from 7,000 to 10,000, and assets have increased from SEK54bn to SEK78bn. In this environment, profits have increased, and shareholders have approved dividends of SEK400m, of which SEK116m will go to Patrik Brummer, a shareholder who controls nearly 29% of the firm.

Net inflows from retail clients in February totalled GBP1.9bn, compared with GBP900m in January, according to statistics from the British investment management association (IMA). Net inflows have returned to their monthly average level of the past 12 months. Assets under management as of the end of February totalled GBP575.9bn, compared with GBP483.2bn one year earlier. In the month under review, equities were the asset class in highest demand, with net inflows of GBP774m, followed by diversified funds, with GBP424m, and bonds (GBP195m). The IMA observes that inflows were particularly strong in the North American equities sector, with a record total of USD222m in February, five times larger than the monthly average over the past twelve months (GBP41m).

Barings will close its UK Smaller Companies Trust, as it is not expected to attract further investors in the short term, Investment Week reports. The fund, with GBP37m in assets, will be closed in June. Investors may transfer free of charge to another fund of the range.

A new approach developed in the past 18 months at Lombard Odier Investment Managers, based on the concept of fundamental indices, appears to be attracting some interest and even some strong interest. “In the Euro zone alone, changes triggered by the future establishment of new debt financing mechanisms will have fundamental implications for the way to invest in bonds, be it government or private debt,” Stéphane Monier, CIO fixed income & currencies at Lombard Odier Investment Managers, explained on 30 March. “Hence the need to adapt to these phenomena and to offer a credible alternative. In particular, we have a conviction that the divergence between economic fundamentals in developed and emerging markets will continue to increase.”In government bonds, for example, institutional investors have always based their investment strategies on indices based on the value of government debt. By its construction, such an index exposes the investor to the countries (or issuers) with the highest levels of debt, and thus introduces a significant element of credit risk related to these countries.In order to respond to these concerns, Lombard Odier has developed another approach, in which allocations in the index are based on several fundamental factors which determine the capacity of a country to pay off its debt. On this basis, Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and emerging countries have a much larger weight in the fundamental index than in traditional indices, which put the emphasis on the United States and Japan. “This is not a panacea, since we use a limited number of criteria. But combined with active management to take a maximum variety of factors into account, we can bring more hope of returns per risk unit,” Monier says.The asset management firm, which last year already launched three products which rely on this approach, will soon be launching at least three new strategies based on it. In early April, Lombard Odier will offer two euro-denominated funds, one of government bonds, and the other of inflation-linked bonds, Monie says. An existing investment grade fund may also be revised to use a fundamental approach in June.Meanwhile, the three products already available to investors have attracted more than EUR1bn. The first, LO Funds-Emerging Local Currencies and Bonds, launched in early 2010, has assets of about USD800m, and returns of more than 16% since its creation. The LO-Funds-BBB-BB Bond fund, launched in early December 2010, has assets under management of EUR150m, and the LO-Funds-Global Government Bond, launched in mid-December, now weighs in at EUR200m.

The asset management firm Exqim, founded in June 20009 by its president, Jacques Lucas, with three partners, including Philippe de Gouville, CEO and co-founder, is preparing to launch the Exqim Blue Fund, a fund with multiple underlyings which uses quantitative strategies and asset allocation processes.Lucas and de Gouville headed the structured management department at Société Générale Asset Management-Alternative Investment for ten years. Exqim’s management team brings together 20 people, including mathematicians and IT specialists. The Exqim Blue Fund offers three levels of diversification, a statement says: firstly, in terms of types of strategy, secondly, of the type of underlying, and thirdly, of the frequency with which positions are adjusted. The fund invests only in liquid, publicly-traded assets, and does not make use of exotic or structured instruments. The Exqim Blue Fund, which is managed automatically, has a performance objective of 15% per year, and according to its designers, aims for EUR100m in assets by the end of the year.

Financial News reports that Brevan Howard Asset Management has recruited Karl Devine, former head of proprietary global macro trading at Goldman Sachs. He joins with two other people.

Jon Dadswell has been appointed as head of institutional sales at Aegon Asset Management. He was previously head of sales for the real estate arm of the management firm, and will also continue to serve in this role. Dadswell joined Aegon AM in June 2007 after working at Credit Suisse Asset Management, Henderson Global Investors, Gartmore and Morgan Grenfell.

Liontrust Asset Management has recorded positive net sales of GBP79 million in the period from 1 April 2010 to 29 March 2011. It is the first time since the financial year ended 31 March 2004 that the asset management company has been in a net positive sales position over a financial year. On 29 March 2011, our assets under management stood at GBP1,335 million.

Jamie Stuttard, a former Schroders bond manager, has joined Fidelity Management & Research, the London affiliate of Fidelity specialised in bonds, Investment Week reports.

Impax Asset Management Group plc, the specialist environmental investment manager based in the UK, has established a subsidiary in the United States, Impax Asset Management (US) LLC, and hired Ken Locklin as Managing Director. He joins Impax from the Clean Energy Group where he was Director of Finance and Investment.Impax is expanding into the US in response to rising interest in environmental markets portfolios from institutional investors, investment advisors and consultants based in the United States.

Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management has hired Kevin Thozet as head of requests for proposals. Thozet, 32, was previously at Axa Investment Managers, as senior RFP manager. He was in charge of international institutional contracts in particular. Thozet’s arrival will allow Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management to strenghten its expertise in requests for proposals from French and international institutional clients. The asset management firm says that its product engineering and requests for proposals team, led by Maria Kahane, is now composed of six people.

David Sokol, the heir apparent to Warren Buffett as head of Berkshire Hathaway, has resigned, Agefi reports. Acquisitions of shares in the Lubrizol chemical group in his own name before Berkshire was able to take control of the company in a deal strenuously encouraged by Sokol are said to have been the cause of the rift.

Lazard Frères Gestion announced on Wednesday, 30 March that it has added to its Paris-based private management team. Jean-Marie Combes, 33, joins Lazard Frères Gestion as a private banker in the private management development team, led by Sophie de Nadaillac. Since April 2004, Combes has worked for the Rothschild & Cie group as an advising banker and then as a private banker. For her part, de Nadaillac, 38, is appointed as managing partner of Lazard Frères Gestion. Since 2007 she had served as head of development of private management at Lazard Frères Gestion; she joined the group in 1995.

Bank Julius Baer has appointed Bernhard Hodler, a member of the executive board at Julius Baer Group and Banque Julius Baer, to the newly-created position of chief operating officer (COO) from 1 April 2011, the Swiss financial group (CHF170bn in assets as of the end of 2010) announced on 31 March.The creation of the COO position is intended to “further strengthen the Bank’s organisation and the transformation of its business model, facilitating the implementation of its growth strategy.”In his new role, Hodler will directly oversee risk management, legal and compliance, IT, operations and shared services operations.

Threadneedle has increased its allocation to Japanese equities following the earthquake, moving from a neutral to an overweight position, Money Marketing reports. The asset management firm manages over GBP1bn in Japanese assets.

Dix-huit mois après avoir fondé la société de gestion Exqim, ses quatre fondateurs, dont les deux anciens responsables de la gestion structurée de SGAM AI (Société Générale Asset Management - Alternative Investment), lancent aujourd’hui leur premier véhicule d’investissement. Baptisé Exqim Blue Fund, il s’agit d’un fonds recourant à des stratégies et une allocation quantitatives et systématiques, qui utilisent la technique du trading algorithmique. Il offre en outre une triple diversification: sur le plan des stratégies, des sous-jacents et des fréquences d’ajustement. Lancé avec un peu moins de dix millions d’euros, provenant essentiellement des fondateurs, Exqim Blue Fund entend collecter 100 millions d’euros d’ici à la fin de l’année et atteindre le milliard d’euros dans quatre ou cinq ans. «Les quelques sociétés de gestion systématique anglo-saxonnes ne le sont en fait qu’en partie; en outre, elles sont mono-stratégie», affirme Thomas Dubreuil, l’un des fondateurs.

David Sokol s’est brûlé les ailes. Le successeur pressenti de Warren Buffett à la tête de Berkshire Hathaway a démissionné. En cause, des achats à titre personnel d’actions du groupe chimique Lubrizol avant que Berkshire ne convienne d’en prendre le contrôle, une opération vivement encouragée en interne par David Sokol.

Le fonds d’investissement a placé sept millions d’actions Medica, soit 14,6% du capital du spécialiste français de la prise en charge de la dépendance, au prix de 13,75 euros par action. Cette opération rapporte quelque 96,25 millions d’euros à BC Partners, qui détient désormais 30,5% du capital et des droits de vote, le capital flottant étant porté à 53,6% du total.

Le gestionnaire d’actifs alternatif, via sa société Tridimension Holding, a conclu un accord avec les fondateurs-actionnaires de Metrologic Group (Philippe Cimadomo, Gilles Bartoli et leurs familles) en vue d’acquérir 61,77% du capital et 71,15% des droits de vote pour une valeur par action de 38 euros. Metrologic Group est spécialisé dans l’édition de solutions logicielles de mesure 3D, destinées à l'équipement de systèmes de contrôle.

Le commissaire européen à la Fiscalité appelle à remédier à la « sous-taxation du secteur financier ». Une consultation sur le sujet expire en avril

Les stress tests doivent conclure aujourd’hui à de nouveaux besoins en capital du secteur bancaire

Les stress tests doivent conclure aujourd’hui à de nouveaux besoins en capital du secteur bancaire

Selon le FMI, les déclassements touchent les marchés du pays visé, mais aussi ceux d’autres pays européens. Et pourraient favoriser l'instabilité financière