Dreyfus Corporation, an affiliate of BNY Mellon Asset Management, has announced the launch of two funds of funds. The Dreyfus Satellite Alpha Fund will invest in mutual funds advised by Dreyfus, which will themselves invest in non-traditional asset classes such as commodities, currencies, and real estate. For its part, the Dreyfus Diversified Global Fund will invest in US and foreign equities mutual funds advised by Dreyfus.

According to sources close to the investor cited by Reuters, the sovereign fund China Investment Corp (USD200bn in assets) is planning to invest USD600-700m each in three distressed funds in the United States, of which one is from Goldman Sachs, and one from Oaktree Capital.

Mary Callahan Erdoes, previously head of private banking, will take over as director of asset management activities at JP Morgan, the bank has announced in a statement. Erdoes, who succeeds Jes Stanley, who has been appointed CEO of investment banking activities, will also join the Operating Committee at JP Morgan Chase. Erdoes joined the JP Morgan private bank in 1996, to direct the Fixed Income department for high net worth investors (HNWI) and charities. After serving in other positions of responsibility, she was appointed CEO of the private bank in 2005, and joined the Executive Committee of the group.

Georges Pauget, CEO of Crédit Agricole, announced on Wednesday that the bank would be withdrawing from tax havens in 2010, La Tribune reports. The bank will close its units in the Bahamas and Panama.

From 1 October, the independent management firm GAM Holding Ltd has separated from Julius Baer Group, and its shares are now listed on the Swiss stock market SIX, under the acronym GAM. GAM Holding controls GAM Group AG and Swiss & Global Asset Management AG.

Asian Investor reports that Barclays Global Investors has opened a branch office in China, and that iShares now has a Chinese equivalent, whose name consists of two Chinese characters meaning “firm foundation” and “prosperity.” BGI would naturally like to develop its presence on the Chinese market, but many obstacles have yet to be overcome. The Chinese government and the Shanghai stock exchange have declared a desire to introduce international ETF funds to the local market in the near future. But Chinese regulators have made suggestions that they would give priority to Chinese businesses and their products before letting foreign competitors in on the market.

On Wednesday, Martin Currie announced the appointment of Dominik Issler as country head for Switzerland; he will join the firm on 4 January 2010. He will report to Eric Bateman, director, head of European sales. He was previously CEO of Fortis Investments/ABN Amro Asset Management for Switzerland.

The online broker Fortuneo Belgium has bought the Belgian business of Cortal Consors, a unit of BNP Paribas. The acquisition price has not been disclosed, L’Echo reports.

Thames River and Jupiter are launching new offshore products on the British and European markets, according to Investment Week. Thames River will offer two long/short funds in the first half of 2010, directed by Joel Amsellem and Gaurav Bamania. The two UCITS III vehicles will be domiciled in Dublin. Jupiter, for its part, has launched a new vehicle entitled Global Opportunities, as a sub-fund of its Global fund, domiciled in Luxembourg. The fund is dedicated to institutional clients, but the minimal investment is set at GBP1,000. The fund is primarily invested in international equities, and is benchmarked against the MSCI World, and will be managed by Malcolm Millar, manager of European Income unit trusts, and Ben Surtees, manager of Asian unit trusts and Asia Pacific Sicav funds.

In the first eight months of the year, US bond funds attracted a net USD209.1bn, while net subscriptions to equities funds were limited to USD15.2bn, according to statistics from Morningstar, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Nine out of the ten funds which have seen the strongest net inflows are bond products.

Lyxor Asset Management announced on 29 September that it now has nine hedge funds on its managed account platform. Since January 2009, Lyxor has regularly increased the diversification of its investment universe, adding a new hedge fund in April, one in June, one in July, and four in August. Since the beginning of the year, assets under management on the platform have increased by USD3bn. The most recent fund, launched in September, is the Apollo Distressed Fund, which deploys an event-driven and risk arbitrage strategy.

GLG Partners has launched a new fund which is primarily aimed at British and European distressed firms, Hedge Week reports. The fund favours tradeable and liquid shares in firms engaged in long and difficult restructuring processes, which are generally prized by distressed activists. The fund, which has about USD300m in assets, had been managed internally since July 2008. But returns of 84% since January have motivated GLG to launch a special product for external investors.

Baring Asset Management has announced that it will participate in the ABC of Bonds roadshow in the United Kingdom along with Axa Investment Managers and Cazenove Capital Management to popularise investment in bond funds with IFAs. The shows will be held in fifteen cities in the country, including London, Cardiff and Edinburgh, from the 17th to the 27th of November. It will reach about 400 IFAs.

The Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) has warned the European Commission about possible tax obstacles to cross-border fund mergers once the future Ucits IV directive is implemented, says Ignites Europe. Asset management companies may be deterred from using cross-border mergers.

Agefi Switzerland reports that a migration of Brevan Howard to the shores of Lake Geneva, where it has planned to move 250 of its staff, though its operational activities will remain in London, is anything but a surprise. 18 months ago, in an informal meeting with the FSA (Financial Services Authority), the directors of Brevan Howard put pressure on the British government with the announcement that they were studying a departure from the United Kingdom if their fears about a large increase in taxes were confirmed. For the moment, Brevan Howard has limited itself to a succinct and evasive statement: “The parent company of the Brevan Howard group regularly studies commercial opportunities, and is preparing to move into offices in several jurisdictions, including Switzerland.” Brevan already has offices in New York, Washington, Hong Kong, Dublin, and Tel Aviv.

Société Générale Asset Management is launching SGAM Invest Inflation Duration Free, a product which, according to a statement from SGAM, offers investors “a simple and efficient means to profit, starting immediately, from an expected rise in inflation, without being penalised by the risk of a rise in general interest rate levels, which may follow in its wake.” The product is particularly well-suited to economic environments which have “inflationary” characteristics, related to strong growth in overall liquidity, a rising orientation in commodity prices, and increasing needs for financing. This type of environment is also likely to emerge at times when there is tension over interest rate levels. Inflation-indexes bonds may be subject to both the positive consequences of rising projections for inflation and the negative impact of rising interest rates. SGAM Invest Inflation Duration Free, a French-registered FCP, is primarily invested in inflation-indexed bonds issued by Euro-zone countries and denominated in Euros. Its benchmark index is the Barclays Capital Instep, specially created by Barclays for this fund. The SGAM Invest Inflation Duration Free also sets itself the goal of reducing the target sensitivity of the portfolio to zero, in order to protect itself against rising interest rates. To achieve this, the managers will use futures, options and swaps. The fund will be available for a minimal investment of EUR1,000 for AC class shares, and will also benefit from SGAM’s expertise in active management of exposure to observed and anticipated inflation, choice of investment supports (countries, type of indexation, swap or direct bond), and immunisation against sensitivity to movements in interest rates. The fund is, however, exposed to inflation indexation risks in case of deflation, as well as to interest rate risks and engagement risks, and does not guarantee that investors will recuperate their initial investment, SGAM warns.

Jonathan R. Levin, who joined Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) in 2004, and who has since been in charge of several strategic projects, has been appointed to the newly-created position of treasurer and head of investor relations. The appointment comes at a time when, on 1 October, the absorption by KKR of KKR Private Equity Investors (KPE), traded in Amsterdam, takes effect (see Newsmanagers of 21 July).

Bank of America (BoA) has announced the recruitment of Andrew M. Sieg, who is director of the emerging affluent clients segment at Citigroup, as managing director and head of retirement and philanthropic services at the global wealth and investment management (GWIM) division. He will be based in New York, and will report to Sallie Krawcheck, president of GWIM. The group that Sieg will direct provides custom retirement solutions as well as administration, accounting, custody, advising and processing services to businesses and organisations, their employees and members, in approximately 40,000 collective retirement savings plans.

In New York, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) is expected to be added to trading on the NYSE from this Thursday. The transfer from Amsterdam to Wall Street comes much sooner than expected, as it had initially been slated for late 2010 at the latest, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.

The ETF provider Source has announced that its assets under management now total USD2.2bn, or about EUR1.5bn, according to Hedge Week. In the space of two months, new products from Source, which have been well-received by institutional investors, particularly hedge funds, have seen nearly USD950m, or about EUR650m, in inflows.

Bank of America agreed to sell Columbia’s long-term asset management business to Ameriprise Financial, the parent company of the UK firm Threadneedle, for about USD1bn. The sale (equities and bond funds) covers assets under management of about USD165bn as of June 30. The transaction will be concluded in spring 2010. Bank of America also said on Wednesday that it has not yet decided what to do with Columbia’s short-term asset management business.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Peter Clarke, CEO of Man Group, says there has been a rebound in demand on the part of investors, particularly for guaranteed products. He also says that Man Group is favourably disposed to several points in the draft alternative management directive proposed in Brussels: some security standards need to apply to all hedge funds, including the smallest ones which are not publicly traded, in order for competition to be equitable. However, Clarke considers the text too hard on non-European hedge funds. He argues that the idea of requiring banks to be responsible for hedge funds’ risks is too onerous. Lastly, the idea of limiting the amount of leverage which hedge funds are allowed to use to increase their performance goes a step too far.

La Tribune reports that in a joint statement, the top five UK banks - HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered - have announced that they will work with the Financial Services Authority to apply the bonus restrictions agreed at last week’s G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, from 1 January next year. The banks note that all member nations have pledged to apply the rules in order to ensure a level playing field.

Les émissions d'OAT et de BTAN atteindront 175 milliards d'euros en 2010

Malgré le palier atteint ces deux derniers mois, son orientation semble plus aisée à anticiper que celle des marchés actions

De très nombreuses questions sont posées aujourd’hui sur le calendrier, l’ordre, la façon dont la BCE sortira de la politique monétaire non conventionnelle. Ira-t-elle au terme de son programme d’achats de covered bonds ? Apposera-t-elle une marge aux prochaines opérations de financement long ? Quand prendront fin les procédures d’appel d’offre à taux fixe ? Regardons les choses en face : ces questions sont prématurées.

Ng Kok Song, directeur de l’investissement de Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC), a indiqué que ce fonds souverain singapourien a l’intention désormais d’investir à nouveau. Son quotient de liquidités se situe pour l’instant à 8 % des 200 milliards de dollars d’encours, et la part des actions a diminué à 38 % contre 44 %, essentiellement à la suite de vente de titres de sociétés des pays industrialisés, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Durant l’exercice au 31 mars, l’encours a baissé de «plus de 20 %», ce qui a réduit la performance sur 20 ans à une moyenne de 2,6 % en termes réels. Cependant, depuis le début avril, plus de la moitié des moins-values ont été récupérées.

Petercam a recruté à la mi-janvier Peter de Coensel chez Capital at Work afin de réorienter une partie de sa gamme obligataire. C'est déjà "mission accomplie" en ce qui concerne le fonds Petercam L Bonds EUR Quality, un produit d'obligations d'entreprises qui affiche à présent 750 millions d'euros d'encours après être passé par un plus bas de 395 millions en mars (il avait commencé l'année à 560 millions), et par Petercam L Bonds Universalis un "tout-terrain" obligataire, qui pèse maintenant 450 millions d'euros.

Fortis a indiqué mardi qu’UBS lui a notifié le 21 septembre avoir à nouveau -pour la troisième fois depuis avril- franchi à la hausse le seuil des 3 % des actions en circulation. A cette date, la banque helvétique détenait en effet plus de 92,49 millions de droits de vote effectifs et potentiels, ce qui représentait une participation de 3,68 %.

Aberdeen Asset Management ouvre un bureau au Brésil à Sao Paulo, rapporte Bloomberg. Il sera dirigé par Nick Robinson. L’acquisition d’une partie de Credit Suisse cette année a porté les encours gérés en actions d’Amérique latine de la société écossaise à 4 milliards de dollars.