The UK private equity investor Candover has announced that its EUR3bn private equity fund launched in 2008 is suspending new investments, as revenues from sales of holdings are not enough to finance new investments, Handelsblatt reports. Meanwhile, Candover and Cinven are seeking an additional investor to take over a stake of less than 50% in the German publishing house Springer Wissenschaftsverlag for EUR500m, according to sources in financial circles. Candover and Cinven bought Springer from Bertelsmann six years ago for more than EUR1bn. They then merged it with Kluwer Academic Publishers, which had been previously acquired for EUR600m from Wolters Kluwer of the Netherlands.

According to VDOS Stochastics, about 50% of the 2,880 funds on sale in Spain finished first quarter in the black, particularly products specialised in emerging markets equities, which made an average of 4.42%, while international bonds made 1.9% and guaranteed/equities earned 1.12%, Cinco Días reports. However, many European equities funds suffered losses of over 20%. The best performance was for Altae Bricc, an emerging markets guaranteed fund from Caja Madrid, which earned a cumulative 24% in the first three months of the year. The fund which attracted the largest subscription volumes was BBVA Dinero FT Corto Plazo, with inflows of EUR521m in March.

The sale of iShares by Barclays to CVC Capital Partners may be announced as soon as Thursday, according to sources close to the deal cited by the Wall Street Journal. The operation will raise GBP3bn. The bank will retain a 20% stake in iShares, and will provide financing equivalent to 70% of the acquisition price.

Wilfrid Pham has been appointed director of equities management at Natixis Asset Management. Pham joined Natexis Asset Management in 2004 as head of international management. In 2007, he was promoted to head of modelled management and insurance management of European equities at Natixis Asset management, while maintaining charge of Japanese equities management. He then became co-head of equities management.

For EUR24.9bn, comdirect bank has acquired European Bank for Fund Services (ebase) from Commerz Asset Management Holding. The two entities belong to the Commerzbank group.ebase, which employs about 250 people, is a platform offering custodial services to independent financial services providers and insurance companies.With its acquisition of ebase, comdirect will have more than 2 million clients with assets of about EUR30bn.

Rob Feckner, chairman of the board of directors at CalPERS, has announced the creation of a new committee of the board in charge of the evaluation and management of risk in the governance and activities of the pension fund (USD174bn). The committee will include the chairs of the board’s other committees, George Diehr (investment), Henry Jones (investment policy), Priyah Matur (health benefits), Lou Moret (performance and pay scales), Tony Oliveria (finance) and Kurato Shimada (Benefits and Program Administration Committee). The first meeting of the new committee will be held on 20 April.

HSBC Global Asset Management is launching a quantitative forex sub-fund of its Luxembourg Sicav GIF, the Global Currency Fund, managed by Halbis, whose objective is to outperform the Libor by 500 basis points. This strategy has already been in use since 2006, and has generated average performance of 7.9% per year, Das Investment reports. The manager is aiming for assets of EUR500m within a few months for the fund, denominated in US dollars, with share classes in pounds sterling, Euros, yen, and Swiss francs, hedged for currency risks, Hedge Week reports. The computer-managed model makes allocations to six strategies (volatility, momentum, carry trade, etc.), depending on their recent performance; it maintains low volatility and managers have a way to reduce risk in the portfolio if necessary. For institutionals, management commission is 1%, in addition to which there is a commission of 20% on performance exceeding the Libor.

Two days after the announcement of a Euro zone credit fund maturing in 2011, Fortis Investments has announced that in mid-April, it will release the Fortis Crédit 2012 fund, a horizon fund (in the form of a French-registered FCP) of a ?buy and hold? type, which invests in businesses with ?resilient cycles and high quality credit.? The product aims for gross annual returns of about 7% per year. Shares in the portfolio, largely robust corporate bonds (at least 60% from European issuers), will be chosen with both top-down and bottom-up approaches, using both qualitative and quantitative criteria.

The Skandia US Large Cap Value Fund (USD147m in assets as of the end of 2008), whose management is outsourced to Epoch Investment Partners, and the multi-management fund Skandia European Best Ideas (EUR85m), two sub-funds of the Irish-registered Sicav Skandia Global Funds, have been listed by Sélection R, the distribution platform aimed at IFAs from the Rothschild group. The two products are already available on platforms from Skandia and UFG Partenaires. In both cases, management fees total 1.50%.The US Large Cap Value is a US large caps fund focused on financial analysis fundamentals. The European Best Ideas fund deploys a concept of investing an allocation in each of 10 managers selected by Skandia, corresponding to ten best investment ideas.

The Barclay hedge fund index for March shows positive performance of 2.56% for 886 funds, which brings the total since the beginning of the year to 0.95% The strongest increases were for 156 emerging markets funds (4.94%), 109 equity long bias funds (3.69%), and 19 tech funds (3.26%). In the first quarter, the strongest performance was for 9 convertible arbitrage funds (11.33%) and 30 multi-strategy products (6.19%).On the basis of results for 55% of the usual sample, meanwhile, Credit Suisse/Tremont estimates that its hedge fund index is up 0.86% for March, following losses of 0.88% in February. In January-March, they posted performance of 1.06%. The best results in March were for bond arbitrage (2.63%) and equity market neutral (2.58%), while dedicated short bias lost 4.88%. The strongest performance in the first quarter was for convertible arbitrage (+5.99%).

On Wednesday, a general shareholder’s meeting at Julius Baer Holdings approved an unchanged dividend payment for 2008 of CHF0.50 (which will be paid on 15 April), and a cancellation of more than 4.4 million shares, bought back in the period up to 31 December 2008, as part of a 2008-2010 share buyback program. Shareholders also elected Leonard H. Fischer as director, for a three-year term, while the chairman, Raymond J. Baer, was re-elected for a new three-year term.

L'investissement a été divisé par sept en un an à 395 milllions d'euros au premier trimestre, et la demande placée chute

Hanseatische Investment GmbH (Hansainvest), an affiliate of the insurance firm Signal Iduna, announced on Tuesday in its annual report that its assets as of the end of December were down to EUR8.5bn, compared with EUR9.5bn one year previously, but that it posted net subscriptions of EUR383m last year. The number of white label funds has doubled, to 62.The manager says that it also doubled the size of its distribution team last year, with the recruitment of a director of IFAs and another for institutional investors. Since then, a third representative has also been recruited.Hansainvest, which at the beginning of the year launched a physical gold fund, the HansaGold (see Newsmanagers of 28 January), is planning to release a sustainable development environmental fund by the end of the year.

iShares (Barclays Global Investors group) on Tuesday announced the launch of the ETF iShares MSCI GCC Countries ex-Saudi Arabia, its first fund to replicate an index of shares from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, excluding Saudi Arabia.The product is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in US dollars, and has share classes denominated in US dollars and pounds Sterling. The portfolio will include 70 positions. The financial and telecoms sectors represent 68.01% and 12.71% of the index, respectively. The top three countries in the fund are Kuweit (53.59%), the United Arab Emirates (19.68%), and Qatar (16.48%). The composition of the portfolio can be viewed on the iShares website in the United Kingdom.

According to rankings by Expansión relayed in Funds People, 23% of the roughly 350 Euro-denominated money market funds on sale in Spain posted losses in first quarter. It is likely that the number of products in the red will rise in the next few months, if the ECB continues to lower its prime rates. One possible solution would be for managers to lower their commissions, particularly firms which charge more than 1% in fees; the average is 0.72%. Funds People points out that another possibility would be to blend corporate bond issues into the funds, in order to improve returns for products, as some investment grade issues offer twice the return of government bonds.Expansión has identified four money market funds which have posted performance of more than 1% in first quarter, including three products from Ibercaja and one from Bankpime.

This Wednesday, more than 1,400 banks and asset management firms will sign up to a new ?big bang? protocol, which will make it possible for investors to more easily know what would happen in the case of default on derivative contracts, the Financial Times reports. The US market will introduce a standardised pricing system for CDS contracts.

Caja Navarra (CAN) has announced the launch of a guaranteed fund, the CAN Siempre Positivo, whose subscribers may receive variable maximal returns of up to 7% per year in nominal terms, depending on the evolution of share prices in Telefónica, Santander and Repsol. If, at maturity in three years, one of these three shares is valued at less than its listed value on 1 June 2009, returns on the fund will be 2%. The fund is limited to a volume of EUR30m, and minimal subscription is set at EUR500.

The deep freeze in recruitments in the financial sector is now affecting business schools. The University of Paris-Dauphine is suspending admissions for one year to its Master 203 program, ?Financial markets, commodities markets, and risk management,? which trains professionals for the trading desks.?The years 2009 and 2010 will be marked by severe declines in recruitments, which may prove lasting even in the context of an economic recovery. For this reason, the University has decided that its responsibility is to suspend admissions of students to the Master 203 program for the 2009/2010 school year,? explains a statement. ?The University of Paris-Dauphine is reacting to the far-reaching transformations in the financial industry engendered by the financial crisis since August 2007,? the statement continues.The directors of the Masters 203 program will be taking the occasion of the suspension of the program to retrain themselves. In 2010, they are planning to open an ?ambitious program adapted to the new situation in the financial markets.?

Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) on Tuesday announced that it has issued a license to Lyxor International Asset Management, which permits it to issue an ETF backed by the new inverse index Ibex 35 Inverso, which in turn replicates the Ibex 35 con dividendos (with dividends). The real-time calculation of the index will begin in the first week of May.BME states that its ETF segment, which opened on 20 July 2006, now has 30 funds listed on it. Transaction volumes in first quarter came to EUR604m.

The HFRX global hedge fund index in March posted a loss of 0.03%, following a decline of 0.38% in February. YTD, it is still in positive territory, at 0.68%.

Denis Beaudouin, CEO of Finaltis, a small French management firm dedicated to alternative management, sees a bright side to the crisis in that it has brought about a spring cleaning of the hedge fund sector. Managers will now need to choose between liquidity and illiquidity.How will the alternative management sector survive the crisis?Beaudouin: The crisis we are going through now goes much further than alternative management or asset management.With that said, alternative management is now in the process of evolving at an accelerated pace. Companies are dying, funds are closing, teams are disappearing. But at the same time, other funds are being born. This crisis has had the positive consequence of taking out those who had no reason to be in the sector, since they brought no added value. In addition to this cleaning out, the crisis has put absolute returns back at the core of the profession, and revealed a rift between managers who suppose this can be achieved only with opacity and illiquidity, and those who feel they can do it while remaining liquid and transparent.At any rate, those who have illiquid strategies and who have maintained higher levels of opacity are disappearing, and that’s a good thing.What is the situation in alternative management in France?Beaudouin: 2008 revealed the limitations of the French alternative management model. The only advantage of the French system, which was based on the depository’s obligation to reimburse funds, is now facultative, since a new ordnance of October 2008. In addition to this, the Lehman affair introduced a good deal of uncertainty.Now, we think direct alternative management in France will be done through UCITS III funds, and not through Aria EL funds anymore. We have also recently launched a French multi-strategy fund that complies with European UCITS III standards, entitled Finaltis MultiStrategies.What is the future of funds of hedge funds in France?Beaudouin: 2008 was marked by the bankruptcy of Aria III funds [many of which were required to introduce emergency measures set out by the AMF -ed]. They will need to reinvent themselves, in the sake of the illiquidity problems which they have had to confront. They will have to choose sides, between liquidity and illiquidity. They will also have to respond to a certain reticence on the part of some hedge funds which saw them leave very rapidly and brutally when the crisis hit. It is possible that some hedge funds will impose minimal thresholds for investments by funds of funds.

According to a survey by International Financial Services London (IFSL), assets in hedge funds fell by 9% in January-February, largely due to USD115bn in net redemptions. In 2008, these assets already fell by nearly 30%, to USD1.5trn, in the wake of negative performance of 15.7%, with nearly three quarters of single hedge funds and 85% of funds of hedge funds in the red, while net redemptions totalled 13.2% of assets under management, with record redemptions in third and fourth quarters. The FISL predicts that assets in the sector will contract again by more than 20% in 2009.At the end of 2008, New York was the world’s largest hedge fund centre, with a market share of 42%, ahead of London, at 18%.The largest managers as of January 2009 were Bridgewater Associates (USD38.6bn), followed by JPMorgan (USD32.9bn) and Paulson & Co (USD29bn). D.E. Shaw Group, Brevan Howard, Och-Ziff Capital Management and Man AHL are next in the rankings, with USD28.6bn, USD26.8bn, USD22.1bn and USD22bn in assets.

The small alternative management firm Finaltis, in which BNP Paribas is the largest shareholder, is launching a French-registered FCP fund, which complies with the European UCITS III directive. The multi-strategy product, entitled Finaltis Multistratégies, replicates the management of a mandated fund created in December 2006, which earned returns of 10.1% in 2008.The fund will invest in several more liquid asset classes, such as equities, currencies, bonds, and commodities. It will combine directional quantitative strategies, (trend monitoring, contrarian investment, global macro) and relative value strategies (volatility and deviation from the average), all of which are managed by teams at Finaltis. The fund will use a dynamic allocation to markets and strategies.

On Tuesday, Credit Suisse announced the appointment of Lim Eng Guan, location head for China market in Singapore since March 2008, as managing director and market leader for Singapore in its private banking division. He will report to François Monnet, managing director, head of private banking Southeast Asia and Australasia. Before joining Credit Suisse, Lim spent 15 years at Citibank.

Dans un entretien aux Echos, Daniel Lebègue, président de Transparency International, estime . qu» «il ne s’agit pas seulement de lutter contre l'évasion fiscale en ces temps de crise, mais aussi d'éliminer les «trous noirs» de la finance, sans quoi la reconstruction du système financier mondial serait un vain mot». «L’Europe va réviser sa directive sur l'épargne au second semestre de cette année de manière à couvrir les structures collectives de type trusts, fiducies et autres « anstalt » et à identifier leurs ayants droit économiques», souligne Daniel Lebègue.

Dans un point de vue publié par L"Agefi suisse, Olivier d"Auriol, président d"Auriol Asset Management, estime que «la réévaluation des actifs sous-évalués va amener une forte plus-value. Les besoins de liquidités ont en effet amené les investisseurs à vendre en premier lieu leurs actifs les plus liquides. Beaucoup de titres d"excellente qualité ont ainsi été littéralement bradés. La performance des fonds hedge viendra en partie de la remontée des cours de ces titres sous-évalués». Par ailleurs, affirme Olivier d"Auriol, «les nouvelles lois qui seront votées et les contrôles qui seront mis en place sont nécessaires, car ils permettront non seulement de diminuer le risque d"une utilisation à mauvais escient des outils d"investissement alternatifs, mais aussi d"améliorer la compréhension de l"investisseur par rapport au niveau de risque pris par le gérant hedge. Le processus est en cours, mais il faudra des années avant qu"il soit pleinement opérationnel».

Dans un entretien aux Echos, Benoît de Juvigny, secrétaire général adjoint de l"AMF, en charge de la direction des émetteurs, souligne que, avec les dernières modifications apportées au règlement général de l"AMF (arrêté du 2 avril publié au J.O. du 5 avril), « le marché libre sort désormais du champ de l’AMF. Le régulateur reste compétent sur le prospectus en cas d’offre au public, mais il n’y aura plus de contrôles par la suite».

Dans un point de vue publié par L"Agefi suisse, l"universitaire Philippe Braillard, estime que «la Suisse doit définitivement reconnaître que sa distinction entre évasion et fraude fiscales, qui relève certes de sa seule souveraineté pour ce qui est de son ordre interne et donc des personnes et entités résidant sur son territoire, ne peut plus être imposée au reste du monde et que la décision prise le 13 mars dernier était, vu les circonstances, inévitable et justifiée». En outre, «la Suisse doit s"engager résolument dans la mise en ?uvre des engagements pris en renégociant ses conventions de double imposition avec les pays tiers qui le souhaitent. Elle doit toutefois le faire avec intelligence et pugnacité, en exigeant de ses partenaires qu"ils acceptent en retour dans leur propre pratique l"instauration de conditions équivalentes et applicables à toutes les places financières».

Selon L"Agefi suisse citant la Neue Zürcher Zeitung, les autorités suisses ont bloqué des comptes bancaires à Genève dans le cadre d"une enquête internationale sur une affaire de corruption au Kenya portant sur plusieurs centaines de millions d"euros. L"affaire, connue au Kenya comme le scandale Anglo Leasing, porte sur des contrats d"achats par l"Etat kenyan, notamment d"armes et d"hélicoptères pour la police, portant sur un montant total d"environ un milliard de francs, selon le quotidien zurichois. Environ la moitié de cette somme a été détournée vers un réseau de sociétés écrans offshore tandis que quelque 170 millions de francs ont atterri sur des comptes bancaires à Genève, dont les banques Schroder, HSBC Private Bank et UBS.

Selon Les Echos, Bruxelles a envoyé à 48 de ses partenaires des projets de modification des conventions fiscales prévoyant l'échange d’informations. La Belgique pourrait ainsi rapidement rejoindre la liste «blanche» de l’OCDE.