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04/10/2013

BlackRock plans to increase personnel in Switzerland by 25 %

At the official inauguration of new BlackRock premises on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Martin Gut, country head for Switzerland, says that the US asset mangaement firm may soon employ considerably more than 100 people in Zurich and Geneva, compared with 80 currently, finews reports.This will be organic growth, after BlackRock acquired the multi-management activities of Swiss Re and the ETF activities of Credit Suisse, which made it possible to increase assets to nearly USD120bn.Gut has announced that BlackRock is also about to found a fund management and administration company in Switzerland. Talks with Finma are promising, the manager says.
04/10/2013

Asia offers a new passport for funds

There is a rising number of planned passports for Asian funds. After the Asia Region Funds Passport (ARFP) proposed 10 days ago (see Newsmanagers), the ASEAN capital markets forum (ACMF) has announced in a statement that the market authority of Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Thai market watchdog had signed a memorandum of understanding to create a cross-border range of collective investment schemes (OPC or CIS). In order to be eligible, candidate asset management firms must have at least USD500m in assets under management and must have been active for at least five years. This passport may be introduced during first half 2014, a statement says.
04/10/2013

M&G recruits EM specialist

M&G Investments has hired Claudia Calich to its Retail Fixed Interest team. The team manages more than EUR36 billion of assets as at 30 June 2013.Claudia Calich joins M&G on 18 October 2013, reporting to head of team Jim Leaviss.For much of the last decade she was at Invesco in New York, most recently as head of emerging markets debt and senior portfolio manager, and before that at a number of US based financial institutions.
04/10/2013

OMGI reshuffles bond team

Old Mutual Global Investors has appointed Stewart Cowley, who was heading the fixed income team, to the newly created role of investment director, fixed income and macro. Meanwhile, Christine Johnson has been promoted to head of fixed income, reporting to Stewart Cowley.In his new role, Stewart Cowley will be able to focus 100% of his time on managing his existing institutional accounts, GBP927m Old Mutual Global Strategic Bond Fund, USD200m Dublin-based Old Global Strategic Bond Fund, USD42m Old Mutual Global Bond Fund, and GBP102m Old Mutual Managed Fund. He will also develop and market a new macro fund which will be managed by himself and supported by Hinesh Patel. As well as managing her team, Christine Johnson will continue to manage the GBP422m Old Mutual Corporate Bond and GBP40m Monthly Income Bond Funds. She will continue to be supported by Tim Barker, head of credit research, Lloyd Harris, Senior Credit Analyst and Bastian Wagner, assistant portfolio manager.Old Mutual has also recently recruited two persons to boost its capability in the high yield area. Deepa Abraham joined the company in August as a senior credit analyst to work alongside Bastian Wagner. Simon Prior will also join the team as a credit analyst on 14 October from Old Mutual Group. Old Mutual Global Investors will seek to increase the resource in the fixed income team within the global bond area.
04/10/2013

Jupiter hires senior manager from HSBC Global AM

On 6 November, Richard Wilson, senior manager, global client propositions at HSBC Global Asset Management since January 2013, will become head of marketing at Jupiter Asset Management.Before joining HSBC GAM, Wilson was Director of Marketing & Distribution Services at Henderson Global Investors (HGI) from April 2009 to October 2012, and Marketing Director at New Star Asset Management from January 2003 to April 2009.
04/10/2013

Lloyds nearing agreement over sale of SWIP

The British bank Lloyd’s is reportedly nearing a sale of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), according to Fund Web, relaying rumours reported by the Daily Mail, at a time when the possibiilty of such an operation has been a leading topic for several months. Among the potential buyers are Aberdeen Asset Management, Macquarie and Natixis. The candidates are, however, reported to be reticent about the price being asked (GBP400m to GBP500m).
04/10/2013

Investec offers shares which comply with RDR regulations

Investec Asset Management has announced the launch of share classes which comply with RDR regulations in its full range of OEIC funds domiciled in the United Kingdom, Investment Europe reports. The asset management firm is offering shares which charge fees of 0.65% as an annual management charge (AMC).
04/10/2013

Major operations are on the rise again in mergers and acquisitons

According to the most recent statistics from Dealogic, large operations are rising again, boosting global activity since the beginning of the year, Les Echos reports. 18 operations of over USD10bn were announced between January and September 2013, totalling nearly USD550bn. But the global M&A market remains reduced in terms of the number of operations.
04/10/2013

Positive momentum for frontier markets

At a time when emerging markets are experiencing turbulence, inflows to funds dedicated to frontier markets are gaining momentum. The low correlation with developed and emerging markets is one of the reasons for this sustained interest in frontier markets, which, however, suffer from a deficit of liquidity which dampens the ardour of asset managers, Cerulli observes in the October issue of the “Cerulli Edge - Global Edition.” Assets under management in frontier funds remain modest: they are naturally mostly in the millions rather than the billions. But inflows are rising, and creations of funds of funds are increasing. “Global institutional investors are increasingly inclined to dedicate a small percentage of their emerging market allocation to frontier markets, probably not more than 1% to 3%, but that represents a considerable increase compared with the situation five, or even three, years ago,” says Barbara Wall, director at Cerulli Associates. “Inflows appear to be going primarily to markets which offer the best infrastructure and liquidity, and then to the ones which offer low correlation with other asset classes,” says Yoon Ng, associate director at Cerulli. Actively-managed long-only funds dominate the field, but they are now facing rising competition from ETFs, whose assets under management have risen by more than 50% since the beginning of the year.
04/10/2013

Azimut wants to grow in Asia

The Italian asset management froup Azimut Holding and the Singapore-based independent asset management firm Athenaeum have signed an agreement to launch activities in partnership on the local market, according to a statement released on 2 October. If it obtains the required athorisation, Azimut, via AZ International Holdings, will acquire 55% of capital in the asset management firm via a capital increase, which will make it possible to finance the planned partnership. The management team at Athenaeum will remain alongside Azimut to develop Asian activities in the next few years.
04/10/2013

AuM in investment funds down 3% in second quarter

Investment fund assets worldwide decreased 3.5 percent during the second quarter to stand at EUR 22.94 trillion at end June 2013, according to statistics from the European fund and asset management association (EFAMA). Worldwide net cash inflows amounted to EUR 109 billion, compared to EUR 320 billion in the previous quarter. A sharp reduction in net inflows to equity and bond funds explains this result. Long-term funds (all funds excluding money market funds) continued to register net inflows amounting to EUR 193 billion during the second quarter, albeit down from the record net inflows of EUR 402 billion registered in the previous quarter. Worldwide equity funds attracted EUR 28 billion in net new money during the quarter, while bond funds registered net inflows amounting to EUR 31 billion, down from EUR 143 billion in the previous quarter. Balanced funds recorded reduced net inflows of EUR 57 billion, down from EUR 74 billion in the first quarter. Net outflows from money market funds remained relatively steady at EUR 84 billion during the quarter, compared to EUR 82 billion in the previous quarter. Europe, which registered net outflows of EUR 53 billion during the quarter, accounted for much of these outflows. At the end of the second quarter, assets of equity funds represented 38 percent and bond funds represented 23 percent of all investment fund assets worldwide. The asset share of money market funds was 15 percent and the asset share of balanced/mixed funds was 11 percent.
04/10/2013

Hedge funds grow on repo market

Hedge funds and other parallel banking operators are growing on the repurchasing market, as new rules render this activity less attractive for banks, the Financial Times reports. Among other players who are active in this area are Och-Ziff and Moore Capital, the newspaper says.
04/10/2013

ComStage preparing two new ETFs

Deutsche Börse will soon announce that it has admitted two new Luxembourg-registered ETFs to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform launched by ComStage, an affiliate of Commerzbank. The funds were founded on 30 September. One of them, the ComStage ETF FTSE China A50 UCITS ETF, replicates an index in US dollars of shares in mainland Chinese companies developed by FTSE; the other, the ComStage ETF MSCI World with EM Exposure net UCITS ETF, tracks an index of the 300 companies of the MSCI index most exposed to emerging markets.CharacteristicsName: ComStage ETF FTSE China A50 UCITS ETFISIN code: LU0947415054Total expense ratio: 0.50%Name: ComStage ETF MSCI World with EM Exposure net UCITS ETFISIN code: LU0947416961Total expense ratio: 0.40%
04/10/2013

Acatis highlights Gané Value Event fonds UI fund

The Frankfurt-based asset management boutique Acatis Investment, whose assets total EUR2.1bn thanks to EUR685m in net subscriptions in the first eight months of 2013 (thus not counting inflows in September) unveiled the largest fund in the litter in Paris on 3 October, which is managed by Universal Investment and “sub-advised” by Gané AG of Aschaffenburg. The German-registered product, Acatis Gané Value Event Fund UI, has EUR785m in assets, and has attracted a net EUR400m since the beginning of the year, says Uwe Rathausky, one of the two founders and directors at Acatis.The portfolio, which now includes 25 positions with a turnover rate of 30%, is invested in equities, bonds and cash. For an investment, the team requires profits of 10% for each equity and 6% for each bond, and historically, the cash allocation has varied from 5% to 40%. The fund is currently 47% invested in equities (including 31% in US large caps), 16% in bonds (rated an average of BBB-), and 37% in cash.To describe the management style, Rathausky explains that he applies a value approach to the business, the management and the valuation, and complements this with an event-driven component, while refusing to use derivatives. The portfolio must have a considerably lower volatility than that of the equity markets, and a beta correlation of 0.30 to 0.60, also with respect to the equity market.CharacteristicsName: Acatis Gané Value Event Fund UIIsin Codes : DE000A0X751: A sharesDE000AIC5D13: B sharesDE000AIT73W9: C sharesBenchmark index: 50 % MSCI World Performance EUR/50 % EoniaFront-end fee:5% maximum (A and C shares)4% maximum (B shares)Management commission: 1.75%Performance commission: 20% of performance exceeding 6% (maximum 2% for the B share class)
04/10/2013

More managers leave SAC Capital

According to Institutional Investors’ alpha, relaying the New York Times DealBlog, three more managers have left the hedge fund management firm SAC Capital Advisors, which is facing a lawsuit for insider trading. The three specialists, based in London, are Alidod Shirinbekov, Woei Chan and Paul Crouch.
04/10/2013

Creation of a DD platform for hedge funds

A group of seasoned asset management professionals, Ezra Zask, Ralph DiMeo, Robert Krause, Wendy Robertson and Matthias Knab, who have already done more than 1,000 due diligence reports on hedge funds, have founded the platform Hedge Fund Due Diligence Exchange (HFDDX), which offers members an online marketplace to anonymously reconcile their needs with those of other participants, at http://www.hfddx.com/. When two or more members would like due diligence on the same fund, this reduces the cost proportionately.However, HFDDX does not recommend managers, and does not assist members to find funds which suit their needs.
04/10/2013

La Française and Ofi AM merge their incubation operations

La Française and Ofi AM on Thursday, 3 October announced that they are merging their incubation activities at NExT AM and NewAlpha AM. The new merged entity will have 49 investments, EUR1.3bn in cumulative seed money commitments, 26 active partners, and a total of EUR6.2bn in assets managed by 260 employees at partner asset management firms.NewAlpha AM is now 40% contorlled by La Française via its affiliate NExT AM, 25% by Ofi AM via NewAlpha Advisers, and 35% by the founders of NewAlpha AM within the entity NewAlpha Partners. NewAlpha AM will become the manager for third parties in the new ensemble, and will take over the management of the NExT Invest fund.The new entity, whose brand name has not yet been decided, aims to become the European leader in asset management incubation, “and one of the top two or three worldwide,” says the chairman of the board of NewAlpha AM, Antoine Rolland.
04/10/2013

US institutional assets may rise by 30% from now to 2018

The U.S. institutional market is going to increase 30% to USD19 trillion in assets within the next 5 years, expects Cerulli Associates. As of year-end 2012, the institutional market held USD14.5 trillion in assets under management. «The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) is continuing,» explains John Hsu, senior analyst at Cerulli. «DC markets continue to grow faster than DB markets and we anticipate that trend will continue."Cerulli highlights an opportunity for asset managers who have shifted their focus to DC to leverage existing relationships with corporate DB plan sponsors, allowing them to win DC mandates and potentially extend to custom target-date solutions.
04/10/2013

Amundi aims for EUR100bn in SRI assets in 2 years

Amundi would like to increase its assets in socially responsible investment from EUR66bn as of the end of June 2013, to EUR100bn, in two years, Yves Perrier, CEO of the asset management firm of the Crédit Agricole group, announced on Thursday at a press conference. As of 30 June, Amundi had a total of EUR750bn in assets under management. In order to develop its SRI assets, th asset management firm is planning to rely on two vectors. The first is the transformation of traditional funds into SRI funds, as have already been done in money markets (which now represent 37.76% of SRI assets). Pierre Schereck, director of corporate savings and SRI at Amundi, says, for example, that in employee savings, EUR10bn out of EUR20bn are not yet SRI and could be. The other vector is inflows, although Perrier claims that demand for SRI is “marginal,” particularly on the part of retail investors. Three quarters of SRI assets at Amundi are managed for institutional investors. At the conference, Perrier also discussed the choice to certify the firm’s SRI precedures with Afnor Certification, and to drop the Novethic labels. “There were disagreements about the procedure at Novethic, which has more exclusions than ours,” he explains. “The point of friction is the selectiveness rate,” Anne-Catherine Husson Traore, CEO of Novethic, confirms. Perrier also supports the creation of a European, rather than French, SRI label. SRI procedures at Amundi are based on environmental, social and governance analysis of 4,600 issuers. This makes it possible to construct portfolios with a universal best-in-class approach. Extra-financial research has also been made available to all managers, who are, however, not required to use it.
04/10/2013

UBS ETFs cuts its TERs

Clemens Reuter, head of UBS ETFs, has told Fondsprofessionell that his asset management firm has decided to cut the total expense ratios (TER) for several of its ETFs with effect from 16 September. In order for investors to be aware of the additional costs involved with synthetic replication ETFs, particularly costs related to the swap, UBS ETFs has also decided to publish a parallel “drag level” TER, in order to offer complete transparency. The “drag level” rate will be calculated by UBS once per year, on 31 July, and will apply for the following 12 months.
04/10/2013

iShares rationalizes EMEA product range

Following its acquisition of the ETF activities of Credit Suisse, iShares has modified its range of products on offer in the EMEA region (Europe, the Miiddle East and Africa), Investent Europe reports. As part of the changes, iShares will close 15 ETFs from 24 October 2013 for various reasons, particularly a lack of interest on the part of investors in these vehicles. The funds concerned include 89 funds from iShares and 7 funds from Credit Suisse.iShares has also repositioned the capitalisation versions of the iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF, iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF and iShares S&P 500 - B UCITS ETF with a total expense ratio of 15 basis points, in order to meet rising demand from institutional investors for inexpensive and transparent ETFs. The versions of these products placed on sale have not been modified.
04/10/2013

La Suisse enquête sur des manipulations de change

Le superviseur suisse a annoncé vendredi qu’il enquêtait sur des manipulations présumées du marché des changes de la part de plusieurs intitutions financières. Une enquête menée «en étroite coopération avec les autorités d’autres pays car de multiples banques dans le monde sont potentiellement impliquées», indique un communiqué de la Finma.
04/10/2013

Edmond de Rothschild nomme un directeur de la stratégie

Pierre-Etienne Durand, 37 ans, a rejoint le Groupe Edmond de Rothschild le 1er octobre 2013 en tant que directeur de la stratégie et de l’organisation groupe. Il est rattaché à Christophe de Backer, le directeur général, qui vient d’annoncer un nouveau plan stratégique à horizon 2016. Pierre-Etienne Durand fait sa carrière dans le conseil et était associé de Bain depuis 2012, spécialisé dans la gestion d’actifs et la banque privée.
04/10/2013

Amundi entend gonfler ses encours ISR

A fin 2015, Amundi espère hisser ses encours en gestion ISR à 100 milliards d’euros, contre 66,2 milliards fin juin, via la conversion de fonds et la conquête de mandats. Amundi s’est détourné du label Novethic, jugé trop sélectif, au profit de la certification Afnor.
04/10/2013

Tarkett vise une IPO

Le quotidien britannique croit savoir que le spécialiste français du revêtement de sol, détenu depuis janvier 2007 à 50/50 par KKR et la famille Deconinck, s’apprête à dévoiler un projet d’introduction en Bourse susceptible de la valoriser jusqu’à 2,5 milliards d’euros, dette incluse. Tarkett dévoilera ses intentions dès aujourd’hui, sous réserve d’une approbation finale de l’AMF. Le quotidien précise que Tarkett agit sur les conseils de JPMorgan, HSBC, Deutsche bank et Bank of America. Début 2007, la valeur d’entreprise de Tarkett s’élevait à 1,6 milliard d’euros. KKR avait songé initialement à une cotation à New York, mais la famille Deconinck a obtenu une opération à Paris.

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