New research from Cerulli Associates finds that consultants expect that their outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) business will comprise 18.5% of total assets in 2016, on average up from 12% at the end of 2012."Over the past decade, institutional investors have been seeking more proactive advice and ceding portfolio decision-making, as investment options have grown increasingly complex and markets have become more volatile,» Michele Guiditta, associate director at Cerulli, explains. «A number of institutional investors have opted for an OCIO arrangement, delegating oversight and decision-making for all or part of their investment portfolios.»

Quantitative asset management firm Tobam has appointed Rudyard Ekindi as head of Marketing. Ekindi will organise and strengthen efforts by the company to explain and promote the advantage of maximal diversification to investors and the financial community, including consultants.Ekindi will be based in Paris and report to Christophe Roehri, Director of Development at Tobam.From January 2009 to August 2013, Ekindi was director of research for the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) in the United Kingdom. He was previously aDirector at Credit Suisse Asset Management, where he worked as a portfolio manager specialised in quantitative strategies and alternative investments.

SF Institutional Invest GmbH, the investment asset management firm for SachsenFonds Holding GmbH, has retained the depository banking services of CACEIS for its alternative investment funds (FIA). SF Institutional Invest GmbH is specialised in the management of real estate assets and in development projects related to renewable energies in Europe. Jürgen Gobel, Managing Director de SachsenFonds Holding GmbH, comments: “Caceis has solid experience in the closed fund industry and has a lot of expertise in real estate assets. Its ability to manage issues of compliance with the AIFM direcive and its extended range of services for FIAs such as Special funds, were a determining factor in our choice.”

The US-based asset management firm Nationwide Financial (King of Prussia, Pennsylvania), which had USD54bn in assets under management in 108 funds as of 30 September, has set itself the objective of increasing its net inflows by 18% to 20% on average over the next five years. With this in mind, on 20 November it announced the recruitment of six “wholesale” distribution specialists to develop mutual fund sales.They are Linc DuPree (formerly of JPMAM), Jane Flanigan (formerly of ProShares), Michael Harvey (formarly of Columbia), Michael Matarazzo (formerly of Direxion), Maryam Rusch (formerly of Highland Capital) and Carla Jimenez, who had been financial advisor.

The former ERNY Financial, which was transformed into Reality Shares Inc in July, on 18 November officially announced that it is starting up its activities, as manifested in the application for a license for three fundamental ETFs focused on dividends: two passive products, the Reality Shares Isolated U.S. Dividend Growth Index ETF, and the Reality Shres Isolated Global Dividend Growth Index ETF, and an actively-managed fund, the Reality Shares Isolated Dividend Growth ETF.Reality Shares is led by Eric Ervin, co-founder, CEO and chairman, who over 16 years has set up the wealth management unit of Ervin Miller at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.The other members of the management are Ryan Ballantyne, director of capital markets (ex Miller Tabak & Susquehanna), Dan Janowiak, director of institutional sales (ex Allianz Global Investors Capital), Kristi Procopio, director of marketing (ex Bank of the Internet et BofI Federal Bank), and Tom Trivella, chief administrative officer & chief compliance officer (ex Citadel Securities)

Amiral Gestion has appointed Benjamin Biard as deputy CEO in charge of development and marketing. The firm is also recruiting Bastien Goumare as a small and midcaps analyst.Biard, who arrived at Amiral Gestion in March 2012 as director of development and marketing, was previously head of distribution for France at Tocqueville Finance, since 2009. For his part, Goumare joined Amiral Gestion as an analyst in 2013.The asset management firm has 14 employees and manages EUR470m.

The US SRI manager Calvert Investments (USD12.5bn in assets as of 31 October) has announced the recruitment of Michael L. Davis, who from 2009 to his resignation in November 2012 was deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Labor, before joining Prudential Retirement as vice president and head of the stable value business, as director of institutional sales. In 2006, at a time when he was working at JPMorgan Chase in asset management, Davis was appointed by Black Enterpreise magazine as one of the “75 most powerful Blacks on Wall Street.”

The New York-based private equity firm Blackstone on 21 November announced the appointment of David Calhoun as senior managing director and head of private equity portfolio operations. Calhoun, who is CEO of Nielsen Holdings NV, will become head of a team of 21 professionals responsible for deploying initiatives to create value in companies in the Blackstone portfolio, in cooperation with the CEOs of these firms.Calhoun will report to Joseph Baratta, global head of private equity.

Isaac Corré and Josh Astrof, two partners at the hedge fund firm Eton Park Capital Management, will leave the firm at the beginning of 2014, Financial News has learned. The reasons for their departure remain unclear.

Henderson Global Investors has soft-closed its Credit Alpha fund, as it approaches GBP1bn in assets, for liquidity reasons, Citywire Global reports. The fund, co-managed by the duo of Stephen Thariyan and Chris Bullock, with Tom Ross, had a target capacity of GBP1bn for the strategy. It is now at GBP870m.

Schroders has closed the Cazenove UK Smaller Companies fund to all investments, after a wave of inflows to the product, which drove assets to GBP1.06bn, Investment Week reports. The strategy, managed by Paul Marriage, has doubled in six months. The decision, which will take effect from 22 January 2014, was taken to protect performance.

Global money market funds will lost one third of their assets under management next year under the combined effects of low interest rates and new regulations, the Financial Times reports. Reforms to the industry in the United States and Europe may trigger outflows of at least 30%, according to Moody’s. Small and mid-sized funds will be the worst affected.

The CNMV on 11 October registered the SSgA Europe Small Cap Alpha Equity Fund and the SSgA EMU Small Cap Alpha Equity Fund, two French-registered products from State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), Funds People reports. The funds will be sold in Spain by Allfunds Bank.

On November 21st, Credit Suisse Group announced its programme to evolve its legal entity structure to meet developing and future regulatory requirements. This has been prepared in discussion with the Swiss regulator Finma and will address regulations in Switzerland (Banking Ordinance), the United States (the Federal Reserve’s Enhanced Prudential Standards for Foreign Banking Organizations) and the United Kingdom (Recovery and Resolution Planning), according to a press release.Credit Suisse’s legal entity structure currently consists of a global branch network, primarily used for its private banking business, and three main subsidiaries, primarily used for its investment banking business. In the future, the group will more closely align the booking of its investment banking business to the region in which it originates from a client and risk management perspective.These changes are designed to both meet future requirements for global recovery and resolution planning and result in a substantially less complex and more efficient operating infrastructure for the bank. Furthermore, Swiss banking law provides for the possibility of a limited reduction in capital requirements in the event of an improvement in resolvability which this program intends to deliver.As for Switzerland, Credit Suisse plans to set up a subsidiary for its local booked business, mainly wealth management, retal and corporate and institutional clients, as well as the product & sales hub in Switzerland.The group also intends to create a separately capitalized global infrastructure legal entity in Switzerland and a US subsidiary of Credit Suisse USA Inc. In principle, these will include all Shared Services functions.The two main operations in the UK, Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd and Credit Suisse International, will be consolidated into one single entity. Non-European business will be transferred to the appropriate entities in the Americas, primarily Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and in Asia-Pacific, though the Singapore branch.The release also states that the implementation of this program is «well under way», with a number of key components to be implemented from mid-2015. Once the final legal framework is agreed, Credit Suisse plans to issue bail-in eligible debt out of the group holoding company, Credit Suisse Group AG «ton enable a single point of entry bail-in resolution strategy». .

Since 1 November, Petra B. Mennong has been serving as co-director of the private banking branch of J. Safra Sarasin in Frankfurt, alongside Markus A. Diekmann, the Swiss group has announced.The new recruit, who since 2011 had been head of private banking activities at Bank Vontobel in Frankfurt, will report directly to Andreas Brandy, CEO of Bank J. Safra Sarasin (Deutschland) AG.

Geoff Barker, a former economist at HSBC, is planning to launch a macro hedge fund dedicated to Asia by March 2014, the news agency Bloomberg reports.The Counterpoint Asian Macro Fund will be managed by an entity set up by Barker in partnership with City Financial Investment, which makes the former economist the first asset manager based in Asia supported by the London-based firm led by two former executives of Perpetual (Invesco).

In order to contribute to the financing of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) or Mittelstand in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Robus Capital Management on 4 Novemebr launched the Luxembourg-registered bond fund Robus Mid-Market Value Bond Fund, which invests in bonds, loans, promissory notes and dividend-right certificates from companies with total turnover of EUR50m to EUR1bn.The fund, which will be managed by Hauck & Aufhäuser Investment Gesellschaft, aims for EUR200m in AUM and for total returns of 5% to 7% per year.CharacteristicsName: Robus Mid-Market Value Bond FundISIN code: LU0960826658Management commission: 1.28%Performance commission: 10% with high watermarkHurdle rate: 4%

BNY Mellon has decided to close its BNY Mellon Vietnam India & China fund, managed by Hamon Asset Management, as of 6 December, as the product had become too small. In terms of performance, the fund has lost 43% in three years, according to Fundweb. The fund has been in existence for five years.

Petercam has obtained permission to distribute its Luxembourg Petercam L Fund Sicavs in Italy, Investment Europe reports. The funds are available to private clients from 19 November.

A Japanese government working group has called on the GPIF and other public pension funds in the country to fundamentally restructure in order to improve their performance, diversify their exposure and revise their governance. The report from the working group, presented on 20 November to Prime Minister Chinzo Abe recommends that pension funds revise their investment objectives, with the objective of outperforming inflation, and thus of modifying allocations which are too exposed to Japanese bonds. Pension funds are also expected to plan to invest more over the long term, and thus to expose themselves more to high-risk assets, and thus to diversify into new asset classes, such as real estate funds, infrastructure, venture capital, private equity and commodities. The report discusses only hedge ufnds, btu according to a member of the working group, pension funds should consider other long-only allocations in high-risk portions of the bond or equity universes.

Investec Wealth & Investment has posted net subscriptions in the period from March to September of GBP400m, bringing its assets under management to GBP40bn as of the end of September, compared with GBP40.4bn as of the end of March 2013.Investec Asset Management has also posted a decline of 5% in its assets in the six months to September, from GBP69.8bn to GBP66.2bn, despite net subscriptions of GBP1.4bn in the period.According to Fundweb, Bernard Kantor, managing director of Investec, has announced that operations which do not meet his expectations will be reviewed.

As part of its EUR1.5bn infrastructure programme put in action on behalf of its parent company Munich Re, the Munich-based asset management firm MEAG (EUR228bn) has acquired a 50% stake in the British firm Marchwood Power Ltd (MLP), which owns and operates an 842-megawatt combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) located near Southampton.The transaction ran to “a small three-digit figure in millions of euros.” The vendor is ESB, an energy company based in Ireland.MEAG states that it has already invested more than EUR500m as part of the programme launched by Munich Re.

Andrew Gillan, senior investment manager on the Asia-Pacific ex Japan equity team led by Hugh Young at Aberdeen AM, and manager of the Edinburgh Dragon investment trust (GBP524.3m) in particular, has been recruited by Henderson Global Investors (HGI) as director of its Asia ex Japan equity team, Fundweb reports.The new arrival, based in Singapore, will become the lead manager on the Henderson Asia Pacific Capital Growth (GBp200M0 and the Henderson Horizon Asian Growth (GBP33m) funds. The current managers, Marc Franklin and John Crawford, will remain at the business, Franklin will assist Gilian with the two funds, while Crawford will work on absolute return mandates.

Fundweb reports that, according to a statement, Aviva Investors is planning to lay off 6% of its staff worldwide, which corresponds to about 60 people, in order to put the business in working order in time for the arrival of the new CEO, Euan Munro, in January 2014. This will not affect any funds from the British asset management firm, however.

In third quarter, the Italian asset management sector posted net inflows of EUR16.3bn, according to the most recent statistics from Assogestioni, the Italian association of asset management professionals. These inflows were driven by management of insurance products (EUR7.8bn) and open-ended funds (EUR6.9bn). Total assets come to EUR1.293trn. Collective management represents 45% of this total, equivalent to EUR576bn.

Pour la deuxième année consécutive, le résultat d’exploitation des sociétés de gestion continue de se dégrader en 2012, pour s’établir en cumul à 2.042 millions d’euros (-7%), selon le rapport annuel de l’AMF sur le secteur. «Il est intéressant de noter que le chiffre d’affaires et les charges d’exploitation connaissent une évolution similaire, c’est-à-dire une diminution de 5% par rapport à 2011», relève l’Autorité des marchés financiers. Les encours atteignaient 2.599 milliards d’euros fin 2012, en hausse de 3%.

Mario Draghi a plaidé vendredi pour une mise en oeuvre anticipée des règles qui permettent de faire participer les créanciers des banques à un sauvetage (bail in), alors que leur entrée en vigueur dans l’Union européenne est prévue pour 2018. «Je soutiens une mise en place de l’outil bail in bien avant 2018. Le plus tôt sera le mieux», a déclaré le président de la BCE. Il s’aligne ainsi sur la position de l’Allemagne et de la plupart des pays européens, qui réclament une application dès le 1er janvier 2015, soit quelques mois après le résultat des stress tests bancaires menés par la BCE et l’EBA. A ce sujet, Mario Draghi a encouragé les banques à muscler leur capital d’ici à la publication du résultat des tests, prévue en octobre 2014.

La Cour constitutionnelle allemande a indiqué qu’elle ne serait pas en mesure de rendre cette année son jugement très attendu sur le programme de rachats de dette souveraine de la BCE, l’OMT. La Cour de Karlsruhe, qui avait tenu des audiences en juin sur le sujet, promet de prendre sa décision aussi vite que possible. Le jugement n’est pas légalement engageant pour la BCE, mais pourrait entamer la force de dissuasion de l’OMT - jamais utilisé depuis sa création en 2012 - si le dispositif était jugé contraire à la Constitution allemande.

Athènes a présenté un projet de loi de finances rectificative qui prévoit un doublement cette année de l’excédent primaire - le solde budgétaire avant paiement des intérêts de la dette - en raison de meilleures rentrées fiscales. L’excédent primaire est désormais attendu à 712 millions d’euros au lieu de 344 millions. Pour 2014, la Grèce maintient sa prévision d’un retour à la croissance et d’un solde primaire à 1,6% du PIB.

Le Trésor espagnol a adjugé hier 3,5 milliards d’euros d’une nouvelle obligation d'échéance 30 avril 2017, à un coupon de 2,1%. Le placement, réalisé dans le haut de la fourchette visée (2,5-3,5 milliards), a été couvert 2,5 fois. Il porte à 99,4% le taux de réalisation du programme de financement à moyen et long terme de l’Espagne pour 2013. De son côté, la France a bouclé son programme d'émission de dette à moyen et long terme 2013 fixé à 169 milliards d’euros (nets des rachats) à l’issue des dernières adjudications d’OAT et de titres indexés sur l’inflation, qui ont dépassé 8 milliards.