Asset management may see average growth of 6.2% in assets in the period from 2009-2012, Dexia Asset Management estimates in a report submitted to Funds People, but which the management firm will not release in France until autumn. All the catalysts are in place, with strong potential for emerging markets, rising influence of sovereign funds, a need to increase retirement savings in Europe, and an increase in savings in Asia. The sector theoretically has fairly large potential for growth at the top, as the five largest global actors (Barclays Global Investors, State Street Global Investors, BlackRock, Allianz Global Investors avec Pimco and JPMorgan Asset Management) add up to a market share of only 9%, compared with 21% for the five largest auto makers, or 30% for the five largest pharmaceutical companies. On average, the market share for the five largest actors in a sector (banks, lon-life insurance, food & beverage, vehicles, asset management, pharmaceuticals) is 22%.

UBS Global Asset Management has launched the UBS (Lux) Key Selection Sicav – Global Alpha Opportunities, the first UCITS III hedge fund from the Swiss firm to be released in Italy, Bluerating reports.

UBS reports that the UBS-IS CMCI Oil ETF is the only oil ETF available on the European market to date. The product, launched on 18 June and listed on the Swiss stock exchange, synthetically replicates the UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index (CMCI), which aims to limit the influence of rolling positions. The fund is denominated in US dollars and is aimed primarily at high net worth retail investors. The counterparty for the swap if the UBS investment bank, and this risk is 100% covered. UBS has already planned to launch shares in the fund denominated in US dollars for institutional investors, as well as shares in Euros hedged for forex risks, for both retail and institutional investors. CharacteristicsName: UBS-Index Solutions - CMCI Oil ETF (USD) SF-A ISIN: CH0109967858 Currency of fund: USD Trading currency: USD Management commission: 0.45%

On June 18th, the CNMV registered the Luxembourg Sicav Aberdeen Global II. It has 26 sub-funds, most of them bond products. The British asset management firm (EUR161.8bn in assets) is planning to aim largely at institutional investors in Spain and Portugal.

NYSE Euronext has announced that it has admitted seven new French-registered ETF funds from Amundi to trading on Euronext Paris, all of which charge fees of 0.14%. The funds are the Amundi ETFs US Treasury 1-3, US Treasury 3-7, US Treasury 7-10, Short US Treasury 1-3 Daily, Short US Treasury 3-7 Daily, Short US Treasury 7-10 Daily and Ex AAA Government Bond EuroMTS. Euronext now includes 541 listings for 493 ETF products based on over 300 indexes. Since the beginning of the year, 44 ETFs have been added to the European market listings of NYSE Euronext.

Federal prosecutors Tuesday in civil lawsuits alleged that two of his longtime «back office» employees -Annette Bongiorno and JoAnn «Jodi» Crupi- «knowingly perpetuated» the fraud, says the Wall Street Journal. The lawsuits seek to seize about USD5 million in assets from the two employees. They include homes and cars.

Agefi reports that, according to the claims of Jean-Pierre Gauzès, the reporter for the AIFM legislation to the European Parliament, who addressed the British chamber of commerce on 22 June, negotiations with the Ecofin council over the alternative management directive will not be completed before 30 June. Commissioner Michel Barnier had pledged to get the bill passed before summer.

BBVA Asset Management has opened its third-party fund affiliate, Quality Funds, to clients from outside the group. Myrian Luque, director of Quality Funds, announced on Tuesday that open-architecture services are now available to other Spanish firms, but that it has not yet received a response, Cinco Días reports. Quality Funds manages funds of funds with assets that have increased by 70.45% since the beginning of the year to EUR825m. It also advises funds from other management firms with assets of EUR16bn. Currently, Quality has agreements with 38 external management firms, and aims to increase this number to 55. When asked about the removal of Carmignac funds from its offerings a couple of months ago, Luque explained that the move came as part of a general revision of funds, and that Carmignac did not adapt to meet the preliminary criteria of Quality Funds.

In a statement, RHJ International SA has announced that it is continuing its development efforts, and that it has reached an agreement with KBC Asset Management SA to acquire KBC Asset Management Limited (Dublin). The transaction price has been set at EUR23.7m in cash. KBC AM will also receive 50% of a potential capital reduction at KBCAM Dublin, up to a maximum of EUR3.5m. KBCAM Dublin manages about EUR4bn for institutional clients, and offers investment products including environmental equities, value equities, and multi-asset strategy funds. KBC AM, based in Dublin, has a strong client base in Ireland, Asia, and North America.

According to statistics from the German BVI association of management firms, the portfolios of open-ended real estate funds included 1,495 properties or properties under construction, of which 60% are valued at under EUR50m, while only 71 properties are valued at over EUR200m. Germany represents the highest proportion, with 28.3% of total assets as of the end of March, compared with 28.5% at the end of January. The percentage of properties located in France has also fallen to 18.9% from 19.3% at the end of 2009 (see Newsmanagers of 22 March). 35.1% of properties owned by funds are less than 5 years old, and 29.8% are 5 to 10 years old. The BVI also states that office properties represent 64.8% of the total, while commercial and restaurant properties account for 20%. the remainder consists of industrial properties (4.4%) and hotels (3.9%). Concerning the volume of transactions, real estate acquisitions in the twelve months to the end of March totalled 67, of which 23 were in Germany and 44 abroad. Venal properties represented EUR5.82bn. 97 properties were sold, of which 64 were in Germany and 33 abroad, with a venal total value of EUR2.77bn.

As of 31 May, assets under management at Invesco Ltd totalled USD430bn, compare dwith USD456.7bn as of 30 April, and USD457.7bn as of 31 March. Of this total, equities funds represented USD181.2bn, while bond funds represented USD79.1bn. Diversified funds had assets of USD39.6bn, while money market funds had USD69.2bn, and hedge funds had USD60.9bn. In these categories, ETFs and passive funds accounted for a total of USD51.2bn in assets. Invesco states that of a contraction of USD26.9bn between the end of April and the end of May, USD6.1bn was due to ETFs and passive funds, which have seen net redemptions, and about USD6bn are due to currency effects related to the rising US dollar. These figures are worth noting as the takeover by Invesco of the activities of Morgan Stanley came into effect only from 1 June.

The French national pension fund, the Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), announced on 22 June that it has cancelled a management mandate assigned to Allianz Global Investors France, for which the financial management had been further outsourced to the firm’s sister firm, Nicholas Applegate Capital Management, also an affiliate of the Allianz Global Investors group. The FRR says in a statement that the mandate was cancelled “due to sustained relatively unsatisfactory returns.” The mandate was for the management of a US small cap equities portfolio totalling EUR172m as of 28 May of this year.

BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced that the application for a Discretionary Investment Management (DIM) license by BNY Mellon AM Korea Limited was successfully approved by Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) on 16 June 2010. BNY Mellon established an asset management representative office in Seoul in 2006. The DIM license allows BNY Mellon AM Korea Limited to contract for discretionary investment management services with local financial institutions and professional investors.

ING Groep is weighing a sale of its real-estate funds, says the Wall Street Journal. The Dutch financial group said earlier this month it was «conducting an evaluation of the position of ING REIM within the banking business.» Morgan Stanley has been appointed to evaluate ING REIM and could advise the bank on a sale, according to people familiar with the matter. Analysts believe ING could fetch between EUR800 million and EUR1 billion through a direct sale of REIM, which has EUR66.4 billion in property assets under management. Potential investors are coming forward, including AXA Real Estate Investment Managers.

Henderson Global Investors, the UK based asset manager with over USD90 billion assets under management, has appointed Nancy McNally as director of consultant relations, North America. Reporting to Nick Adams, head of global consultant relations, Nancy joined on 1st June 2010. She will be working alongside Mark Toomey, director of institutional asset management, and Michael Nagy, associate director of consultant relations, North America. Nancy has 10 years’ experience in asset management at Fidelity Investments, Robeco Investment Management, Clay Finlay and, most recently, Gartmore.

Six people have left the London office of Citadel Investment Group, the Chicago-based hedge fund manager, according to Financial News. Alex Maddox, who headed up Citadel’s European securitsation desk, has joined Deutsche Bank.

Henderson Group has announced that discussions regarding a potential acquisition by the Group of certain businesses of RidgeWorth Capital Management, Inc., the US asset manager owned by SunTrust Banks, Inc., have been discontinued as the parties have not reached agreement on terms.

State Street Global Advisors has announced the appointment of Raymond Haines as head of UK Liability Driven Investing (LDI) and Christopher J. Goolgasian, who joined SSgA as a senior portfolio manager in the Multi Asset Class Solutions (MACS) group in Boston. The company also announced the transition of Gregory Taieb from its Montreal office to support the UK MACS team in London. SSgA’s MACS group provides asset allocation, LDI and exposure management solutions to clients across all asset classes globally. Haines worked previously at LV= Asset Management where he was most recently chief investment officer. Joining Haines on the London team is Gregory Taieb, a MACS portfolio manager in Montreal who will relocate to London to support the company’s continued growth in that market. Boston-based Goolgasian joins State Street from Pyramis Global Advisors, where he was an institutional portfolio manager.

Schroders has announced that one of its subsidiaries has acquired 49 per cent of the share capital of RWC Partners Limited. The 49 per cent stake in RWC represents a financial investment by Schroders and was acquired mainly from existing third party, individual shareholders. RWC will remain a separate legal entity and will continue to be managed by the existing management team, says a release. RWC had gross assets of approximately GBP10 million as at the date of completion of the transaction.

Newton, an affiliate of BNY Mellon Asset management, announced on 21 June that one of its British arms, Newton Investment Management Limited has been assigned a new management mandate by the pension fund for the University of London, the Superannuities Arrangements of the University of London.

On Tuesday, British Airways (BA) overcame the last obstacle to its merger with Iberia, Cinco Días reports: the British airline reached an agreement with the trustees of its two pension funds, New Airways Pension Scheme (NAPS) and Airways Pension Scheme (APS), by which it pledges to make annual contributions of about GBP330m (EUR394m), in addition to which an amount estimated at 3% per year will be added to account for inflation. These contributions will run until 2026 for NAPS and 2023 for APS. Additional contributions from BA to offset the funds’ deficit (EUR4bn) are planned for years in which cash surpluses exceed GBP1.8bn. The agreement also includes a guarantee of GBP250m to ensure that pensions are paid in case of insolvency.

Credit Suisse and Dow Jones Indexes have signed an agreement which covers the calculation, licensing, branding and marketing of the hedge fund indexes formerly known as the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Indexes. The joint venture between Credit Suisse and Tremont Capital Management, Inc. has been dissolved. Under this agreement, the indexes will be branded Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Indexes, and Dow Jones Indexes will calculate, distribute and market the indexes, while Credit Suisse affiliates will continue to manage the financial products linked to them. Credit Suisse and Dow Jones Indexes intend to keep the methodologies and rules for each of the existing indexes consistent with past practices. The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Indexes are a family of hedge fund indexes which include broad market and investable indexes, all designed to track hedge fund performance. The indexes are constructed from a database of more than 5,000 hedge funds. The index family presently consists of 17 indexes. Dow Jones Indexes will discontinue its existing hedge fund indexes as of June 30.

Credit Suisse and Dow Jones Indexes have teamed up to provide the alternative management indexes previously known by the name Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Indexes. By the agreement, the indexes will be renamed as Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Indexes. Credit Suisse has also dissolved its joint venture with Tremont Capital Management. Dow Jones Indexes will now calculate, distribute and market the indexes, while affiliates of Credit Suisse will continue to manage the financial products associated with them. The two parters are planning to retain the existing methdologies and rules for each index. Dow Jones Indexes, for its part, will discontinue its own hedge fund indexes from 30 June. The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund indexes are a family of 17 hedge fund indices which seek to replicate the performance of hedge funds. They are based on data from more than 5,000 funds.

Despite a global eocnomic context which remains uncertain, the number of millionaires and the volume of their wealth are both rising, according to the 14th edition of the World Wealth Report, published on 22 June by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and Capgemini. This population once again represented 10 million people in 2009; their wealth increased 18.95 to a total of USD39trn. The most wealthy of them saw a 21.5% increase in their wealth in 2009. These figures show that the return to better economic conditions has made it possible to offset losses in 2008, and to return to 2007 levels. “The past few years were particularly marked for high net worth investors. While in 2008, the wealth of millionaires fell unprecedentedly, one year later, we are already seeing signs that it is recovering, and that in some regions, it has fully returned to the levels of wealth seen in 2007,” explains Gilles Dard, president for private management activities in France and continental Europe at Merrill Lynch. “Emerging markets continued to drive this recovery, particularly India, China, and Brazil,” says Laurence Chrétien, in charge of the World Wealth Report for France at Capgemini Consulting. “The Asia-Pacific region was the only region where macroeconomic indicators and drivers of wealth creation developed significantly in 2009.” While the increase in the number of millionaires and their wealth was generally more marked in emerging countries, most high net worth individuals continue to be concentrated in the United States, Japan and Germany, which alone account for 53.5% of this population as of 2009 (54% in 2008). In France, the number of millionaires has increased 10.8% to a total of 383,000. North America still has the largest number of millionaires, at 3.1 million, which corresponds to 31% of the world’s millionaires.

Avec la défiance accrue des investisseurs vis-à-vis de la zone euro, le marché du financement structuré s'est refermé

Le plan d'austérité présenté hier a été accueilli positivement par les économistes et le marché

Grâce au plan d'austérité présenté hier, le Trésor a réduit de 20,2 milliards de livres les ventes de Gilts pour l’exercice 2010-2011 à 165 milliards

Alfred Ganter, le président exécutif de Partners Group, a déclaré au Financial Times que l’augmentation de la concurrence dans un marché de plus en plus étroit était un gros défi pour les fonds de fonds de private equity. Pour lui, c’est la fin des acteurs uniquement spécialisés dans ce domaine. Depuis la crise, les investisseurs institutionnels ont réduit les montants qu’ils investissent dans les nouveaux fonds de private equity et nombre d’entre eux préfèrent investir en direct.

Selon l’enquête «Global Pension Asset Study 2010" réalisée par Towers Watson sur les 13 plus grands marchés mondiaux des retraites (Afrique du Sud, Allemagne, Australie, Brésil, Canada, Etats-Unis, France, Hong-Kong, Irlande, Japon, Pays-Bas, Royaume-Uni et Suisse), les actifs gérés par les fonds de pension à fin 2009 ressortaient à 23.290 milliards de dollars, ce qui correspond à un gonflement de 15,1 % par rapport à fin 2008 (où ils avaient chuté de 21 % sur fin 2007), même si ce total reste inférieur au niveau de 2007 (78 %). En proportion du PIB mondial, ces encours représentent 70 %, soit environ le niveau de 2003, contre 76 % dix ans auparavant, mais ils marquent une nette hausse sur les 58 % de fin 2008.En dollars, les actifs gérés ont augmenté sur tous les marchés couverts par l'étude. Les plus grands marchés sont les Etats-Unis (13.196 milliards de dollars), le Japon (3.152 milliards) et Hong-Kong (1.791 milliards), mais leur part au total des encours mondiaux a diminué. La France arrive onzième avec 178 milliards de dollars.L’encours des fonds de pension représente 120 % du PIB aux Pays-Bas, 113 % en Suisse et 93 % en Australie. En queue de peloton figurent l’Allemagne (12 %) et la France (6 %).Actuellement, poursuit Towers Watson, les actifs des fonds à contribution définie représentent 42 % du total, contre 40 % en 2004 et 32 % en 1999. Sur les sept plus grands marchés, l’allocation moyenne aux actions se situait fin 2009 à 54,4 % en actions, 26,9 % en obligations, 1,3 % en cash et 17,4 % en «divers» dont l’immobilier et d’autres investissements alternatifs.L'étude peut être consultée à l’adressehttp://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/966/GPAS2010.pdf

L’ancien gérant vedette de JP Morgan, Ajay Gambhir, va lancer un fonds actions long/short au format Ucits III, le RWC Europe Absolute Alpha Fund. Ajay Gambhir a rejoint RWC en 2007 et mis son talent exclusivement au service de la clientèle haut de gamme au travers d’un hedge fund dédié à l’Europe, le Samsara.C’est la première fois qu’Ajay Gambhir revient sur le retail depuis son départ de JP Morgan.Le fonds vise un rendement annualisé d’au moins 10% à 15% et comporte une commission de surperformance de 20% avec «high watermark». Le véhicule mettra en œuvre les mêmes idées d’investissement que le hedge fund qui, depuis son lancement en 2003, a dégagé des rendements annuels de plus de 13,1% contre 3,7% pour l’indice MSCI Europe Equity, avec une volatilité inférieure à 8% contre 16% pour l’indice de référence.