Lazard Frères Gestion has announced three appointments as part of a reconfiguration of its activities. François de Saint-Pierre will become head of private management activities at the management firm. Saint-Pierre, who joined the group in 1993, became a managing partner at Lazard Frères Gestion in 2003, and then a managing partner at Lazard Frères Paris and Managing Director of Lazard LLC in 2007. He will work to continue and accelerate the development of private management activities, particularly in areas such as the organisation of wealth, asset allocation, and the investment process. Matthieu Grouès will assume the newly-created position of director of management at Lazard Frères Gestion. He will retain his responsibilities as head of strategy and asset allocation. His mission will be to coordinate and develop institutional and collective management in a manner that is coherent with Lazard Frères Gestion’s macroeconomic scenario. Régis Bégué has been director of research at the equities management firm since 1 January 2009. Before that, from 2005 he was in European equities management as an analyst, in charge of the pharmaceuticals, utilities and automotive sectors. His mission will be to maintain the good track record the firm has established over the past 10 years, while continuing to improve the investment process and enrich the product range.
On Tuesday, Deutsche Börse admitted seven new ETFs from iShares (a brand from Barclays Global Investors, or BGI) onto the XTF segment of its Xetra electronic trading platform. Three are bond products, while the other four are based on equities indexes. All of them are German-registered products.The new products include the iShares JPMorgan $ Emerging Markets Bond, ? Covered Bond et Global Inflation-Linked Bond. D’autre part, iShares fait coter trois ETF de petites capitalisations : S&P Small Cap 600, MSCI Japan Small Cap and MSCI AC Far East Ex-Japan Small Cap.The seventh new product is the iShares S&P Emerging Markets Infrastructure, whose underlying index includes the 30 largest companies involved in the development of infrastructure in emerging countries. With these new ETFs, the total number of products available on the XTF segment comes to 420.
The Clariden Leu private bank (Credit Suisse group) on Tuesday announced the appointment of Jimmy Lee Kong Eng as ?head Asia.? In this position he will succeed Stefan Hausherr, who held the position in the interim, and who will remain as head operations and branch manager in Singapore. Jimmy Lee Kong spent four and a half years as head of private wealth management South East Asia/South Asia at Deutsche Bank in Singapore, with a team of 150 people under his responsibility.
David Jiang, head of BNY Mellon Asset Management for Asia-Pacific, and Hani Kablawi, head of Middle East & Africa, will be co-chairs of the new Sovereign Advisory Board at BNY Mellon, which will be composed of high-level executives representing the group’s various professions (asset management, asset servicing, issuer services, compensation activities, and treasury). The goal of the new board will be to ensure the best possible service to sovereign funds, sovereign pension funds, central banks, monetary authorities, and other government-controlled entities among the firm’s clients.
In fourth quarter 2008, CalPERS (USD183.3bn in assets) posted losses of 13.7%, despite returns of 2.3% on its USD44.6bn bond portfolio, Global Pensions reports. Over one year, losses total 27.1%, and over three years, they total 2.5% per year.Documents examined on Monday by the board reveal that total risk for the fund has more than doubled in the past twelve months, to a total of 17% for the coming year.
UBS has announced that two big names have returned to its asset management division, Handelsblatt reports. René Mottas has rejoined the group from Goldman Sachs, to lead European wealth management, while Joseph Stadler is leaving JP Morgan to lead the VIP clients division.
British tax authorities are investigating certain offshore financial transactions at Barclays to determine whether they helped the firm and other US and European establishments to reduce their tax burdens, the WSJ reports.
Bärbel Schomberg, CEO of DEGI (Aberdeen Property Investors group), estimates that the reopening of the real estate fund DEGI International to redemptions has been a success, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. After heavy initial redemptions, subscriptions and withdrawals have now reached near equilibrium.
As of the end of 2008, assets at LGT Group totalled CHF78bn, which represents a contraction of CHF24.8bn compared with the end of 2007. Most of the decline is due to market effects, while net redemptions totalled only CHF1.3bn, as the banking affiliates in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Singapore and asset management all posted strong net inflows.The bank owned by the royal family has declared net profits for last year of CHF163m, compared with CHF255m (-36%) and a cost/income ratio which has deteriorated slightly to 68% from 66%. As of 31 December, the ratio of Tier 1 owners’ equity stood at 16.5%, compared with 17.8% one year previously.
Les Echos reports that Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), will this Wednesday unveil a report calling for toughened supervision of banks, particularly in relation to distribution of real estate loans and dependence on refinancing markets. ?Morever, Lord Turner promises to extend the regulator’s reach to include hedge funds, to supervise bank’s off-book assets, and to control bonus levels,? the newspaper adds.
Some of the billions of dollars in aid provided by the US government to inject liquidity into American International Group (AIG) will profit hedge funds who bet that the residential real estate market would go down, say sources close to the investors. These are perfectly legal transactions, the Wall Street Journal reports: investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank sold CDS to hedge funds, which allowed the funds to bet that default rates on mortgages would rise, which ultimately forced AIG to provide billions of dollars in collateral, largely to the banks which were lending it the money. The newspaper reports that of USD173.3bn in government assistance received by AIG, these bets on residential real estate will cost taxpayers about USD52bn.
After a disastrous year in 2008, GLG Partners has lost four notches in the Hedge Fund Journal’s rankings of the world’s largest hedge funds. GLG Partners has lost its place as the largest European hedge fund, and is now fourth, the Financial Times reports. Brevan Howard has climbed to first place, with EUR19.6bn under management as of the end of January. The AHL fund from Man Group, also based in London, ranks second, followed by Barclays Global Investors and GLC. The 50 hedge funds in the rankings have posted decreases amounting to 26% of their assets over the last 12 months.
Guy Hands is withdrawing from day-to-day operational control of Terra Firma Capital Partners to concentrate on investments and investor relations, the Financial Times reports.
The alternative management firm Paulson & Co has bought the 11.3% stake in AngloGold Ashanti Ltd still held by Anglo American Plc for USD32 per share, the Wall Street Journal reports. The total price of the deal was USD1.28bn.
According to a Handelsblatt survey of open-ended real estate fund management firms, significant depreciations are not expected in the value of properties in the portfolios of these funds, since the properties are often of the highest quality, and are therefore less affected by the crisis than the rest of the market. On average, managers are predicting returns this year of 4-5%, at least for funds which are invested in Europe. The only exception is Axa IM, which is predicting return for the Immoselect fund of 3-3.5%. In 2008, the average performance of open-ended real estate funds was 4.7%. Performance averaged 4.3% over the past year as of February, according to figures from the German BVI association of asset management firms.
Victims of Bernard Madoff will be allowed to claim tax deductions for their losses and obtain reimbursement, according to new measures announced by the Internal Revenue Service.
The rapid convergence of hedge funds and traditional asset management may sound a death knell for VaR funds, if the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) decides that ?value at risk? is no longer an adequate measure of risk for sophisticated UCITS funds, Financial Times Fund Management predicts in its 16 March edition. The abandonment of VaR as a measure of risk for UCITS funds would cause consternation in the management sector, FT FM predicts.
The Chinese market regulator has granted permission to three new foreign financial services companies to invest on the domestic capital markets, Financial Times Fund Management reports on 16 March. The newly-licensed companies are Hanwha Investment Trust Management; Emerging Markets Management, a company based in Virginia, USA; and DWS Investment.
Legg Mason has appointed A. Nattans as vice-president and director of specialised management. He was previously managing director for mergers and acquisitions at the US-based management firm.
Russell Investment will include seven IPOs in the Russell Global Index from 31 March. One of them will also be added to the Russell 3000® Index of American shares, while two will be added to the Russell Greater China Index. One each will be added to the Russell Kuwait, Russell Singapore, Russell South Korea, and Russell United Kingdom indexes.
Les sociétés de gestion en Allemagne tentent de sortir de la crise grâce à des produits innovants, en sachant que les investisseurs donnent actuellement la priorité à la sécurité par rapport à l’aspect fiscal et au rendement.BlackRock, par exemple, a lancé un produit de performance absolue, le BSF European Absolute Return Strategies Fund, qui investit dans 50 à 100 actions européennes, mais peut monter jusqu'à 100 % en cash. Depuis la mi-juin, cette stratégie a généré une performance de 12 %, indique Andrej Brodnik, directeur général pour l’Allemagne.Allianz Global Investors (AGI) mise de son côté sur les fonds à horizon et vient de lancer le Allianz Pimco Unternehmensanleihen 2013, un fonds d’obligations d’entreprise.Union Investment a pour sa part annoncé lundi le lancement de deux fonds garantis.DWS (Deutsche Bank) estime que les garanties coûtent cher et préfère lancer un fonds obligataire à échéance 2014 qui est censé générer une performance supérieure à celle des bunds.
Selon l’Agefi, qu’il s’agisse de flux sur les actifs à court ou à long terme, les capitaux fuient les Etats-Unis avec des sorties nettes qui se sont montées à 148,9 milliards de dollars en janvier 2009. Ces sorties de capitaux, qui auraient pu être plus importantes sans les achats nets de USD 10,7 milliards dans les titres d’Etat américains, pose, selon certains économistes, le problème de #la couverture du déficit commercial qui bien qu’en recul s’est établi à 36 milliards de dollars en janvier#. Le billet vert a baissé après la publication de ces statistiques, indique aussi l’Agefi.
Selon les milieux financiers, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Eurohypo, filiale de la Commerzbank, a l’intention d'émettre un jumbo-Pfandbrief pour 1 milliard d’euros avec un spread de 100 points de base sur les midswaps. En février, la LBBW et la Postbank ont-elles aussi émis des jumbo-Pfandbriefe pour le même montant, avec des spreads respectifs de 75 et 85 points de base.
Dès vendredi, la direction de la Commerzbank a signé avec les comités d’entreprise un accord sur le plan social concernant les sièges de la Commerzbank et de la Dresdner Bank à Francfort. Il concerne 5.000 personnes à la Commerzbank et 6.000 à la Dresdner Bank et la signature n'était pas attendue avant l'été, mais la négociation n’aura duré que cinq jours.. Il n’y aura aucun licenciement économique d’ici à fin 2011. Au total, il est prévu de supprimer 4.700 postes dans les deux sièges. Le groupe va proposer des primes de départ volontaire et des solutions de réduction progressive d’activité.
Gilles Carrez, rapporteur général du budget à l’Assemblée, s’inquiète de la dérive prévisible des finances publiques françaises à horizon de quatre ans et estime, qu’en 2012, la charge de la dette publique sera supérieure de 14 milliards d’euros à celle versée en 2007, rapporte l’Agefi. Le ratio de dette sur PIB devrait bondir de quatorze points en cinq ans pour atteindre 78,1% en 2012.
Selon Les Echos, l’assureur américain AIG, qui a reçu à ce jour plus de 170 milliards de dollars d’aides publiques, en a reversé plus de la moitié, notamment à des banques françaises. Société Générale a touché 11,9 milliards de dollars entre le 16 septembre et le 31 décembre 2008, BNP Paribas 4,9 milliards et Crédit Agricole SA 2,3 milliards de dollars via sa banque d’investissement Calyon.
Selon l’Agefi, le renouvellement de la composition des indices de dérivés de crédit par Markit va peut-être apporter un peu d’air au marché mais les fondamentaux restent défavorables comme en témoigne un iTraxx Crossover qui se traite à présent à 1.070 pb. «Compte tenu de l’environnement dégradé, il sera difficile de voir les indices s’améliorer significativement dans les semaines à venir», estiment notamment les stratégistes crédit de la Société Générale dans les colonnes du quotidien numérique.
Selon Le Figaro, citant une étude de l’Insee publiée le 16 mars, chaque ménage français détenait, en moyenne, 380.000 euros à la fin 2007, la pierre représentant les 2/3 de l’avoir des particuliers. Pour le reste, l’assurance vie se taille la part du lion puisqu’elle représente le tiers du patrimoine financier des ménages.En ce qui concerne les valeurs mobilières, «12 millions de Français ont des actions et des obligations, détenues en directe ou via des fonds, contre un million en 1978", poursuit le quotidien en se référant au travail de l’Insee.
Cinco Días rapporte que le Santander compte parmi les bénéficiaires des aides publiques américaines versées à AIG. La banque espagnole a en effet perçu 300 millions de dollars ou 230 millions d’euros en paiement de CDS.