Funds People reports that Mutuactivos has notified the CNMV of its decision to open the liquidation period for its Mutuafondo Multimix fund of funds as of 7 November 2013. Due to the effects of redemptions and transfers to other funds from the group, assets in the product had fallen to EUR13.7m as of the end of June.As of the end of September, the Multimix posted returns of 4.25% since the beginning of the year. Its annualised performance over three and five years was 2.84% and 2.72%, respectively, according to calculations by the Inverco association of asset management firms.
The asset management unit at UniCredit, housed at Pioneer, recorded net inflows of EUR7.7bn in the first nine months of the year. Captive and non-captive clients both contributed to inflows, the Italian bank says. As of the end of September, assets under management totalled USD168.9bn, up 7% since the beginning of the year (+EUR11bn), also due to positive currency effects (+EUR3.3bn).
finews reports that Crédit Agricole Switzerland has recruited Patrick Ramsey, who will be head of the new Swiss private banking division as well as for Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, as its new head of the private clients division. He will report to Hervé Catala, CEO of Crédit Agricole Switzerland.Ramsey was CEO of Barclays Bank (Switzerland), head of wealth management Switzerland and country manager at Barclays Group for Switzerland. Before that, he was CEO of Merrill Lynch for Switzerland.Crédit Agricole Suisse has also recruited Hans Diederen as director of private banking for Asia, who will report to Ramsey, along with Youssef Dib, who has been appointed as head of ultra-high net worth investors (UHNWI). Diederen was previously at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, while for his part, Dib was global coordinator at BNP Paribas Private Banking.
The index provider Solactive AG on 12 November announced the appointment of Barbara Mahe as head of public relations (PR) and marketing, from 1 November 2013.Mahe, who will be based in London, previously worked for S&P Dow Jones Indices, as PR manager.
Ulrich Köhne has decided “for personal reasons” to resign from his position as a managing board member at Union Investment Asset Management Holding, effective from 30 November, the group announced on 12 November. Köhne was chief financial officer since 2003.In the interim until a successor can be appointed, the responsibilities of the outgoing man will be distributed among other managing board members.
BNY Mellon has been awarded a Capital Markets Services licence by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for its new dedicated Singapore-based subsidiary to provide fund management services in Singapore. The licence was approved on 11, November 2013.With the new licence, the Singapore subsidiary, BNY Mellon Investment Management Singapore Pte. Limited, will be able to conduct a full range of investment management activities, including research, portfolio management, marketing and sales of collective investment schemes. BNY Mellon Investment Management has been offering global investment solutions to institutional investors in the region through its investment boutiques.BNY Mellon employs over 450 people in the city.
Murielle Didier, head of multi-management clients and private banks for France and Monaco at ING Investment Management, after serving as a senior salesperson for these clients at BNP Paribas Investment Partners (initially Fortis IM), is joining JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM) in Paris, in the position of senior head of sales for the multi-management and distributor client segment. Her arrival brings personnel on the dedicated team to four.
BNP Paribas Investment Partners is planning to launch a high yield corporate bond fund denominated in RMB via its joint venture HFT Investment Management, a joint venture with Haitong Securities, Citywire reports.The new strategy, HFT (HK) China High Yield Bond fund, allows the joint venture to buy shares in Chinese companies for up to RMB800m, or about EUR98m.
Atos has entered the close circle of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index World (DJSI), which from the 2,500 largest companies in the world, selects the 10% which are recognised as the best performers in terms of corporate responsibility, both from a governance and from an environmental and social point of view. This recognition represents a further step by Atos in terms of corporate responsibility. For three years, after a rating of A+ from the Global Reporting Initiative for its sustainable development report and the recognition awarded by the “Great Place to Work” institute to several of its affiliates, Atos would like to become a point of reference for the IT services industry.
Funds on sale in Sweden in October recorded net inflows of SEK4.1bn (EUR0.46bn), after SEK1.3bn (EUR0.15bn) in September, according to the most recent statistics from the Swedish fund association Fondbolagens Förening. Inflows were driven by balanced funds, which totalled SEK3.9bn (EUR0.44bn). Equity funds, for their part, took in SEK1.3bn (EUR0.15bn), due to Swedish equity funds and European equity funds. Money market funds, however, saw recemptions of SEK1.6bn. Year to date, funds on sale in Sweden have recorded net inflows of SEK62.8bn (EUR7bn), due to balanced and equity funds. As of the end of October, assets in funds on sale in Sweden totalled SEK2.389trn (nearly EUR270bn), about 55% of which is in equity funds.
After an increase of USD71.5bn in September, assets under management by Legg Mason, Invesco, Franklin Templeton and AllianceBernstein posted further gains of USD57.5bn in October, for a total of EUR2.7487trn. Overall, that represents an increase of 2.14% month on month.In detail, Franklin Templeton has posted gains of USD24.2bn in its assets in one month, to USD868.9bn, while at Invesco total assets under management as of the end of October totalled USD763.9bn, an increase of USD18.4bn compared with 30 September.At Legg Mason, the increase totalled USD13.9bn, for a total of USD669.9bn as of 31 October. Lastly, AllianceBernstein has posted gains of USD1bn to its assets, to USD446bn.
Domenico Siniscalco has resigned from the chairmanship of Assogestioni, the Italian association of asset managers, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. The decision was taken in order to avoid a “potential conflict of interests” between his position as chairman of the association of asset management firms, and his role as head of Morgan Stanley, at the time of the reorganization at Telecom Italia. Morgan Stanley is advising the telecommunications firm on its sales of assets, and for an issue of convertible bonds, but these operations are contested by minority shareholders in Telecom Italia.Domenico Siniscalco will be replaced by his vice chairman at Assogestioni, Giordano Lombardo, president of Pioneer, until the convocation of a general assembly.
Fund managers and analysts at SAC Capital Advisors are in talks with competing hedge fund firms, including Moore Capital Management, to join these companies as SAC prepares to close its London office, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. In addition to Moore, SAC employees have been in talks with Millennium Management, BlueCrest Capital Management and Balyazny Asset Management.
Schroders on 13 November announced its decision to bring its convertible bond management in-house, which since the beginning of 2008 has been outsourced to an external partner, the Swiss firm Fisch Asset Management.Peter Reinmuth, manager of the current “star” funds of the range, Schroder ISF Convertible Bond and Schroder ISF Asian Convertible Bond, will join the British asset management firm on 29 November 2013. he will be accompanied by two other experts from Fisch AM (including a member of the trading team), as well as an external manager, all of whom will join the British group by the end of Npvember to manage existing vehicles. The management team will be distributed between Zurich and Singapore, and will be placed under the responsibility of the Frenchman Philippe Lespinard, CIO Fixed Income at Schroders.Schroders has a volume of assets under management of nearly EUR1.5bn in convertible bonds, and as of 2013 has posted net inflows of over EUR500m to this asset class.
Last month, the daily trading volume of on-book trades on ETFs on the European markets on NYSE Euronext fell to EUR192.4m in September, after an increase of 14.2% in August. Compared with October 2012, it has fallen by 13.5%.The median spread last month totalled 25.3 basis points, compared with 28.1 basis points in September 2013, and 29 basis points in October 2012.As of the end of October, the European markets of NYSE Euronext listed 557 ETFs 645 times. Three new funds were added to trading in October, two from Lyxor and one from EasyETF.
KBL European Private Bankers (KBL epb) announced today the appointment of Cédric Lebegge as General Manager, Project Management Office, based in Luxembourg. In this newly created role, Lebegge will lead the coordination, monitoring and support of large-scale group projects.This appointment comes at a time when KBL epb is focused on realizing its vision to become a top 20 European private banking group by 2015. To achieve this ambitious goal, the group is currently identifying inorganic growth opportunities – including through potential acquisitions in its core markets.Simultaneously, KBL epb has launched a group-wide Transformation Programme, a series of 14 key initiatives aimed at further professionalizing its approach to clients, delivering greater value and contributing to bottom-line results.As head of the Project Management Office, Lebegge and his team will play a steering role in both of these areas, among others, ensuring the long-term success of such projects across the group’s nine-country European footprint.Earlier, Lebegge served as a Brussels-based Partner in the Financial Services Practice at Bain & Company, a global business consultancy. During his 15 years of service there, he led a range of large-scale transformation and integration programmes for leading banks in Europe and Latin America, working from the firm’s Amsterdam, Kiev, Paris and Sao Paulo offices.
La production industrielle a reculé de 0,5% en septembre dans la zone euro, plus que le repli de 0,3% attendu par le consensus Reuters. Eurostat a révisé à la baisse les chiffres d’août, à -1,1% contre -1,9% annoncé le mois dernier.
Le produit intérieur brut russe devrait enregistrer en 2013 une croissance comprise entre 1,5 et 1,6%, en-dessous de la prévision officielle de 1,8% qui constituait déjà une révision à la baisse, a annoncé Alexeï Oulioukaïev, le ministre de l’Economie. Malgré ce ralentissement, l’inflation se maintient au-dessus de l’objectif de la banque centrale, fixé entre 5 et 6%, ce qui l’a conduit à maintenir vendredi dernier son taux directeur inchangé.
Le taux de chômage en Grande-Bretagne devrait baisser plus rapidement que prévu en raison d’une accélération de la reprise économique, a déclaré la Banque d’Angleterre dans son rapport trimestriel sur l’inflation (BoE) mais cela ne la conduira pas pour autant à accélérer la remontée de ses taux d’intérêt. Selon la BoE, le taux de chômage pourrait tomber à 7,0% au cours des trois derniers trimestres de 2014, soit deux ans plus tôt que ce qui avait prévu cet été. «L’intention du comité de politique monétaire est de maintenir en l'état une politique monétaire extrêmement accommodante jusqu'à ce que les faiblesses de l'économie soient suffisamment corrigées», a précisé la BoE. A son arrivée, le gouverneur de la BoE, Mark Carney, avait indiqué que le taux directeur ne sera pas relevé tant que le chômage ne sera pas revenu sous les 7%.
L’ex-Axa Private Equity «veut marquer son indépendance» selon le quotidien, qui cite des données fournies par l’institut de référence Preqin, avec un premier fonds d’investissement dédié au marché secondaire, «aux objectifs ambitieux». Ardian envisage en effet de solliciter les investisseurs à hauteur de 7,5 milliards de dollars. Comme le précédent levé il y a seize mois pour 8 milliards, le nouveau véhicule comprendrait trois compartiments, dont un de co-investissement permettant aux investisseurs d’intervenir directement à ses côtés. Le quotidien cite Dow Jones qui assurait le mois dernier que 80 à 90% du dernier fonds en date avaient déjà été investis.
La chaîne télévisée avance de sources proches que la société de private equity entend introduire en Bourse de Londres au cours du premier trimestre 2014 le spécialiste des produits pour animaux domestiques. KKR, qui aurait placé Goldman Sachs, BoA Merrill Lynch et Nomura sur le dossier, pourrait en retirer 1,5 milliard de livres, l’équivalent de 1,8 milliard d’euros.
L’agence a abaissé à AA la note de crédit de huit entités liées à l’Etat français, désormais assortie d’une perspective stable, après avoir fait de même avec la note souveraine vendredi dernier. Les entités concernées sont l’Agence française de développement, l’Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, la Caisse centrale de réassurance, la Caisse des dépôts et consignations, la Caisse nationale des autoroutes, la Société anonyme de gestion de stocks de sécurité, la Société de financement local et l’Unedic. S&P a également abaissé à AA la note de dettes senior de Natixis garanties par la CDC.
Eurazeo a annoncé avoir engagé des négociations exclusives avec Montefiore Investment et Plume Finance en vue du rachat d’Asmodee, éditeur et distributeur de jeux de société et de cartes à jouer ou à collectionner. La valeur d’entreprise ressort à 143 millions d’euros selon Eurazeo, qui investirait environ 102 millions de fonds propres aux côtés du management et des fondateurs pour près de 13 millions.