Depuis le début de l’année, le bureau de Paris de JP Morgan Asset Management a enregistré des souscriptions nettes de l’ordre du milliard de dollars, ce qui a porté son encours à environ 5,2 milliards de dollars fin octobre.La collecte s’est articulée pour un tiers sur les actions, entre autres émergentes, et pour les deux tiers sur l’obligataire, principalement sur la dette émergente, le crédit de catégorie investissement et les produits flexibles ainsi qu’un fonds de la filiale Highbridge.Au cours d’une présentation à Paris, Pierre-Yves Bareau, directeur du pôle obligations émergentes de JPMAM, a indiqué pour sa part que l’encours de son équipe atteint à présent 29 milliards de dollars, grâce à des souscriptions nettes de 9 milliards, la dette émergente représentant 3,1 milliards, dont environ 2 milliards de rentrées nettes. L'équipe en question se compose de 32 personnes réparties sur plusieurs sites dans le monde, dont 9 spécialistes des obligations d’entreprises.

Lyxor AM passe en mode pratique. Après avoir évoqué mi septembre le lancement imminent d’une gamme d’ETFs physique, la société de gestion doit annoncer, ce jour, le passage en réplication physique les 6 et 11 décembre prochains, de quatre ETF basés sur l’indice EuroMTS Macro Weighted AAA Government. «Chaque fonds, précise Lyxor AM, sera investi directement dans toutes les obligations souveraines composant l’indice EuroMTS Macro Weighted AAA Government de référence, sans l’utilisation de techniques d’échantillonnage, afin d’obtenir la corrélation la plus élevée possible avec la performance de l’indice».Par ailleurs, le processus de gestion exclura le prêt de titres. Selon Lyxor, cette opération n’apporte pas dans le cas de ces quatre ETF, suffisamment d’amélioration de performance pour l’investisseur pour justifier un risque de contrepartie. En septembre, interrogé par Newsmanagers, Alain Dubois, président de Lyxor AM avait expliqué que le lancement prochain d’une gamme en réplication physique était un simple élargissement de l’offre de la société, en vue de satisfaire les demandes des investisseurs – notamment britanniques très attachés à la réplication physique – et d’offrir ainsi «le meilleur des deux mondes» dans l’univers des ETF». Le même niveau de qualité notamment en termes de transparence, d’efficacité – avec une faible «tracking error» - et de liquidité, sera maintenu avait assuré alors Lyxor AM.Dans le détail, les indices EuroMTS Macro-Weighted AAA Government Bond retenus sont des indices souverains de la zone euro regroupés par tranche de maturité ; ils couvrent les émetteurs les mieux notés (AAA) par deux des trois principales agences de notation. La stratégie «macro-weighted» est une méthode de pondération innovante qui fait appel à des indicateurs macroéconomiques. Les pondérations géographiques sont basées essentiellement sur le produit intérieur brut (PIB), et ajustées en fonction des quatre indicateurs suivants : ratio dette/PIB ; balance courante (en % du PIB) ; croissance du PIB en glissement trimestriel ; taux d’intérêt à long terme. Caractéristiques : Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 1-3YCode isin : FR0011146315Date de lancement :11 décembre 2012Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 3-5YCode isin : FR0011146349Date de lancement : 6 Décembre 2012Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 5-7YCode isin : FR0011146356Date de lancement : 11 décembre 2012 Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government BondsCode isin : FR0010820258Date de lancement : 11 décembre 2012

L’Association française de la gestion financière (AFG) compte sept nouveaux adhérents, selon la dernière livraison d’Info Gestion (novembre 2012, n° 6). Il s’agit de d’Aureo Alpha, BNP Paribas Private Equity, Cedrus Asset Management, Energies Asset Management, GTI Asset Management, Notus Capital et Prevaal Finance.Henderson Global Investors Limited rejoint également l’association professionnelle en tant que membre correspondant.

Après le départ de plus d’une dizaine de personnes de l'équipe marchés émergents, la CEO pour l’Asie de Principal Global Investors, Andrea Muller, a souligné que la société avait une approche intégrée qui lui permettait de poursuivre ses activités sans trop de problèmes, rapporte Asian Investor."Nous disposons d’une plate-forme de recherche globale maison, qui est au centre de notre processus de sélection d’actions et qui nous permet de continuer à travailler même avec tous ces départs. Nous employons plus 60 professionnels actions dans le monde, et nous sommes tout à fait capables de couvrir les marchés émergents», a notamment déclaré Andrea Muller.Andrea Muller a précisé que sur les deux responsables marchés émergents qui ont quitté la société, un seul serait remplacé, le patron de l’antenne de Singapour, Michael Ade. Elle a par ailleurs confirmé un renforcement de ses équipes à Hong-Kong et en Chine dans le courant de 2013.A fin septembre, les actifs sous gestion de Principal s'élevaient à 276 milliards de dollars, dont 5,6 milliards de dollars émanant de l’Asie, 5,6 milliards de l’Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zélande et 4,4 milliards du Japon.

La société suédoise de gestion alternative Brummer & Partners a pris une participation dans une nouvelle société de gestion alternative créée par Tim Attias et Santiago Alarco, deux anciens co-chief investment officers de Rubicon Fund Management.La société basée à Londres envisage de lancer un fonds macro dans lequel Brummer & Partners compte investir par le biais de son fonds multi-stratégie.

Le groupe Safra va intégrer les activités de négoce et de trésorerie du groupe Sarasin dans les divisions correspondantes de Safra, selon des informations du site finews qui ont été confirmées par Sarasin.Avant de procéder à cette opération, le département Produits structurés de Sarasin sera intégré début décembre dans le pôle Trading & Family Office (TFO) de Sarasin. Ces modifications vont notamment entraîner le départ du patron du pôle TFO, Peter Wild, d’ici à la fin du premier trimestre 2013. Les activités avec les gestionnaires de fortune externe, seront intégrées début décembre dans le pôle Institutional Clients & Wholesale.

La Banque Cramer & Cie SA, filiale de Norinvest Holding, a nommé Alberto Di Stefano au sein de sa direction générale pour assumer la responsabilité du département Asset Management, rapporte L’Agefi suisse. Il prendra ses fonctions le 3 décembre. Alberto Di Stefano, âgé de 54 ans, bénéficie de la double nationalité suisse et italienne. Il a une large expérience des domaines de l’investissement privé et institutionnel. Il a été entre autres Chief Investment Officer de BSI à Lugano et CEO de la société d’investissement Thalia, société du Groupe Generali spécialisée dans le domaine des fonds de fonds hedge.

Matt Gaden, directeur général chargé de la clientèle institutionnelle et des alliances stratégiques chez Challenger Limited, a été recruté comme directeur de la distribution par Henderson Global Investors (HGI) pour l’Australie, rapporte Funds People. L’intéressé sera subordonné directement à Rob Adams, le nouveau président exécutif de HGI Australie. Il aura la responsabilité des clientèles aussi bien institutionnelle que retail.

Le Général Patrick Felten, secrétaire général du Groupement Militaire de Prévoyance des Armées (GMPA), à la rédaction de www.institinvest.com : Nous avons évoqué en comité de placements la possibilité de faire passer nos actifs en gestion déléguée mais nous avons finalement choisi de les conserver en gestion directe. En terme de produits, nous envisageons de placer deux à trois millions d’euros dans des OPCI proposées par BNP Paribas ou A Plus Finance. Même si nous n’avons pas à proprement parler de besoin de diversification, nous étudions attentivement cette proposition.

In September, Lyxor International Asset Management announced plans to launch a range of physical ETFs by the end of 2012. On December 6th and 11th, 4 ETFs based on the EuroMTS Macro Weighted AAA Government Index series will be converted to physical replication. As announced previously, Lyxor diversifies its offer to physically replicated ETFs in order to fully address investors’ needs.The funds will be managed using full replication: each fund will invest directly in all the sovereign bonds that make up the respective EuroMTS Macro Weighted AAA Government Index, without any sampling. Securities lending is not part of the management process as the performance benefit to investors would be negligible, and would not justify the addition of counterparty risk to the fund. The EuroMTS Macro-Weighted AAA Government Bond Indices are Eurozone sovereign indices grouped by maturity, and based on issuers with the highest credit ratings (denoted “AAA”) from 2 out of the 3 main ratings agencies. The “macro-weighted” strategy is an innovative weighting methodology that uses macroeconomic indicators. Country weights are primarily based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and then adjusted using the following 4 indicators: debt to GDP ratio; current account (as a % of GDP); quarter-on-quarter GDP growth; long-term interest rates. Characteristics : Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 1-3YIsin code: FR0011146315Launch date: December 11; 2012 Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 3-5YIsin code: FR0011146349Launch date:: December 6, 2012Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government 5-7YIsin code: FR0011146356Launch date: December 11, 2012 Lyxor ETF EuroMTS AAA Macro-Weighted Government BondsIsin code: FR0010820258Launch date: December 11, 2012

Funds People rapporte qu’Henderson Global Investors enregistre aujourd’hui pour la vente en Espagne son Henderson Horizon Euro High Yield Bond Fund, un produit coordonné géré par Stephen Thariyan et Chris Bullock, qui gèrent déjà le Henderson Horizon Euro Corporate Bond Fund.

The international network of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) on 19 November announced the appointment of Fiona Reynolds as managing director. In this newly-created position, Reynolds will be responsible for development of the organisation and its day-to-day activities. She will begin in the position in London in February 2013. Reynolds is currently CEO of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, an organisation which defends the interests of the Australian pension fund sector.

The second week of November saw investors digesting an unpleasant cocktail of European data, US budget skirmishes, Japanese politics and renewed violence in the Middle East. They responded by pulling over USD7 billion out of US Equity Funds and over USD1 billion from US High Yield Bond Funds while slowing the pace of their commitments to Emerging Markets Equity and Bond Funds. Overall, EPFR Global-tracked Bond Funds took in $5.29 billion during the week ending Nov. 14 while net redemptions from Equity Funds hit their highest level since the week preceding the US Federal Reserve’s announcement of QE3. Money Market Funds recorded outflows of USD7.06 billion and Balanced Funds, which invest in both debt and equities, saw USD1.12 billion taken out.

Franklin Templeton funds have increased their exposure to Irish bonds by more than one third, to EUR.84bn in third quarter, the Financial Times reports. The US asset management firm holds about one tenth of the total market in Irish government bonds. Most of these bonds are in the hands of funds controlled by Michael Hasenstab, co-director of the international bonds department at Franklin Templeton.

Several hedge fund managers will lose hundreds of millions of dollars if the merger of UPS and TNT Express falls through, the Financial Times reports. Merger arbitrage funds bought positions in TNT this year, anticipating gains at a time when the operation was about to be completed. But since then, the European Commission has surprised observers by raising objections.

The Basel Committee hopes to reach an agreement next month on liquidity ratios, including the highly controversial short-term Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), which will come into effect on 2015, and which would require banks to have sufficient asset levels to sell off to enable them survive a 30-day credit shortage. The chairman of the Basel Committee, Stefan Ingves, made statements on the subject in a speech given on Thursday. “Due to the implications and potential costs of not revealing liquidity levels and risk management requirements for banks, we would not be fully exercising our responsibilities if we did not make an effort to finalise these proposals in the near future,” Ingves says. The chairman of the Swedish central bank, Ingves sought to respond to criticisms, citing the example of Sweden, where the liquidity ratio appears to have been accepted by parties, and does not appear to have disrupted the operation of the inter-bank market, as some were concerned would be the case.

The International Organization of Securities Organizations (IOSCO) published on 16 November a final report on global developments in securitisation regulations (Global Developments in Securitisation Regulation), which proposes a series of recommendations aimed at ensuring securitisation markets develop, but «on a sound and sustainable basis». The efforts of IOSCO come in response to a request by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which would like to assemble a more precise analysis of certain aspects of securitisation, including risk retention, transparency, and standardisation. The FSB itself is in the process of reviewing reforms of securitisation markets, as part of its ongoing work for the G20 on the shadow banking sector. In a conference organized by the French regulator AMF on 15 November in Paris, the chairman of BNP Paribas, Baudouin Prot, cited the creation now underway of a PCS securitisation label, which would facilitate restarting the European market on a healthy basis. “Securitisations are dead in Europe, although this market is prospering in the United States, the country where all the trouble started,” Prot says, adding that it is important for French banks to bring this market back to life, with a highly demanding label which would introduce guarantees and eligibility conditions, which would make it possible to exclude speculative products in favour of vehicles which aim to help the real economy.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) on 18 November published a series of recommendations which will be subject to consultation, which aim to strengthen surveillance and regulation of shadow banking activities. Regulators concentrated on five major areas: interactions of banks with the shadow banking system, money market funds, other entities which have banking activities in unregulated environments, securitisation, securities lending, and pensions. All of these subjects are treated in multiple consultation documents, while a general presenttation lays out the philosophy of the FSB in relation to shadow banking, as well as recommendations overall, while a specific report deals with all entities other than money market funds, and another deal with securities lending and pensions. All of these texts are subject to consultation until 14 January 2013, and the Basel Committee may propose recommendations on the interaction of banks with the shadow banking system until mid-2013. The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has already produced recommendations for money market funds and securitisations just before the weekend (see elsewhere in Newsmanagers). The FSB, which will continue to monitor the efforts of the various working groups, is planning to publish its final recommendations in September 2013.

The international network of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has published an updated list of signatories to the Principles. As of 9 November 2012, the network had 254 new signatories since 12 September 2011, bringing the total number of signatories to over 1,100, from 50 countries, representing assets under management of over USD32trn. In the same period, 61 signatories were removed from the list for various reasons (voluntarily, failure to pay contributions, or failure to participate in the annual evaluation).

The Dow Jones Credit Suisse hedge fun index finished the month of October down 0.18%, as six out of the 13 strategies of the index posted negative returns. Managed futures strategies fell by 4.64%, after a decline of 1.37% in September.

Since the beginning of this year, the Paris office of JP Morgan Asset Management has posted net subscriptions of about USD1bn, bringing its assets to about USD5.2bn as of the end of October.One third of inflows went to equities, including emerging markets, while two thirds went to bods, largely emerging markets, credit and investment grade, and flexible products, as well as to a fund from the affiliate Highbridge.In a presentation in Paris by Pierre-Yves Bareau, director of the emerging markets debt unit of JPMAM, Bareau stated that assets for his team now include USD29bn, due to net subscriptions of USD9bn, while emerging market debt represents USD3.1bn, of which about USD2bn are from net inflows. The team includes 32 people at several locations worldwide, including 9 corporate bond specialists.

The French financial management association (AFG) has seven new members, according to the most recent edition of Info Gestion (November 2012, No. 6). They are Aureo Alpha, BNP Paribas Private Equity, Cedrus Asset Management, Energies Asset Management, GTI Asset Management, Notus Capital and Prevaal Finance. Henderson Global Investors Limited is also joining the professional association as a corresponding member.

To replace Dimitri Boismare, manager of the Groupama FP Flexible Allocation fund, who left the business in October, Groupama Asset Management has recruited Julien Moutier, a fund-picker and head of multi-management funds at FundQuest (BNP Paribas group), who will be joining the firm on 3 December, Citywire Global reports. The site also reports the recent departure of the FundQuest CIO for Europe, Christophe Belhomme.

The US asset management firm Morgan Creek Capital Management is scaling up its presence in Asia with the recruitment of Anand Prasanna as director, in charge of the global investment team. He will begin in his new role next month, and will be based in Shanghai, where Morgan Creek now has 8 investment professional employees. Prasanna, who had previously worked at the private equity investor Squadron Capital, based in Hong Kong, will concentrate on the Indian market. Assets under management at Morgan Creek total about USD7bn.

Ranjan Tandon, founder of the hedge fund management firm Libra Advisors, has announced in a letter to investors that the hedge fund will return USD2bn to them by the end of the year, and then to convert into a family office, the Wall Street Journal reports. The fund shows returns of 26% after fees since its inception in 1990, but lost money in 2011, and saw a 15% fall in the first ten months of this year.

Gilles Guérin discusses the positioning of Theam, the firm he has been leading since its creation within BNP Paribas IP, with Newsmanagers. Of the various types of expertise it offers, guaranteed products are suffering due to the current low interest rates, and are showing outflows, but flows to systematic active management, and absolute return products, are showing double-digit growth. Index-based management may extend its range of innovative ETFs. THEAM is maintaining its objectives, and plans to strengthen its presence serving institutional investors in particular.

Funds People reports that Bankia has decided to absorb its private banking affiliate, Bankia Banca Privada, which has assets of EUR7bn. The new division will be led by Jaime González Lasso de Vega, who takes up the position left acant by Gustavo Rivero, who has left the business. De Vega had previously been director of the bank’s international corporate banking arm.Bankia Banca Privada earned pre-tax profits in January-September of EUR14.7m.

Aktua, the credit portfolio management and debt collection affiliate of Banesto, has been acquired for about EUR100m by the “vulture” fund Centerbridge, Cotizalia reports, citing financial sector sources.

Dans un article consacré aux Sicav, le véhicule préféré des grandes fortunes espagnoles, Cinco Días souligne que Terranova, celle de la famille March, se distingue parce qu’elle permet à des particuliers externes à la famille de souscrire, avec un plancher de 10 euros.Terranova affiche un encours de 430 millions d’euros et une performance de 5,4 % depuis le début de l’année. Elle n’a perdu qu’une seule fois de l’argent depuis 2002, en 2008, avec une perte de 5,4 %. Sur les dix dernières années, sa performance annuelle moyenne a dépassé les 4 %, avec une volatilité très faible.

Following the departure of more than 10 people from the emerging markets team, the CEO for Asia at Principal Global Investors, Andrea Muller, stated that the firm has an integrated approach which will allow it to continue its activities without excessive disruption, Asian Investor reports. “We have an in-house global research platform, which is at the centre of our stock-picking process, and which allows us to continue working even after all these departures. We have more than 60 equity professionals employed worldwide, and we are entirely capable of covering emerging markets,” says Muller. Muller states that of the two emerging market directors who left the firm, only one will be replaced: the head of the Singapore office, Michael Ade. She also confirms that teams in Hong Kong and China will be strengthened in 2013. As of the end of September, assets under management at Principal totalled USD276bn, of which USD5.6bn come from Asia, USD5.6bn from Australia and New Zealand, and USD4.4bn from Japan.