La performance des caisses de pension suisses s’est raffermie au premier semestre 2012, a annoncé le 22 août l’Association suisse des institutions de prévoyance (ASIP). Le rendement médian de l’ensemble du portefeuille est de +3,6% pour les douze derniers mois et de +3,5% pour la première moitié de l’année 2012, et ce, malgré les grandes incertitudes qu’ont connues les marchés durant cette période, selon la comparaison de performance semestrielle réalisée par la société de conseil Towers Watson pour le compte de l’ASIP (1).Contrairement à 2011, ce sont les actions, et non les obligations, qui ont atteint les plus hauts rendements au premier semestre 2012. Les actions d’Amérique du Nord viennent en tête avec une hausse de 9,7% devant les actions étrangères en général avec 5,8% et celles des marchés émergents avec 5,6%. Les obligations en euros et en devises suivent avec 3,2% et 2,1%. En revanche, les placements en matières premières ont subi une baisse de 4%. «Le fléchissement de la croissance économique et financière a pu être quelque peu amorti grâce au marché des actions», souligne l’association. Les actions suisses ont représenté en moyenne environ 10% des placements au premier semestre 2012 et les actions étrangères environ 21%. A la fin du premier semestre 2012, la part des actions dans l’allocation était en moyenne d’environ 30% et celle des obligations d’environ 45%. (1) Avec un encours d’environ d’environ 180 milliards de francs suisses, 59 caisses de pension participantes et plus de 850 portefeuilles pris en compte, la comparaison de performance proposée par l’ASIP est la plus importante comparaison de performance indépendante de ce genre en Suisse.
Dans le sillage du rachat des activités internationales de gestion de fortune de Merrill Lynch, la banque privée suisse Julius Baer envisage de supprimer des emplois dans les fonctions support, entre autres à Hong Kong et Singapour où tant Merrill Lynch que Julius Baer disposent d’effectifs importants dans ce domaine, rapporte le Handelszeitung.En revanche, Julius Baer a réservé une enveloppe de de plus de 90 millions de francs suisses pour fidéliser les bons conseillers clientèle de Merrill Lynch.Sur un effectif total de 2.243 collaborateurs, Merrill Lynch dispose de 528 conseillers clientèle et de 1.715 employés au back office.
Le gestionnaire chinois de fonds d’investissement Citic Capital Holdings (4,4 milliards de dollars d’encours) a annoncé que le fonds souverain Qatar Holding (filiale de la Qatar Investment Authority) a acquis pour un montant non divulgué une participation de 22,22 % dans son capital, rapporte The Wall Street Journal.A l’issue de l’augmentation de capital qui a permis la création des actions correspondantes, Citic Pacific Ltd et Citic International Financial Holdings, deux filiales de Citic Group, détiennent 42,78 % de Citic Capital tandis que le fonds souverain China Investment Corp (CIC) en contrôle 31,11 %.
Le Groupe Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild (Groupe BPER) continue d’attirer de nouveaux clients. Durant le premier semestre 2012, la collecte nette s’est élevée à 3,9 milliards de francs suisses. Les actifs sous gestion s’inscrivaient au 30 juin à 96,2 milliards de francs suisses, soit une hausse de 5,2% par rapport à fin 2011. Cette progression résulte de la collecte nette auprès de la clientèle privée mais également des effets de change et de marché.
Silk Road Management, la société de gestion de la banque mongole Silk Road Finance, vient de lancer un fonds centré sur la Birmanie, la Mongolie et le Mozambique appelé Silk Road M3 Fund.Le fonds sera investi sur des entreprises cotées du monde entier ayant des actifs et des activités dans ces trois pays, ainsi que dans des instruments obligataires à haut rendement et des instruments de devises locales.Pour Silk Road, la Birmanie, la Mongolie et le Mozambique (les 3 M en anglais), ont plusieurs points communs. D’abord, ils bénéficient d’importantes ressources naturelles, qui sont largement inexploitées. Ensuite, ce sont tous trois d’anciens pays communistes qui ont de par leur géographie et leur économie des liens étroits avec les pays BRICS (Brésil, Russie, Inde, Chine et Afrique du Sud). Compte tenu de ces éléments, Silk Road estime que «la Mongolie, la Birmanie et le Mozambique figureront parmi les cinq économies qui auront la croissance la plus rapide au cours des dix prochaines années». La société de gestion anticipe une croissance du PIB de 15 % par an pour la Mongolie, et de 12 % et 10 % respectivement pour la Birmanie et le Mozambique.
Prenant pour modèle son fonds américain Aberdeen Global Small Cap (52 millions de dollars), le gérant britannique Aberdeen Asset Management a lancé un fonds mondial de petites entreprises géré par son équipe d’Edimbourg et domicilié au Luxembourg, le Aberdeen Global – World Smaller Companies Fund. La commission de gestion sera de 1 % pour les parts institutionnelles et de 1,5 % pour les parts retail.Le portefeuille géré par l'équipe d’actions mondiales Stephen Docherty (14 personnes, 21 milliards de livres d’encours) comportera entre 40 et 60 lignes, des valeurs d’une capitalisation égale ou inférieure à 5 milliards de dollars.Aberdeen gère également deux autres fonds régionaux de petites capitalisations, le UK Smaller Companies (140 millions de livres) et le Global Japanese Smaller Companies (79 millions de livres.
La société d’investissement londonienne CF Partners, spécialisée dans le domaine des ressources renouvelables, envisage de lancer un hedge fund dédié aux matières premières d’ici à la fin de l’année, rapporte le site Hedgefund.net.CF Partners travaille également au lancement d’un hedge fund dédié à l'énergie dans le courant du quatrième trimestre 2012.
The Norwegian asset management firm Delphi Fondene has changed the names of three equity funds in order to facilitate their sales abroad. From 23 August, Delphi Verden becomes Delphi Global, Delphi Europa becomes Delphi Europe, and Delphi Norden becomes known as Delphi Nordic. The investment strategies remain unchanged. A press release explains that these changes make the funds more comprehensible to international investors; the firm has recently received sales licenses for these funds in Finland and the Netherlands. It had previously been aimed only at investors in Norway and Sweden.
The London-based investment firm CF Partners, specialised in renewable resources, is planning to launch a hedge fund dedicated to commodities by the end of the year, the website Hedgefund.net reports. CF Partners is also working on the launch of a hedge fund dedicated to energy in fourth quarter 2012.
Skandia Investment Group, the asset management affiliate of the British firm Old Mutual, is planning to extend its product range in Asia, and at the same time to move a part of its capacity to the region, Asian Investor reports. SIG, which is in the process of merging with Old Mutual Asset Managers UK, will also be gits name, says Jane Fung, managing director for Asia.
The London-based affiliate of Wells Fargo, ECM, has launched a fund aimed at institutional investors, focused on senior secured loans and senior secured bonds, issued by European businesses, entitled ECM Senior Secured Fund, a Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) registered in Luxembourg.The performance objective is 600-800 basis points above Euribor. The average ratings of positions in the portfolio is BB- to B-, while the floor is set at B.Minimal subscription is set at EUR5m, and management commission is 0.60%.
With the addition to trading of five Luxembourg-registered ETFS from db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic platform as of 22 August lists over 1,000 ETF funds, with a precise number of 1,004, Deutsche Börse has announced. By comparison, the European markets of NYSE Euronext as of the end of July included 687 ETFs, and assets in these products exceed EUR170bn.Among the new funds listed in Frankfurt are an ETF with shares hedged for currency risks in euros, replicating the MSCI Japan TRN index (a non-hedged version has existed since 2007, and has assets of EUR460.5m), and four funds replicating MSCI Country indices for Asian countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines and Singapore).CharacteristicsName: db x-trackers MSCI Philippines IM TRN Index ETFISIN code: LU0592215403TER: 0.65%Name: db x-trackers MSCI Singapore IM TRN Index ETFISIN code: LU0659578842TER: 0.50%Name: db x-trackers MSCI Pakistan IM TRN Index ETF ISIN code: LU0659579147TER: 0.85%Name: db x-trackers MSCI Bangladesh IM TRN Index ETFISIN code: LU0659579220TFE : 0,85 %Name: db x-trackers MSCI Japan TRN Index ETF (EUR Hedged)ISIN code : LU0659580079TER: 0.60%
Silk Road Management, an investment management subsidiary of Silk Road Finance, an investment bank operating in Mongolia, is launching Silk Road M3 Fund, an investment fund to be focused on Myanmar, Mongolia and Mozambique. The fund will primarily invest in equities of internationally listed companies with assets and operations in these three countries as well as high yield fixed income and local currency instruments. Silk Road Management has developed M3 investment theme on the basis of the following factors: M3 countries have massive, largely untapped natural resources. They are all formerly socialist countries and they are both geographically and economically strongly linked with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Based on above factors, Silk Road estimates that Mongolia, Myanmar and Mozambique will be among world’s top five fastest growing economies in the next decade with Mongolia GDP growth at projected 15% p.a. while Myanmar and Mozambique expanding annually 12% and 10% respectively.
The British asset management firm Aberdeen Asset Management has launched a global small caps fund managed by its Edinburgh-based team and domiciled in Luxembourg, based on the model of its US fund Aberdeen Global Small Cap (USD52m), entitled Aberdeen Global – World Smaller Companies Fund. Management commission will be 1% for institutional shares, and 1.5% for retail shares.The portfolio managed by the global equity team led yb Stephen Docherty (14 members, GBP21bn in assets) will include 40 to 60 holdings, with cap sizes equal to or lower than USD5bn.Aberdeen also manages two other regional small cap funds, the UK Smaller Companies fund (GBP140m) and the Global Japanese Smaller Companies (GBP79m).
The Wall Street Journal reports that US authorities are continuing to focus their investigations on the founder and CEO of Peregrine, Russell Wasendorf Sr., even though he pleaded not guilty last week in a fraud scandal which resulted in the collapse of the firm in July this year.Wasendorf Jr., chairman of Peregrine and son of its founder, has been notified by prosecutors that he is not subject to a criminal investigation, and neither are Brenda Cuypers and Susan O’Meara, CFO and head of compliance, respectively.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 22 August announced that it is calling off plans to introduce rules to increase the security of money market funds, due to a failure to reach agreement internally over the question. “Three Commissioners, constituting a majority of the Commission, have informed me that they will not support a staff proposal to reform the structure of money market funds,” the chairman of the SEC, Mary Shapiro, says in a statement. The proposed measures, which had met with strong resistance from the profession, were intended to make funds more resistant to panic phenomena similar to those which occurred in 2008 during the financial crisis, which led to massive withdrawals of liquidity. While admitting her failure, the SEC chairman insists on the need not to give up on planned money market reforms. “The issue is too important to investors, to our economy and to taxpayers to put our head in the sand and wish it away,” Shapiro says, calling on legislators to this into account in deciding what steps should be taken to address this issue.
The performance of Swiss pension funds became stronger in first half 2012, the Swiss association of retirement planning associations (ASIP) reported on 22 August. Median returns for the portfolio overall are +3.6% for the first twelve months,and +3.5% for the first half of 2012, despite considerable uncertainty on the markets in this period, according to a semiannual comparison of performance by the consulting firm Towers Watson for ASIP. Unlike in 2011, equities, and not bonds, earned the highest returns in first half 2012. North American equities lead, with gains of 9.7%, followed by foreign equities in general, with 3.2% and 2.1%. However, investments in commodities have lost 4%. “A slowing of economic and financial growth may have somewhat eased due to the equity markets,” the association says. Swiss equities represent an average of about 10% of investments in first half 2012, while foreign equities represent about 21%. As of the end of first half 2012, the proportion of equities in asset allocations were an average of about 30%, while bonds accounted for about 45%.
BlackRock has secured the support of the Chinese sovereign fund China Investment Corporation (CIC) for its China Global Opportunities Fund, whose placement objective is about USD2bn. The Chinese fund is planning to invest up to USD500m, Z-Ben Advisors reports, relaying reports by Bloomberg.The China Global Opportunities Fund is managed by Lin Erfei, former chairman fo activities at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in China. The first wave of inflows is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The fund will invest in shares in Chinese companies which sell products or commodities on their domestic markets.The fund will help BlackRock to strengthen its presence in Asia, where it has previously been rather modestly represented.
In an environment in which asset management firms are having to confront toughening regulations and requirements to lighten their structures and increase transparency, KPMG has recruited five people for its alternative investment unit.The consulting and auditing firm has recruited Ted Carreiro (formerly of State Street Bank & Trust), Angela Yu (previously of the firm’s taxation unit) and Michael T. Richards (who joins from another “Big 4” company) as partners.Laura Thomson (formerly of Bain Capital) joins the firm as managing director, while Phillip W. DeSalvo becomes senior manager, after being responsible for M&A taxation questions at one of KPMG’s competitors.
Richard Pandevant, director of marketing at Oddo Asset Management from March 2011 to June 2012, has recently been recruited by Aberdeen Asset Management as marketing manager for France. Pandevant had been head of marketing and product specialist at Banque d’Orsay between August 1999 ad February 2011.The Paris office of the firm has also recruited Florent Pettenello, from Fidelity, as an institutional distribution specialist. He will report to Frédéric Lejeune, Co-Head France – Deputy CEO, Head of Business Development France – Monaco.Assets at the French offices of the Scottish asset management firm total about EUR5.8bn, of which EUR5bn are for French clients (EUR3.4gn for institutional clients via French funds, and EUR1.6bn for distribution via Luxembourg funds), while half of institutional assets are managed by a local team in France, and half by centralised teams of the group, largely in London.
Market valuations of high yield debt have become so extreme that Pimco has considerably reduced its exposure to this asset class in the past six weeks, the Financial Times reports. The asset management firm has reduced its allocation to high yield in its corporate bond portfolio from 12% to about 8%.
For the quarter ending on 31 July, Eaton Vance Investment Managers has announced net profits of USD50.2m, compared with USD52.9m in February-April, and USD68.1m in the corresponding period of last year, bringing net profits in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending on 31 October to USD150.35m, a decrease of 11% compared with the first three quarters of 2010-2011.In the quarter under review, the US asset management firm has seen net redemptions of USD1.4bn, largely due to outflows of USD3.8bn from large cap value mandates, which more than offset net subscriptions of USD2.4bn for other long-term strategies. In February-April 2012 and May-July 2011, Eaton Vance experienced net inflows of USD0.6bn and USD1.9bn, respectively.Assets as of 31 July totalled USD192.9bn, compared with USD197.5bn three months earlier, and USD199bn one year previously. Declines in the third quarter of the current fiscal year are due to net outflows of USD1.4bn, in addition to which there was a negative market effect of USD3.1bn.
In the wake of the acquisition of the international wealth management activities of Merrill Lynch, the Swiss private bank Julius Baer is planning to lay off staff in support functions, in locations including Hong Kong and Singapore, where Merrill Lynch and Julius Baer both have significant numbers of personnel in this area, Handelszeitung reports. However, Julius Baer has set aside an allocaton of over EUR90m to win over good advisers to Merrill Lynch clients. Out of total staff of 2,243, Merrill Lynch has 528 client advisers and 1,715 back office employees.
The Chinese investment fund management firm Citic Capital Holdings (USD4.4bn in assets) has announced that the sovereign fund Qatar Holding (an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority) has acquired a 22.22% stake in its capital, the Wall Street Journal repors.Following a capital increase which allowed for the creation of corresponding shares, Citic Pacific Ld and Citic International Financial Holdings, two affiliates of Citic Group, control 42.78% of Citic Capital, while the sovereign fund China Investment Corp (CIC) has a 31.11% stake.
The Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Group (BPER Group) is continuing to attract new clients. In first half 2012, net inflows totalled CHF3.9bn. Assets under management as of 30 June totalled CHF96.2bn, an increase of 5.2% compared with the end of 2011.
Urs Zeltner has been appointed vice chairman of the Wealth Management Europe unit at the UBS group, finews reports, citing an interna memo dated 9 August. Until December 2011, Zeltner had been head of international wealth management activities at UBS for Germany and Austria. He had resigned from his position following a reshuffle of onshore and offshore activities in Europe. His departure nonetheless came as a surprise at UBS, and his return is now equally controversial. Zeltner is the brother of Jürg Zeltner, a board memebr at the group and CEO of UBS Wealth Management. Some claim that Urs Zeltner’s return may be a case of nepotism.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is being targeted in an investigation by the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) and the department of Justice for potential violation of the US regime of sanctions against Iran, several concurrent sources report. The investigation was launched 18 months ago, after the bank voluntarily disclosed information to the US and British authorities. RBS has declined to comment as to whether or not the investigation has a basis in fact, but has announced at a presentation of its results for the half that it was evaluating its practices and procedures related to transactions in US dollars outside the United States. Last Saturday, the New York Times confirmed that the US legal authorities were investigatin Deutsche Bank and other global firms, which are claimed to have transferred billions of US dollars for Iran, Sudan, and other countries subject to sanctions.
The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on 22 August launched a consultation on the technological challenges to be confronted to achieve effective market surveillance («Technological Challenges to Effective Market Surveillance: Issues and Regulatory Tools»).The consultation document includes proposals to strengthen market surveillance capacities to improve use of collected data by market authorities for surveillance purposes. The consultation will remain open until 10 October.
Pending approval from the FSA, Liontrust is planning to release institutional shares in its CF Liontrust Macro Equity and CF Liontrust Macro UK Growth funds, managed by Stephen Bailet, Jan Luthman and Jamie Clark, on 8 October. The creation of the share classes comes in the wake of strong demand on the part of discretionary managers and IFAs. Annual management commission will be 0.75%. Liontrust has also initiated the process to repatriate the Capita CF Liontrust Macro Equity Income, CF Liontrust Macro UK Growth and CF Liontrust Macro UK High Alpha Funds as an authorised fund manager, which will result in the disappearance of the CF prefix from the names of these products. Meanwhile, administration of these three funds will be transferred from Capita to IFDS, pending approval of these changes by the regulator.