Lors d’une intervention devant la convention annuelle de Tocqueville Finance, Alain Bokobza, responsable de la stratégie Europe et multi-actifs chez Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB), a estimé que l’on peut escompter de moindres mouvements en 2009 sur les changes, parce que des politiques de taux très bas sont mises en ?uvre partout dans le monde. Il conviendra selon lui de préférer le dollar au yen, de même que, dans les marchés développés, les Etats-Unis et le Japon à l’Europe. Le stratégiste préconise aux investisseurs, dans la zone émergente, de privilégier l’Asie par rapport à l’Amérique latine et, en Europe, le Royaume-Uni à l’Allemagne. #Jamais les actions n’ont été aussi peu chères contre les obligations d’Etat#, ajoute Alain Bokobza, soulignant que les T Bonds sont actuellement l’actif le plus dangereux du monde, avec un rendement très proche du plus bas record de 1,98 % constaté en octobre 1941. La valorisation des marchés d’actions est historiquement faible, et la prime de risque sur cette classe d’actifs dépasse les 7 %. Cela offre donc une opportunité pour les investisseurs qui ont une optique de long terme.Alain Bokobza recommande aussi de donner la préférence aux secteurs défensifs comme celui de la consommation et d’augmenter l’exposition aux secteurs sensibles au dollar, comme la pharmacie, le luxe, l’aérospatial et les services aux collectivités. Dans les financières, Alain Bokobza préfère les assureurs aux banques.Enfin, le spécialiste considère que le marché du crédit est désormais très attrayant ; il met notamment en exergue la forte rémunération des obligations privées des entreprises.

Dans un commentaire spécial, Moody"s souligne le risque présenté par des programmes de pension sous-capitalisés et estime qu"une nouvelle détérioration des prix d"actifs en 2009 pourrait entraîner des pressions significatives sur le profil de crédit des entreprises engagées dans de tels programmes et de nouvelles dégradations des notes.

Selon l"Agefi suisse, une nouvelle banque privée a vu le jour. Appelée Von Roll Bank, la structure a été créée par la holding détenant le groupe industriel Von Roll. Elle ne sera pas uniquement destinée à gérer la fortune des Von Finck, assure son CEO, Cyrill Escher. #Pas de produits maison ni d"accord avec des distributeurs : la spin off du groupe industriel Von Roll veut se distancier d"emblée des produits et des pratiques qui ont discrédité le monde financier#, commente le quotidien helvétique.

Selon La Tribune, «UBS versera à ses salariés un bonus au titre de l’exercice 2008", malgré la perte de 20 milliards de francs suisses attendue.

Suite aux polémiques sur la responsabilité du dépositaire dans le cadre de l"affaire Madoff et à la lettre de la ministre française de l"Economie, Christine Lagarde adressée le 12 janvier dernier au commissaire européen au marché intérieur, Charlie McCreevy, qui soulignait la divergence des approches adoptées par els Etats membres quant au rôle et à la responsabilité des dépositaires de fonds OPCVM, Bruxelles met les points sur les «i» et se dit prête à prendre les mesures nécessaires pour remédier aux insuffisances éventuelles. «La Commission considère que la directive établit clairement, pour le dépositaire, une responsabilité fondamentale», indique un communiqué qui estime que la directive «confie clairement la garde des avoirs au dépositaire dont la responsabilité est engagée s"il commet une faute ou une négligence dans l"exercice de ses fonctions. La détermination des responsabilités et de leur étendue doit se faire conformément au droit national applicable». Si le principe de la responsabilité du dépositaire est aussi patent, son application en droit national semble beaucoup moins assurée. La Commission considère qu"il serait prématuré de conclure que dans ce cadre national, les investisseurs dans les fonds OPCVM concernés ne seront pas indemnisés de leurs pertes. Cela dit, compte tenu du rôle central joué par le dépositaire dans le système réglementant les OPCVM, «la Commission est déterminée à faire en sorte que les textes de droit national et les pratiques nationales transposent le principe de responsabilité du dépositaire dans la directive sans la diluer».Dans cette perspective, la Commission va établir, en collaboration avec le Comité européen des régulateurs des marchés de valeurs mobilières (CERVM ou CESR) un état des lieux «relatif au mode de mise en ?uvre des dispositions pertinentes de la directive et évaluera le mode de définition de la responsabilité des dépositaires dans les droits civils nationaux». Avec un triple objectif : déceler toute pratique ou disposition de nature à diluer les responsabilités fondamentales prévues par la directive, clarifier les responsabilités des dépositaires d"OPCVM dans la garde des avoirs, clarifier les modalités leur permettant d"exercer ces responsabilités, y compris, précise le communiqué, la possibilité de déléguer leurs fonctions de dépositaire.Si cet examen débouche sur l"identification de pratiques ou de résultats incompatibles avec les grands principes de la directive, «les mesures nécessaires seront prises pour remédier aux insuffisances». Toutes les options sont envisagées qui vont, selon le communiqué, «de mesures de clarification juridiquement contraignantes quant à la responsabilité induite par la garde des avoirs » à « une harmonisation législative plus poussée».

La Commission européenne a adopté un ensemble de décisions visant à renforcer le cadre prudentiel des marchés financiers de l"Union, afin d"améliorer la coopération et la convergence en matière de surveillance entre les États membres et de mieux garantir la stabilité financière. Les nouvelles règles prévoient que les trois comités qui surveillent respectivement le secteur des marchés de valeurs mobilières (CESR), le secteur bancaire (CEBS) et le secteur des assurances (CEIOPS) seront dotés d"un cadre opérationnel plus clair et de mécanismes de décision plus efficaces, avec notamment l"instauration du vote à la majorité qualifiée en l"absence de consensus. Le dispositif prévoit également que les membres des comités qui ne se conforment pas aux mesures convenues par les comités peuvent être appelés à justifier ce choix. On notera toutefois que les mesures adoptées par les comités ne sont pas contraignantes.La Commission propose en outre que ces comités, ainsi que les principaux organismes associés à l"élaboration des normes d"information financière et de contrôle des comptes à l"échelon de l"UE (Groupe consultatif pour l"information financière en Europe, EFRAG) et à l"échelon international (Fondation du comité des normes comptables internationales, IASCF, et Conseil de supervision de l"intérêt public, PIOB) bénéficient d"un soutien financier au titre du budget de l"UE afin de pouvoir réaliser leurs objectifs le plus rapidement et le plus efficacement possible. Cette proposition de concours financier est soumise à l"examen du Conseil et du Parlement européen. Le communiqué souligne au passage que «le renforcement des ressources et du rôle de l"EFRAG devrait également favoriser la présence européenne dans le débat international sur les règles comptables». Le commissaire au marché intérieur, Charlie McCreevy, remarque que d"autres réformes pourront se révéler nécessaires notamment en fonction des futures recommandations du groupe d"experts présidé par Jacques de Larosière qui doit rendre ses conclusions d"ici au mois de mars.

Henderson est le candidat favori à la reprise de New Star Asset Management, volant la vedette à Schroders, rapporte le Financial Times. Le prix de la transaction devrait être de 120 millions de livres environ.

Paulson & Co, l"un des plus gros hedge funds au monde, a réalisé un gain d"au moins 270 millions de livres en pariant sur la chute du cours de l"action Royal Bank of Scotland sur les quatre derniers mois, rapport le Financial Times. L"ampleur du profit devrait relancer le débat sur le bien fondé des ventes à découvert.

According to reports in Handelsblatt, high net worth investors are hoping to file lawsuits against HSBC in particular as depository bank for the Herald (Lux) US Absolute Return fund from Madoff, and against the wealth management firm Sauerborn, which is owned by UBS. The latter firm had invested EUR34m from its EUR423m Sauerborn I fund in three Madoff funds. Professional organisations are also recommending to their members that they file suits against HSBC, which did not fulfil its due diligence responsibilities. AmpegaGerling Asset Management is also planning to sue the depository. Its fund of funds Gerling Total Return (EUR72m) in December invested 15% of its assets in the Irish fund Madoff Thema International.

La Tribune reports that ?UBS will pay its employees a bonus for 2008,? despite projected losses for the company of CHF20bn.

In merging their asset management activities, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale are creating an asset management giant with EUR638bn in assets (data as of 30 September 2008). It will include all of Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) - including CPR AM and Casam ? and SGAM, excepting alternative management (as SGAM AI will be merged with Lyxor). The ensemble, whose name has not yet been determined, will be 70% owned by CA, which represents the majority of assets, with EUR460bn under management, and 30% controlled by SG, which accounts for the remainder, and TCW, its US affiliate. The two groups have pledged to retain their stakes for five years, after which time an IPO is planned (see Newsmanagers of 26 January 2009).The merger has largely been dictated by the current crisis, according to professionals, and negotiations are said to have begun in October. ?Two professions have been particularly hard-hit by the crisis and need to adapt: finance and investment banking, and asset management. We are thus anticipating this movement and are preparing for the situation at the end of the crisis,? explained George Pauget, CEO of Crédit Agricole, at a press conference to present the merger of the two entities.In practice, by combining their asset management operations, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale make no secret of the fact that they are planning to reduce their production costs. ?In general, in asset management, these costs are 20 basis points (bp). At Crédit Agricole AM, they are already 14. We would like to bring them down to about 10 bp,? Pauget continues.This naturally involves economies of scale. Synergies are projected to save EUR120m, before taxes, over three years. It may reasonably be expected that these will involve staff reductions, as the newly-created entity will have no less than 3,500 employees, excluding international joint ventures. But the management of CAAM and SGAM have remained discreet on this subject, indicating that layoffs will be undertaken in consultation with social partners. Funds will also be merged, a process which has already begun at CAAM. The management fund factory created by Crédit Agricole and Société Générale will supply the four networks of the two banks, Crédit Agricole, LCL, Société Générale and Crédit du Nord - and why not a fifth or sixth network? The model is likely to attract other mid-sized networks. Each of them will benefit from a dedicated structure which will serve as an interface with production teams.Though retail clients represent 70% of the new entity’s business, institutional investors, who represent 30% overall, will not be overlooked. A management unit, organised according to a multi-boutique model, will be wholly dedicated to them.

The German affiliates of Crédit Agricole Asset Management (7 employees) and Société Générale Asset Management (10 employees) currently have assets of EUR2.2bn and more than EUR1bn, respectively, of which half is in institutional management in each case.

Cinco Días reports that the US management firm BlackRock has begun to buy Spanish government bonds (bonos) since their spread compared with German bonds (bunds) has hit a ten-year high. It is also interested in Italian and Greek debt, as current prices reflect a 10-20% chance of a disintegration of the Euro zone.

Paul Graham, who was global head of alternative sales, business development & client services at Baring Asset Management, will be joining the alternative management firm Gartmore as head of global alternatives. He will be based in London, and will report to Phil Wagstaff, global head of distribution. Graham will be in charge of strengthening the hedge fund product range and enlarging the client base in Europe, and of recruiting new clients in the United States, the Middle East and Asia.

Henderson is the favoured candidate to take over New Star Asset Management, ahead of Schroders, the Financial Times reports. The acquisition price would be about GBP120m.

According to sources close to the banking group reported by Cinco Días, Santander has decided to postpone the sale of its affiliate Santander Asset Management, whose assets fell by 36% last year to less than EUR32.95bn. At present, in light of the conservative profile of the portfolio, which as a result does not generate very high revenues from management commissions, Santander would make only EUR800m-EUR1.2bn from a sale of its affiliate, though it had hoped to sell it for EUR3bn.

The former chairman of the board of directors at Merck KgaA, Hans Joachim Langmann, who had already bought a stake in the firm in summer 2008, will ?in the mid-term? increase his stake in the capital of the Hauck & Aufhäuser (H&A) private bank to 10%. Meanwhile, the bank says that two members of the board of directors will be retiring from their jobs. They are Alfred Junker and Peter Gatti, both managing partners, who will be leaving H&A at the end of May and June, respectively.

Après son pic de 19,84 dollars le 19 décembre, l’écart entre les contrats mars 2009 et décembre 2009 n'est plus que de onze dollars

Le marché primaire reste très actif malgré les marges que doivent payer les entreprises. Les coupons augmentent surtout pour les industriels

Van Eck Global (USD8.2bn in assets at the end of December, of which USD4.5bn are in ETFs of the Markets Vector range) has announced the launch on the NYSE Arca platform of what it claims is the first US ETF to be based on the Indonesian market as its underlying. The Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF (acronym: IDX) will be based on the Market Vectors Indonesia Index (acronym: MVINDO), from Germany’s 4asset-management, calculated by S&P. Fees for the fund total 0.71%.As of 31 December, the benchmark index included shares in 25 companies, of which 30.1% were financials, 15.7%, energy sector, and 12.7% telecommunications. The three largest positions as of this date were Bank Central Asia (8.8%), Telekommunikasi Indonesia (7.5%), and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (7.0%).

Ignites Europe reports that Al.ain Leclair, chairman of the French wealth management association (AFG), on Wednesday met with Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the new chairman of the French financial regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), to ask him to convene a summit of European regulators to put pressure on UBS and HSBC to reimburse investors who have fallen victim to the Madoff fraud. Colette Neuville was also present at the meeting.

Schelcher Prince Gestion, a management firm specialised in fixed income, is joining a trend with its launch of a fund with a fixed maturity date, entitled Schelcher Prince Horizon 2012. The FCP fund will be invested in corporate or convertible bonds of the fixed income type, in the Euro zone, whose maturity may not exceed 31 march 2012. A minimum of 80% of the assets will be investment-grade or better.The attraction of the fund is to ?take advantage of current spreads, which offer very high returns with good quality signatories,? explains Bruno Promonet, deputy CEO of Schelcher Prince. Its objective is to outperform the BTAN, 3.75 January 2012 by at least 3% at maturity. ?A net asset value of more than 120% may be achieved at maturity in conditions identical to the current situation,? says Promonet.

La Tribune reports that falling markets are having an impact on the structure of commissions in alternative management. A study by Bfinance, covering 28 managers of hedge funds and funds of hedge funds in 10 countries, finds a falling trend in management fees. ?Fixed commissions for funds of hedge funds may fall by 17%, and would come out between 90 and 100 basis points,? says Muriel Nahmais, director of research at Bfinance. ?At the same time, performance commissions at hedge funds would fall 25% to a level of about 10%-15%.?

On Friday morning, KanAm Grund announced that it will be extending the redemption freeze on its two open-ended real estate funds, grundinvest and US-grundinvest, for nine months. The Munich-based management firm states that it is planning to reopen the two funds to redemptions before the end of October.DEGI (Aberdeen Property Investors) has chosen to reopen its real estate fund DEGI International to redemptions from 30 January 2009, ending a freeze which had been in place since the end of October 2008. The product has since registered net subscriptions of EUR65m from retail investors. The liquidity reserves at the fund will measure about 25% at the time of its reopening. The occupancy rate for properties in the fund’s portfolio is 98%. However, DEGI (EUR6bn in assets) is extending the freeze on redemptions for its other open-ended real estate fund, DEGI Europa, for a further nine months, as this fund has not managed to amass a sufficient level of liquidities.KanAm and DEGI initially suspended redemptions from the funds at the end of October, along with ten other management firms. In the past week, it has been announced that redemptions are also frozen for a further nine months from the CS Euroreal, TMW Pramerica Weltfonds, Mrogan Stanley P2 Value, Axa Immoselect and SEB ImmoInvest funds.Legally, the management firms would be allowed to extend these freezes on redemptions once more, for a further twelve months. At the end of this period, they would have to liquidate the fund and reimburse investors.

Although their assets last year fell to CHF248.71bn from CHF282.96bn at the end of 2007, Swiss-registered funds posted net subscriptions of CHF26.62bn, while Luxembourg-registered funds saw net redemptions of CHF46.76bn, AGEFI Switzerland reports. Otto Kober, head of research in Switzerland for Lipper, says that so far, there have been very few redemptions of shares in equities funds (CHF3.52bn in 2008).

At the end of December, assets at the alternative management firm Partners Group came out at CHF24.4bn, the same level as one year previously. In the event, net subscriptions of CHF6.2bn balanced out the negative impact of the rising Swiss Franc against the Euro and the US dollar (CHF1.1bn in the month of December alone), and negative market effects. Assets under management as of 31 December were about CHF1bn lower than the projections announced by the alternative management firm in November 2008.Of total assets as of the end of last year, assets in private equity represented CHF19.2bn, compared with CHF16.7bn twelve months earlier, while real estate totalled CHF0.5bn, compared with CHF0.3bn. Meanwhile, the private infrastructure allocation represented CHF0.3bn, while CHF1.8bn were allocated to absolute performance strategies, publicly traded alternative products, and the wealth management division.For the end of 2009, Partners Group projects assets of CHF26-29bn.

Henderson Group on Sunday confirmed that it is in negotiations with New Star Asset Management over a possible takeover, the Financial Times reports. The British management firm also announced that it would recommend a dividend of 6.1 pence for 2008, the same level as in 2007.

According to a study by Santander Asset Management, assets in SRI funds in Spain fell to EUR883.04m at the end of December, compared with EUR1.16497bn twelve months earlier, a decline of 24.3%, Cinco Días reports. The leader remains BBVA by far, with EUR717.74m, ahead of Santander (EUR90.57m) and La Caixa (EUR13.24m).

Deutsche Bank, promoter of the fund, claims that the DB Platinum Commodity Harvest Fund, which has been granted sales licenses in Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Spain, is the first market neutral commodities fund to comply with the UCITS III directive, HedgeWeek reports. The absolute performance fund replicates the evolution of the Deutsche Bank Commodity Harvest Index, launched in 2007.The strategy is applied to 21 commodities which offer good liquidity in the energy, metals, and agricultural sectors, with a long and a short position on each of the underlying commodities. The objective is to buy contracts at a low price, and to sell them at higher prices.

Confronted with falling asset levels, United States-based management firms are reducing their costs, and layoffs will primarily affect management, according to a new study from Greenwich Associates, covering entities which manage total assets of USD3.2trn. These firms are looking to trim back their budgets by an average of 22% in 2009, compared with 2008. Overall, for the management sector as a whole, cost reductions between 2008 and 2009 are projected to come out at 14%. This remains generally lower than the expected decline in revenues. After an average decrease in assets of 31% in 2008, management firms are preparing for an average decrease in revenues of 33% compared with their 2007 levels at the end of 2009. The managers expecting to be most severely affected are predicting a fall of 43% in 2009 revenues compared with 2007.Greenwich explains that most management firms, rather than reducing their costs proportionally to the decline in revenues, will seek to position themselves for the moment when the markets begin to rebound. They will thus lay off fewer employees in the areas of client and investor services, according to Goran Hagegard, a consultant at Greenwich Associates. This will result in lower profit margins in the short term: in 2009, margins will fall 37% compared with 2007.Most managers are cutting positions in all areas that do not affect management. About three quarters of firms reducing costs are targeting support services and/or investment operations, and about two third are aiming at distribution and client services and/or IT. ?More than half of firms say that executive management is in the firing line, and this category may even see some of the most significant cuts,? says the consultant Chris Nickle. ?More than 30% of firms seeking to reduce spending on executive management claim they are aiming to cut costs by 15% or more, and 17% say they will reduce them by 30% or more.? This will primarily involve cuts in bonuses of 29% on average between 2007 and 2008. In addition, about half of the management firms surveyed say they are cutting personnel. Those which have done or which are planning to do so are planning to reduce staff by an average of about 11%.