BNP Paribas Securities Services has announced that it has been awarded a mandate by the Chinese asset management firm Harvest Global Investments, which manages USD37bn in assets. BNPSS has been selected to provide custody and fund administration services, and forex services for a fund which invests in Mongolia.

GAM Group AG (GAM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAM Holding AG, announced on 28 February that it will soon be acquiring Arkos Capital SA, a Swiss independent wealth management firm, whose assets under management total CHF664m. The transaction will be completed by the end of second quarter 2012, pending approval from regulatory authorities. All key employees will be retained, including fund managers. They will continue to be based in Lugano, Switzerland. By the terms of the agreement, GAM will acquire 74.95% of share capital, once approval from the relevant regulatory authorities has been obtained, likely by the end of second quarter 2012. The remaining 25.05% stake, currently held by the management of Arkos, will be acquired via payments in various forms, depending on the future development of activities. The acquisition will have the effect of increasing profits at GAM from day one.

Net inflows to bond funds in the month of January totalled GBP671m, their highest level since October 2010 and far above the monthly average of GBP376m in the past twelve months, according to statistics from the British Investment Management Association (IMA). Corporate bond funds in particular attracted GBP303m, their highest level since August 2010, and well above the monthly average of GBP17m. Diversified funds also did well, with monthly net inflows of GBP135m. Equity funds also ended four consecutive months of net redemptions, with net inflows of GBP63m. Overall retail inflows totalled GBP998m in January, their highest level since August 2010. This amount is, however, far lower than the monthly average of GBP1.6bn over the past twelve months. Assets under management as of the end of January totalled GBP589.5bn, up 2% compared with January 2011.

Jupiter Asset Management is planning to launch an offshore version of the Jupiter Strategic Bond fund, managed by Ariel Bezalel (GBP695m) in second half of the year, Money Marketing reports. The product will be included in the Jupiter Global Funds Sicav, based in Luxembourg.

Schroders is going to launch on 7 March the Schroder ISF European Total Return, a European equity product that aims to offer investors access to long-term capital growth while using derivatives and other instruments to lower the targeted volatility of those returns. The fund, which is launching on 7 March, will be managed by Nicholette MacDonald-Brown, Senior Portfolio Manager on the European Equities team. She joined Schroders on August 2011 from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. She will seek to achieve returns through fundamental stock selection (40 to 60 stocks) but with lower volatility by adjusting the fund’s exposure to the market through the tactical use of cash, futures and derivatives.

The index provider S&P Indices on 27 February announced the launch of two new indices, the S&P UK High Yield Dividend Aristocrats and the S&P Euro High Yield Dividend Aristocrats, which measure the performance of companies of the S&P Europe Broad Market high yield index in the United Kingdom and the euro zone. A statement says that businesses must have paid rising or stable dividends over a period of at least 10 years in order to be included in the indices. S&P has previously launched an index of this type based on the S&P 1500. State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) will offer SPDR ETFs based on these indices.

In the week ending on 22 February, equity funds underwent a net outflow of USD5.9bn, according to statistics from EPFR Global. Emerging market equity funds posted their lowest inflows in eight weeks, while US equity funds finished the period under review with outflows of nearly USD6bn, as investors took the occasion of a Dow Jones flirting with the 13,000 point threshold to take their profits. Investors turned to equity funds dedicated to frontier markets, however, which showed their highest inflows since July 2011. Bond funds have posted inflows of over USD5bn for the fifth consecutive week, while cumulative inflows since the beginning of the year totalled USD50.9bn. High-risk bond asset classes were favoured by investors, with net inflows of USD1.3bn for high yield bond funds, and USD701m for emerging market bond funds. Uncertainty about Greek debt weighed down European bond funds, which despite this, show net inflows of USD1.6bn since the beginning of the year. Money market funds attracted a net total of USD4.82bn, which brings outflows since the beginning of the year under the USD60bn level.

According to 400 investors surveyed in December 2011 by Deutsche Bank (who collectively have USD1.35trn in assets in hedge funds) for the 10th annual Alternative Investment Survey, hedge funds this year can expect net subscriptions of USD140bn, which would bring their assets at the end of 2012 to USD2.26trn.This growth is being driven by institutional investors, who currently represent about two thirds of assets in hedge funds, compared with less than 20% in 2003.Investors surveyed estimate that consolidation will continue, and that large funds which generate good results will grow further. About 44% of investors surveyed have already invested with managers that have over USD1bn in assets, compared with 25% in 2009, and nearly one third of respondents are planning to place further assets with managers that have over USD1bn in assets under management.Performance has remained the critical determining factor for selection of managers over the past ten years, and 80% of investors surveyed rank performance among the top five factors this year.

Peter Gabriele has been appointed as chief investment officer for private clients at J.P. Morgan in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Agefi Switzerland reports. He will report to James Walker, International Head of Investments and Capital Advisory for the group’s management bank. Gabriele has 25 years of experience at J.P. Morgan, in the investment bank and private management. He was previous based in Chicago, where he was chief investment officer for the south central United States.

According to the most recent edition of the Observatorio Inverco, five out of ten Spanish asset management firms are expecting net subscriptions of less than EUR5bn for the profession in 2012, while three out of ten are hoping for net inflows of more than EUR5bn, Funds People reports.The survey took in asset management firms representing about 80% of total assets in Spanish funds.Meanwhile, 85% of asset management firms surveyed are planning to launch new products, and 78% are expecting the UCITS IV directive to have a positive effect or no effect on the Spanish fund sector.

In a 60-second spot on YouTube, Michael Douglas, who played Gordon Gekko in the two Wall Street films, calls on anyone who has information about insider trading to contact their nearest FBI office, Handelsblatt reports.

KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory firm, has named John Budzyna and Maurice Holmes to key posts in its alternative funds team.Budzyna has been named KPMG’s national leader, market development for alternative investments. Holmes has been named managing director, market development for alternative investments. Budzyna served most recently as CEO of Cutting Hedge Consulting Co. LLC, an advisory firm to the hedge fund industry, and also serves as the chairman of the board of Hedge Funds Care, one of the charitable organizations supported by the hedge fund community. Holmes most recently served as a director in the Credit Suisse Investment Banking Division, where he oversaw prime services sales for emerging markets, and served as global leader of its hedge fund consulting services.

The US banking group Wells Fargo has agreed to sell off its majority stake in the alternative management firm Overland Advisors, the news agency Bloomberg reports.Wells Fargo’s stake will be sold to a new firm controlled by Gordy Holterman, the CEO of Overland, and Derek Dunn, its chief investment officer. The San Francisco-based bank will retain a minority stake in the firm.Wells Fargo created Overland in January 2010, to put in place a dedicated independent entity for proprietary activities on behalf of the bank, which at the time represented assets of about USD4.3bn.Assets under management at Overland Advisors currently total about USD2.2bn, of which a total of USD1.6bn are from Wells Fargo.

The asset management unit of Wells Fargo & Co has sold a majority stake in the hedge fund manager Overland Advisors LLC (USD2.2bn in assets) to a new firm, which will be controlled by Gordy Holterman, CEO of Overland Advisors, and Derek Dunn, CIO of the firm, Bloomberg reports.The terms of the sale have not been disclosed. Wells Fargo will retain a minority stake in Overland, which it founded in January 2010 and in which it has invested USD1.6bn.

The CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, has told the Financial Times that his group is planning to develop its wealth management activities through acquisitions or purchases of assets from European banks which are trimming back their activities. Stumpf says that he has looked at the asset management activities of Deutsche Bank, which in November last year announced that it had begun exploring all strategic options for its asset management activities, including the activities of DWS in the United States. Among the other candidates rumoured to be interested are Ameriprise, Guggenheim Partners, Macquarie, Power Financial and State Street.

The Californian pension fund CalPERS on 27 February announced that it has created a standard reporting structure for its private equity activities, inspired by the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), for all general partners of the fund. The new format will allow private equity activities undertaken within CalPERS Alternative Investment Management (AIM) to better account for risk management, transparency and good governance, CalPERS says in a statement. All general partners and fund of fund managers will be required to apply the new rules by 1 March 2012. As of 30 June 2011, CalPERS’ engagements in private equity totalled USD49.5bn.

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Europanel Research and Alternative Asset Management’s (ERAAM) Asset Manager Rating at ‘M2-' for its fund of hedge funds (FoHF) investment activities and withdrawn the ratings.Fitch has withdrawn the rating as ERAAM has chosen to stop participating in the rating process.

David Chaves, head of one of the two teams in charge of tracking down white-collar criminals implicated in insider trading cases in New York, on Monday announced that his agency was investigating 240 people, 120 of whom are serious “targets,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Since 2009, the prosecutor’s office has filed insider trading charges against 66 employees of hedge funds and other firms, and has achieved gconvictions or guilty pleas from 57 of them.

David Becker, the former general counsel at the SEC, who resigned in February 2011, has agreed to pay USD550,000 to settle lawsuits filed against him by Irving Picard, the Wall Street Journal reports. The court-appointed trustee for the business interests of Bernard Madoff had claimed that Becker and his brother inherited USD2m in illicit profits from Madoff’s activities from their mother.

The European finance and asset management association (EFAMA), which in early December had already entered the fray to speak out against the introduction of a tax on financial transactions (see Newsmanagers of 1 December 2012), has decided to step up its activism with the publication on 27 February of concrete estimates of the impact of the tax. If the tax on financial transactions proposed by the European Commission had been applied from 1 January 2011, it would have brought in EUR15bn on subscriptions and redemptions from UCITS funds. On the basis of a turnover rate of 0.9 percent for long-term UCITS funds and 6.5% for money market funds, the financial transaction tax within portfolios would have brought in EUR23bn. On the basis of EFAMA’s central scenario, the total impact of the tax on financial transactions would have come to EUR38bn. In the event of a lower turnover rate, that amount could fall as low as EUR38bn, but might be as high as EUR45bn with a higher turnover rate. EFAMA concluded from these estimates that the potential impact of the tax would be much higher than the European Commission supposes. Taking into account the impact of the tax on the value of derivative transactions, the impact of the tax would be even higher. The competitive advantage of UCITS funds would be considerably reduced by the new tax, which would also sound the death knell for money market funds. The tax would also reduce the attractiveness of savings in equities, bonds and diversified funds, and would thus bite into a major long-term source of financing for the European economy. The professional association therefore invites the European Commission to revise its proposals in the light of its initial objectives.

The Dutch minister of social affairs, Henk Kamp, claims in a bill proposed to parliament that pension funds need to be able to set up boards of trustees composed exclusively of external professionals, the website IPE reports. However, every board of experts would be required to be approved by employers, employees and beneficiaries of the pension programme. Another model would have boards including social partners on the one hand, and beneficiaries of pension funds on the other, with the latter not allowed to occupy more than one quarter of the seats on the board.

BlackRock is seeking a new head for iShares in Asia-Pacific, after appointing Nick Good, who had previously served in this role, to the newly-created position of head of strategy and development for the region, Asian Investor reports.

The Retail Banking and Wealth Management unit of the HSBC group, which includes Global Asset Management activities, last year earned pre-tax profits of USD4.3bn, up 11% year on year. The Global Private Banking unit, for its part, earned pre-tax profits of USD944m, compared with USD1.05bn in 2010. The group overall earned pre-tax profits of USD21.9bn, up 15% compared with 2010. The group says in a statement that in Wealth Management, modest progress has been made towards the mid-term objective of a further USD4bn in growth in revenues, with an increase last year of USD300m. Revenues from Global Asset Management have remained virtually unchanged, due to difficult market conditions, particularly in second half.

The HSBC group announced at a presentation of its annual results that two new members have joined its board of directors, Joachim Faber and John Lipsky, who replace two outgoing members, Sir Brian Williamson and Gwyn Morgan. Faber resigned in late 2011 from the board at Allianz, where he had most recently been CEO of Allianz Global Investors. Lipsky is a widely known and respected economist, who recently, in November 2011, left his position as first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Assets in cross-border funds have risen 182% in real terms between December 2001 and December 2011, to EUR2.25trn, doubling their market share to 43%, according to statistics from Lipper cited by Financial Times Fund Management. However, combined assets in domestic funds in Europe have risen by only 2.5% in real terms, to EUR2.98trn, and fell in the second part of the decade in some countries including France, Italy and Spain.

China’s CITIC bank has recently launched a fund portfolio selection platform entitled Fund Portfolio N Plan in cooperation with Morningstar.According to Z-Ben Advisors, the online platform aims to provide retail investors with mutual fund portfolios that each offer exposure to four or five different products.The bank will offer portfolios for various risk profiles.

BBVA Asset Management has launched the BBVA Bonos España Largo Plazo, whose benchmark index is the BoA-ML 3-5y Spain Government Bond Index, a fund of bonds issued or guaranteed by the Kingdom of Spain, and by autonomous communities, Expansión reports. The securities will be rated at least A-, but the portfolio, whose average duration will be 2 to 5 years, will include up to 15% securities rated BBB-/BBB+.Management commission is 0.75%, and minimal subscription is set at EUR35,000.

Oddo Asset Management has licensed two more sub-funds for sale in Italy: Oddo Convertibles Taux and Oddo Proactif Europe, Bluerating reports. The funds will be available to retail clients. Oddo Valeur Rendement, meanwhile, has been licensed for sale to Italian institutional investors. Nine months after the launch of its activities in Italy, Oddo AM has 11 funds in the country, says Jurgen Mahler, head of Oddo AM for Italy.

Pioneer Investments is planning to enter Korea and to build a dedicated sales team in Singapore to target the institutional market place in Asia, the CEO of the firm, Roger Yates, announced in London at a presentation of a five-year business plan for the asset management firm of the UniCredit group. Developing in Asia is one of the major areas for development at Pioneer, which has also recruited a former employee of Janus Capital, Jack Lin, as its head for Asia and the Middle East. The UniCredit affiliate, which manages a total of EUR162bn in assets as of the end of December, is also hoping to accelerate its growth in Taiwan, where it posted net subscriptions in 2011 of more than EUR700m. Pioneer is also planning to increase its presence in the United States, a market in which it has long been present, particularly serving institutional and retail channels. In Europe, the asset management firm is planning to set up management capabilities in Germany, where the firm manages EUR19bn, and is planning to launch a Sicav in the United Kingdom, in order to support activities dedicated to private banks. In terms of investments, in addition to the creation of an emerging market management platform in London, which has already been unveiled, Pioneer Investments is planning to construct a high dividend centre in Dublin. In the United States, the firm is recruiting professionals in parallel for bonds and US equities, and is planning to develop international equities, an asset class which is popular in North America. Pioneer has also announced that it has overhauled its pay scales in order to “promote our performance-oriented culture,” according to a statement. A long-term incentive plan for “key personnel” will be launched as a part of this initiative. The objective for the five-year plan is to “accelerate organic growth,” Pioneer says. This follows several months of uncertainty at the firm, which has undergone a strategic review which considered several options, including a sale of the firm. This phase was completed in April last year, when UniCredit decided that the asset management firm would concentrate on organic growth.

Kepler Capital Markets is now offering the KCM Fund - RiskProtect III Plus fund (LU0702030577), a Luxembourg-registered product administered by Alceda Fund Management, to retail investors, who will thus have access to an absolute return fund that aims for total returns of 3.5% to 5%, and a distribution of 5%. The fund is a version of the bond fund KCM Riskprotect III, launched in 2009, for which exposure to options on European, Asian and American equity indices is raised to 150% from 100%, and which thus relies on leverage. Between January 2009 and December 2011, the strategy is said to have generated annual returns of 11.71%, with volatility of only 4.78%. The base price for sell options (puts) has been maintained at a level 15% below the initial price, so that the fund undergoes no losses even if the price falls 15% over four weeks during the duration of the option.