Selon la dernière étude de Cerulli Associates (Quantitative Update: Global Markets 2009), l’encours mondial de la gestion d’actifs était tombé fin décembre à 43,2 billions de dollars contre 53 billions un an plus tôt. Ce niveau est néanmoins supérieur aux 42,4 billions de 2005. Cerulli constate que s’il a fallu près de trois ans au secteur de la gestion d’actifs pour amasser 10 billions de dollars d’actifs supplémentaires, il lui aura fallu moins de six mois pour perdre ce montant. Et il aura probablement besoin de cinq ans pour reconstituer ce montant : les projections portent sur une nouvelle baisse de 600 milliards de dollars cette année, suivie d’une progression à partir de 2010 (44,4 billions) pour atteindre 56,5 billions en 2013. Cela présuppose un taux moyen de croissance annuelle de l’ordre de 5,5 %.Le plongeon des encours a plombé les chiffres d’affaires des gestionnaires d’actifs, qui a diminué l’an dernier de 6,8 % à 155,7 milliards de dollars, mais il faut s’attendre à un effet plus dévastateur encore du fait que les investisseurs se tournent vers des produits moins risqués et donc moins chargés que les fonds d’actions. Selon FTfm, d’ailleurs, la part d’encours investie en actions a diminué l’an dernier à 40,7 % du total contre 52,9 % l’année précédente.

Selon la Tribune, la restructuration de la dette du conglomérat saoudien Saad et le gel des actifs de son président, le milliardaire Maan al-Sanea, risquent d’entraîner des pertes pour la douzaine de banques qui ont arrangé 6,3 milliards de dollars de prêts syndiqués pour le groupe. Parmi elles figurent Citigroup, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Standard Chartered et JP Morgan.

Après Bank of America, Morgan Stanley et UBS, c’est au tour de Citigroup de compenser la baisse des bonus annuels par une augmentation des salaires fixes, indique la Tribune. Selon le « New York Times » cité par le quotidien, les augmentations de salaire pourraient aller jusqu'à 50 % dans certaines activités essentielles comme la banque d’investissement ou le trading. Objectif : juguler la fuite des talents. En Europe, la modération prévaut côté salaires. La fuite des talents n’est pas à l’ordre du jour.

Adepte de la gestion quantitative, Thaddée Tyl, président de Rivoli Finance, revient sur une gestion qui, en étant souvent meconnue, inspire méfiance et craintes des investisseurs. A tort selon lui, même si il reconnaît que l'expliquer exige du temps et de la pédagogie.

Dans un article consacré au Funds Forum de Monaco et à la remise en question à laquelle sont censés se livrer les gestionnaires d’actifs, le Handelsblatt rapporte que pour Benjamin Phillips, associé de Casey Quirk & Associates, les futurs gagnants seront ceux qui se focaliseront sur les produits de prévoyance vieillesse et ceux destinés aux particuliers haut de gamme.De son côté, Amin Rajan, qui dirige le bureau d'études Create, souligne que les investissements institutionnels recherchent actuellement des portefeuilles d’actions mondiales, des fonds indiciels et des produits marchés émergents, matières premières et private equity. De leur côté, les particuliers veulent surtout des produits à capital protégé et de la performance. Ces exigences sont globalement très éloignées de ce que proposent les gestionnaires.

Les grandes fortunes privilégient les actifs moins risqués, et les trois quarts d'entre elles ont perdu confiance dans leur gestionnaire

Les taux seront maintenus à un niveau plancher pendant « une période prolongée »

Le « smile » des options sur le Bund s'est inversé, accompagné d'une baisse générale des volatilités

La population des millionnaires a chuté de 14,9 % en 2008 à 8,6 millions, leur patrimoine ayant décru de 19,5 % à 32.800 milliards de dollars

Les marchés anticipent que la Banque centrale européenne augmentera les taux dès l’année prochaine ; de 100 pb d’ici à juin 2010 à en croire la courbe des Eonia (si sa lecture conserve du sens tant que la crise perturbe les fixations de prix). De telles anticipations sont beaucoup trop hâtives et l’analyse ne laisse guère envisager les premiers resserrements monétaires avant le second semestre 2011, pour deux raisons.

The government of Antigua and Barbuda has removed Larry King, accused of complicity in a USD7bn fraud perpetrated by the Texan financier R. Allen Stanford, from his position as the nation’s regulator, the Financial Services Regulatory Commission, the wall Street Journal reports. King’s name has also been stricken from documents at the local market surveillance authority. Antigua and Barbuda expect the United States to demand the extradition of King, who is accused of receiving USD100,000 in bribes for giving the SEC official statements about Stanford’s activities.

The SRI management firm Ökoworld (EUR500m) has announced the appointment of Ralph Prudent as a member of its board and head of fund distribution. He was previosuly a member of the board of directors at the management firm Maintrust (Nomura group) for ten years.

Deutsche Börse announced on Tuesday that the British firm Capita Financial Group has signed up to the Central Facility for Funds (CFF), a post-market solution offered by Clearstream for investment funds. The CFF now has 44 participations and offers access to more than 35,000 fund shares and share classes.

The British management firm Jupiter Asset Management is currently seeking to recruit a salesperson, who will be in charge of sales in France of sub-funds of its Luxembourg Sicav, which is already registered for sale in France, Edward Bonham-Carter, CEO of Jupiter, has announced at the Fund Forum in Monaco. “We would like to open a small representative office in Paris,” the executive says. The management firm is indirectly present in France, via a fund from CCR, Centrale Croissance Europe, whose management is outsourced to Jupiter. The partnership dates back tot he time when Commerzbank was a shareholder in both management firms (which is no longer the case today). Now, Jupiter would like to develop further on French territory, and offer investors a wider range of products. The firm is largely known for its equities management in various regions, and especially for socially responsible investment. As of the end of April 2008, it managed GBP16.8bn in assets. Jupiter AM’s European development began in 2006, when Kevin Scott from Old Mutual was appointed to lead the project. Martina Guenzl was recruited to develop sales in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and Simon O’Donoghue handles Scandinavia. For the moment, though, Jupiter remains very British, with a largely retail client base via independent financial advisors. In France, however, targeting retail clients would be too onerous. The firm will therefore concentrate on those who select funds, private banks. Jupiter AM, founded in 1985 by John Duffield, who later founded New Star, has since 2007 been a firm mostly owned by employees (95% of whom are shareholders), while TA Associates owns a minority stake. The firm considers this independence and its “boutique” spirit as definitive characteristics.

L’un des avocats de Bernard Madoff estime qu’une peine de 12 ans deprison constituerait une sanction suffisante pour la fraude commise, rapporte le Financial Times.

L’Agefi Switzerland reports, citing the New York Times, that the US Department of Justice may drop legal proceedings to force the Swiss bank UBS to divulge the names of 52,000 US clients suspected of tax evasion. The cases may be dropped next month, before 13 July, when a case will be heard in a federal court in Miami, according to a source close to the discussions. The largest Swiss bank agreed to pay USD780m in February to settle charges that it assisted US clients to evade taxes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the reason that many hedge funds are maintaining “gates” set up at the onset of the crisis is probably that their assets are overvalued and they do not want to bite into performance by revising them. This is good news for funds of hedge funds, which can continue to charge high commissions, while claiming that capital invested in single hedge funds cannot be recovered for the time being anyway. Investors will need to mobilize and insist in order to obtain liquidations, as Carl Icahn did to the Steel Partners II fund from Warren Lichtenstein. This may be hard, but it is the only way for the hedge fund sector to regain the confidence of investors.

La Tribune reports that Colony Capital is interested in investing in Orco Property, which is subject to a safeguard procedure. However, the US investment firm is demanding that Orco Property, a real estate firm specialized in Eastern Europe, restructures its bond debt, estimated at EUR400m.

The British group Aviva announced on 23 June that it has appointed Matt Saker, who previously spent 28 years at Watson Wyatt, where he has been a partner since 2003, as its actuary-in-chief for Europe. The day before, Aviva announced the appointment of Jon Bunn, previously of Prudential, as head of corporate affairs and communications for Europe.

In partnership with Danos & Associates, BNP Paribas Real Estate is extending its geographical coverage to include the Balkans. Following Greece and Cyprus, where they are already present, thew two firms have decided to extend their partnership into the Balkans. Three new partership locations have been opened in Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia, which will be primarily active, initially, in business real estate trading and expertise (more than 90% of activities), and residential real estate (all other activities). In total, BNP Paribas Real Estate is present in 29 countries worldwide (via 14 affiliates and 15 alliances).

When the markets were in freefall at the end of last year, hedge fund managers suspended or limited their redemptions. But now that hedge funds are posting average performance of 9.8% in January-May, after losses of 19% in 2008, according to statistics from Hedge Fund Research, the market rebound will make it easier to sell assets, and investors will receive their money back, the Wall Street Journal reports. Among the funds which are still blocking out new subscribers are Citadel Investment Group (Chicago) and Harbinger Capital Partners (New York), as well as the London-based firms GLG Partners and Polygon Investment Partners. GLG Partners is planning to lift its freeze on redemptions from its fund GLG Market Neutral (USD1bn in assets) at the end of the month.

The German management firm Maintrust, an affiliate of Nomura, is releasing a fundamental indexing fund focused on Europe (MAT Fundamental Europa), a German-registered product which was launched on 21 April. The fund is benchmarked against the FTSE RAFI Europe Index Total Return, a methodology from the American firm Research Affiliates (RAFI), in which Nomura holds a “strategic participation.” The method provides a way to weight companies no longer on the basis of their capitalisation but instead on the basis of four equally-weighted fundamental factors (earnings, cash flow, dividends, and book value). According to Maintrust, this will keep TER at a low level (1.01%) and to reduce turnover rates to levels comparable to an ETF, while outperforming both growth and value strategies. At the same time, Maintrust is relaunching its MAT Fundamental Japan fund, which had only EUR20m in assets at the end of April, though it was launched on 15 January 2007. the fund is benchmarked against the FTSE RAFI Japan Total Return, and has a TER of 1.23%.

On the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first open-ended real estate fund, the German BVI association of management firms announced on Tuesday that, since 1990, assets in open-ended products (46 funds, up from 35 in 2005) have quadrupled, to a total of EUR86.42bn as of the end of April. In addition to this total, there are 124 real estate Spezialfonds aimed at institutionals, which on the same date managed about EUR24bn. However, it must be remember that a dozen open-ended real estate funds were required to freeze redemptions at the end of last October, since these products in principle provide daily liquidity but are based on assets which are difficult to trade rapidly. Since then, only three of the frozen funds have resumed normal activities: DEGI International, Focus Nordic Cities from Catella, and SEB ImmoInvest. According to sources close to the case, Axa Investment Managers and KanAm grund will soon reopen their Immoselect and grundinvest funds. In theory the CS Euroreal fund from Credit Suisse will reopen to redemptions by the end of the month.

Banque Sarasin (Robeco group) on Tuesday announced the opening of offices in Mumbai and Delhi on 1 July. The Swiss firm is setting up shop in India under the registered business name of Sarasin-Alpen (India) Private Litd, and says it has signed several agreements with Indian partners to provide distribution for their funds, and to promote wealth management services. The heads of Sarasin-Alpen in Dubai have decided not to comment for the moment as to the names of these partners. Sarasin is not yet in a position to reveal who will be the country head of the bank for India.

Dexia Asset Management has published a new report on responsible and sustainable investment, responding to the verdict of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “the world is not on course for sustainable energy in the future.” Dexia AM has made an effort to expose the challenges related to the transition to a future of low CO² emissions in the energy sector. Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have a considerable impact on the energy sector (gas and oil), and businesses concerned will have to integrate this new reality into their business models. From a sustainability and a financial point of view, long-term investors will need to take account of the fact that the best-positioned businesses will have a competitive advantage which will become a determining factor in the future. In its sustainability analysis of the energy sector, Dexia Asset Management finds that BP and StatoilHydro and ENI are among the best-positioned energy businesses to meet the challenges of sustainable development.

The Bank of New York Mellon has launched a platform to process derivatives trading, entitled Derivatives360. The client may select the services best adapted to its core activities on the platform.

After 14 years as head of Frontrunner, which in 2000 became Nordea Fonds Service GmbH, Wolfgang Seubert will be retiring on 30 June, half a year ahead of schedule. He will be replaced by Dan Sauer, who was appointed as a member of the board of directors on 1 July 2008, and who since then has been head of distribution for Germany at Nordea, leading a five-member team.

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) has welcomed the set of principles recently published by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) for hedge funds. However, the AIMA qualifies its satisfaction with some remarks. It will be managers of hedge funds and not hedge funds which will be required to register with regulators, the AIMA observes. The AIMA also points out that the IOSCO document makes mention of the fact that hedge funds use derivative products to speculative ends, without making it clear that derivatives traded on regulated or OTC markets are largely used by market actors who customarily have risk management frameworks in place. The AIMA is concerned that these recommendations will motivate regulators to focus on the quantitative aspect of data rather than appreciating the qualitative aspects. “It is important that regulators have the expertise and resources necessary to handle the data they will receive,” the AIMA statement says. Swiss association also approves The Swiss Funds Association (SFA) has also expressed its approval of the principles for hedge fund regulations proposed by the OICV. “From the Swiss point of view, we approve in particular of the proposal that hedge fund managers and not their financial vehicles should be able to obtain authorization from their regulatory authority, independently of the place where their funds are located. The IOSCO proposals are a judicious measure to prevent systematic risks, unlike the European Commission directive for alternative investment fund managers. The latter shows an excess of zeal, which in practical terms may only partially be realised, and which has protectionist characteristics, mixing protection of the system and the investor with fiscal policy,” explains Matthäus Den Otter, director of the SFA.

The designer of international accounting standards IASB on 23 June published an exposure-draft which proposes a non-binding framework to assist firms to prepare management commentary. Management commentary is not required in all jurisdictions, the IASB observes, but the framework aims to offer a harmonised document to investors. All parties concerned may comment on the exposure-draft until 1 March 2010.

The Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) and the Europan System of Central Banks (ESCB) on 23 March published their recommendations for clearing and settlement and for central counterparty (CCP) in the European Union, along with comments on consultations undertaken on these subjects.