The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on October 15 published for public comment a consultative document on the Public quantitative disclosure standards for central counterparties. In order that the risks related to the use of central counterparties (CCPs) can be properly understood, CCPs need to make relevant information publicly available, as stated in the CPSS-IOSCO Principles for financial market infrastructures, published in April 2012. To provide guidance on what should be disclosed by a CCP and other financial market infrastructures, CPSS and IOSCO published a Disclosure framework in December 2012, primarily covering qualitative data that need relatively infrequent updating (for example, when there is a change to a CCP’s risk management framework). To complement that disclosure framework, the document now being published sets out guidance on the quantitative data that a CCP should disclose more frequently. Comments on the report are invited from all interested parties and should be sent by 13 December 2013.
The financial ratings agency Moody’s on 15 October launched a call for comments on proposed modifications to the ratings methodology for asset management firms. This would more systematically evaluate risk factors concerning alternative management firms, while also increasing the number of risk factors on the balance sheets of traditional asset management firms.
Bruno Gatella, director of wholesale distribution at Clariden Leu and Credit Suisse Asset Management, on 1 Octber joined DJE Finanz, the Swiss affiliate of the Munich-based Dr. Jens Erhardt group (DJE Kapital) as director of fund distribution in Switzerland, finews reports. DJE Kapital manages about EUR10bn (as of 30 September).
London-based asset manager Finisterre Capital has injected USD55m of seed capital into its new long/short bond fund dedicated to emerging market debt, the Finisterre Emerging Market Debt Fund, Citywire reports. It is an Irish-registered product which has a sales license in most European countries. The managers are Paul Crean, co-founder and CIO of Finisterre, and Christopher Watson.The portfolio will invest in all bond segments (government, corporate, high yield, hard or local currncies) with a more diversified long/short strategy and a lower turnover than for other hedge funds from Finisterre. It will also have a longer investment horizon.
State Street Global Advisors has suggested that it may double the number of ETFs which is manages in Europe, Ignites, a service from the Financial Times, reports. Scott Ebner, global head of product development at SSgA, thinks that there is room for about “100 ETFs” in the range from the company. SPDR, the ETF arm of the firm, currently has 52 products, compared with 13 when it restarted its European activities in 2010.
Specialist advisers manage nearly two times as many assets on average than advisers overall, according to a study carried out by Cerulli Associates in “The Cerulli Edge – Advisor Edition” (Fourth quarter). As of the end of June 2013, assets under management by specialists represented about 29% of total assets for advisers. “The great majority of financial advisers are generalists. Only 15% of advisers carry out their activities for a single client category, institutionals, corporate retirement programmes, or high net worth (HNW) investors,” says Bing Waldert, director at Cerulli. According to Cerulli, specialists clearly limit the market for an adviser but improve the degree of success in the development o the activity. By targeting a very small market and setting up a range of services which is tailored to it, advisers have more chances of winning requests for proposals when they are competing with a generalist.
Hedge funds and “distressed” asset managers are buying Puerto Rican debt, taking advantage of sales by traditional investors, the Financial Times reports. “Many traditional funds are selling these securities at a discount, and since several entities in Puerto Rico sell bonds, the liquidity is good. That is unusual in the municipal bond market,” says one manager. The monthly trading volumes on Puerto Rican bonds have increased to USD30bn at the end of September, compared with an average of UDS3-5bn, according to Citigroup.
Norges Bank Investment Management manager of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, and Axa Real Estate Investment Managers have entered a European commercial real estate loan co-investment programme.The programme will target investments in large size senior loans, of up to EUR600 million, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The British firm Liontrust has acquired North Investment Partners as part of its planned development in multi-asset class management, FundWeb reports. The head of North Investment Partners, John Husselbee, is expected to lead the new multi-asset class team at Liontrust. Paul Kim, formerly of LV=, will join the team as senior manager.
Henderson has hired Rob Gambi as chief investment officer. He will focus on the leadership and development of Henderson’s investment capabilities globally, including its growing resources in the US and Asia. Rob Gambi joins from UBS Global Asset Management where he was a group managing director and global head of fixed income with responsibility for over USD230 billion. In addition he was a member of the executive committee of UBS Global Asset Management.Previous to this he was head of equities and head of fixed income at AMP Asset Management (AMPAM) and Henderson. He will report directly to Henderson CEO Andrew Formica and sit on Henderson’s executive committee. He will start at Henderson in 2014.
Neil Woodford, a colossus in British asset management, is leaving Invesco Perpetual after a quarter century, the Financial Times reports. Shares in Invesco, its US parent company, fell 5% on the news. Woodford controls half of funds under management at Invesco Perpetual, and some financial advisers predict large-scale redemptions. He has GBP33bn in assets under management (more than any other British fund manager), and has one of the best track records around. The manager hopes to found a new asset management firm in April, once he has left his employer.
The British firm Hargreaves Lansdown has reported growth of 8% in its assets under administration of its first quarter 2013-2014 to the end of September, which have reached a total of GBP39.3bn, comapred with GBP36.4bn at the end of June, according to interim results released on 15 October. The firm calls the activity in first quarter “exceptional,” as this time of year is generaally very quiet. The number of active clients on the platform increased by 20,000 to 528,000. In the first quarter of the previous year, the number of clients increased by only 7,000.
At the 6th annual national ethical investment week in the United Kingdom (13-19 October), the extra-financial research agency EIRIS has determined at assets in “green” and ethical retail funds now total a record GBP12.2bn. They totalled only GBP4bn in 2001. EIRIS counts 80 funds, of which 10 have seen increases of more than 50% in their assets in the twelve months to the end of June 2013, while 23 have seen an increase in their total assets of 20% to 50%.Meanwhile, on the basis of a survey of 2015 adults, EIRIS has found that 18% of respondents would like their pension fund to be totally invested in shares in companies which do not contravene best practices in environmental, social and governance areas.For its part, Triodos Bank has determined that 17 million British citizens potentially hold assets which do not correspond to their ethical convictions. And only 20% of investors say they are aware of the exact percentage of their fund activities, pension fund or stocks and bonds that they hold are genuinely ethical or not.
CPR Asset Management has announced the launch of the CPR Consommateur Actionnaire fund, a European equity fund eligible for investment from PEA accounts. The product has the primary objective of benefiting from household consumer spending worldwide. The managers of the fund, Nicolas Johnson and Caroline Canard, select the best-performing European businesses in sectors which are affectd by household spending. “The investment universe of CPR Consommateur Actionnaire is not limited to the ‘household’ basket but takes an interst in all sectors directly affected by household consumer spending worldwide. It is a fund whose vocation is to track the evolution of ‘trends’ while respecting the profile of household consumption. The particularly of the investment strategy is to construct the portfolio with a balance between the weight of the varius household spending areas,” a statement says. Currently, 10 areas are listed (housing, transportation, health, clothing, leisure, clothing, eduction, consumer, etc.). CharacteristicsISIN code: P share class FR0010258756 / I share class FR0011554237Subscription commission not paid to the FCP maximum 3%Recemption commission not paid to the FCP P and I share classes: noneMaximum annual management fees P share class: 1.50% in cluding all tax / I share class: 1% including all taxPerformance commission P and I share clases: 20% including all tax on performance exceeding the MSCI Europe, up to 2% of net assets
After the success of the Bravo I Fund, with USD2.35bn, which has proven that it is possible to make a lot of money (34% per year) with NPLs, Pimco is preparing to launch the Bravo II (Bank Recapitalization and Value Opportunities), which is expected to raise USD4bn by a closing scheduled for February, Handelsblatt reports.The lead portfolio managers are Dan Ivascyn and Josh Anderson, who also manage the Bravo I.
Philipp Orth, Nadejda de Lousanoff and Umberto Prandi have been recruited for the institutional sales team at Pimco for the German and Austrian markets, and will report to Frank Witt, executive vice president and head of institutional customer relationships for Germany and Austria.The first of these becomes vice president and CRO. He had previously been director of customer relationships at Vescore. De Lousanoff joins from Banesto, where she had been head of distribution of structured products in Germany and the Scandinavian countries for the Spanish firm Santander. She is appointed as head of clients at Pimco.Lastly, Prandi is leaving Infineon Technologies, where he had been manager for mergers and acquisitions, to become a client adviser at Pimco.
According to NDR info radio, the Landesbank of Schleswig-Holstein and Hambourg, HSH Nordbank, in August sold its division HSH Real Estate for a symbolic one euro. That includes real estate funds with assets of EUR2bn and properties valued at EUR320m. A spokesperson for HSH Nordbank declined to comment on the reports, Fondsprofessionell says.
Syed Elias Alhabshi, senior advisor at Threadneedle Investments in Singapore since September 2011, has been appointed as chairman for Malaysia by UK asset manager Threadneedle, which is planning to offer Sharia-compliant products to institutional investors (sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers, government and semi-government entities, businesses and charities).Mohd Farid bin Kamarudin (CEO of Malaysia) is also taking over the duties of senior fixed income fund manager, and will be based in Malaysia. He will report to Clifford Lau, head of fixed income Asia Pacific, Alhabshi and Andrew Chan, chief administrative officer, Asia Pacific. He will be responsible for putting Sharia-compliant investment capacities in place. He will be a senior member of the global investment team. He had previously been executive director and head of sukuks and alternative investments at AMIslamic Funds Management in Malaysia.Lastly, Sabrina Wong has been recruited as a fixed income analyst in Malaysia, and will report to Mohd Farid bon Kamarudian and Clifford Lau. She was previously a fund manager at Investec Asset Management, and also at Bank Negara.
Assets under management in sovereign wealth funds are approaching the USD6trn threahold, according to statistics communicated by the SWF Institute.In October this year, assets under management in SWFs totalled USD5.9998trn. Of this total, slightly over USD3.500trn were in sovereign funds depending on oil and gas resources.
At a time when the position of London as the major foreign offshore centre for the Chinese yuan outside Hong Kong has recently been strengthened, the Chinese and British authorities have announced three major agreements during a visit to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Les Echos reports. Firstly, Chinese banks will be allowed to operate in the City as branches. The second agreement signed by the British delegation is an additional quota for direct investment in Chinese publicly-traded equities for British companies. Its maximum has been set at GBP8.2bn. Lastly, the two countries have agreed that the pound becomes the fourth currency, after the US dollar, the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen, to be allowed to be traded directly with the yuan, on markets in Shanghai and in licensed offshore centres. A timeline has not yet been set.
The bank Syz & Co was placed under investigation at the beginning of October in France, a spokesperson or the Genevan private bank, Ricardo Payro, confirmed the Swiss agency ATS on Monday, confirming reports on the website of the Geneva Tribune and 24 heures. The affair is related to a labour conflict following the dismissal of a French employee in July 2009. “this is simply a further procedural step, without any ultimate decision or prejudice. It is an old case, which is limited to rather technical questions of labour law and which concerns only one old employee responsible for selling investment funds to instituitonal clients,” says Payro.
L’Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) a rendu un avis favorbale au rachat de Nyse Euronext par l’américain ICE, a annoncé mercredi à Marseille son président Gérard Rameix. Cet avis a été adressé au ministre de l’Economie, Pierre Moscovici, qui doit maintenant se prononcer à son tour sur cette opération et qui aura également en main le rapport commandé à Thierry Francq. «Dans l’avis, nous ne nous prononçons que sur la fusion entre ICE et Nyse Euronext, et pas sur l’introduction en Bourse d’Euronext (la branche européenne de l’opérateur transatlantique) qui sera une autre étape», a précisé Gérard Rameix, cité par l’AFP. Les deux groupes espèrent boucler leur fusion le 4 novembre, selon un communiqué publié la semaine dernière.
Les prix à la consommation ont augmenté moins que prévu en septembre, s'éloignant encore davantage de l’objectif de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) en matière d’inflation, selon les données finales publiées par Eurostat. Sur un an, ces prix ont enregistré une hausse de 1,1%, contre 1,3% en août et 1,6% en juin et juillet.
Le gouvernement ne souhaite pas que la taxe sur les transactions financières (TTF) soit étendue aux opérations intraday, a appris Reuters auprès du ministère du Budget, au lendemain de l’ouverture de l’examen du projet de loi de finances pour 2014 à l’Assemblée. Un amendement adopté la semaine dernière en commission prévoit d'élargir la TTF aux transactions intraday. «Une telle extension de la taxe française reviendrait à revoir en profondeur la taxe actuelle alors que des négociations communautaires sont en cours, dans lesquelles la France joue un rôle moteur, qui doivent permettre d’aboutir à une taxe harmonisée à l'échelle européenne», a ajouté la source à Bercy.
Faisant fi des réserves allemandes, Olli Rehn est décidé à tenir compte de certains «investissements publics productifs» dans l’application des règles fiscales s’imposant aux Vingt-Huit. Dans une lettre de juillet 2013, le commissaire européen aux Affaires économiques avait précisé, à la demande des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement européens, dans quelles conditions ces investissements pouvaient ne pas être comptabilisés dans le déficit public : croissance insuffisante, respect du plafond de 3% et participation à des projets d’infrastructure paneuropéens. «J’ai entendu que les ministres étaient divisés» sur cette question, a-t-il reconnu après la réunion du Conseil Ecofin mardi à Luxembourg, mais «la Commission a travaillé sur la base d’un mandat clair des chefs d’Etat». Ces nouvelles règles s’appliqueront donc dès l’examen des budgets nationaux pour 2014 qui commence ce mois-ci.